France will lift its lockdown on 15th December as planned, however some restrictions will remain in place including an 8pm curfew on New Year’s Eve.
During an address to the nation on Thursday night, French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced that it was “impossible” to reach the 5,000 Covid cases a day before lifting lockdown, as originally planned.
So, people will be able to visit friends and family over the holidays – and go to second homes in Monaco’s case – within the week.
From Tuesday 15th December, lockdown will be lifted and a curfew from 8pm to 6am will come in to force. An attestation will be needed for all trips out of the home during curfew hours.
Cinemas, theatres and other cultural centres will stay closed until at least 7th January. Bars, restaurants and gyms will remain closed until at least 20th January, as planned.
The curfew will be lifted on 24th December, but not on 31st December, as had previously been suggested.
Working from home will still be recommended.
From racing the world’s fastest cars to selling the planet’s most expensive private airplanes, Thierry Boutsen has always been a man on a mission.
It is impossible to talk about Thierry Boutsen without first acknowledging his incredible racing career. He competed in 164 World Championship Grands Prix finishing 4th in 1988, winning three races, achieving 15 podiums and scoring 132 career points.
It is not something that he is eager to forget either. The Cannon Williams F1 car that the Belgian was driving when he won the Canadian Grand Prix in 1989 is proudly suspended on the wall of his office in Monaco.
But for the past 23 years, Thierry Boutsen’s acceleration has been in the air, not on a race track.
And while business took a nose dive during Covid, Thierry tells Monaco Life that things are gradually picking up in the aviation industry, with plenty of great deals to be had for buyers. Monaco Life: When did your passion for flying begin?
Thierry Boutsen: I honestly had no idea that private jets existed until I was 18-years-old. I had just finished school and had two months off before going to university to study mechanical engineering. A family friend was CEO at Abelag (a private jet operator) in Brussels and he invited me to work there as a mechanic in the aircraft maintenance department. I enjoyed every minute of it – discovering these extraordinary flying machines. I was even invited on board to do a post maintenance test flight.That is when I promised myself, should I one day have earned enough money, I would buy and fly my own plane. I had to wait 12 years for that. Since then, flying has been a passion, like driving race cars. When did your passion for flying turn into something more?
I had no intention of starting a company in the beginning. I was always flying my own plane from racing event to racing event, or marketing event to marketing event, for private or business purposes. Then I had a request in 1997 from a colleague of mine, former F1 driver Heinz Harald Frentzen, who wanted to buy the same plane I was using at the time but he didn’t know how to get it or how to complete the paper work etc. So, I said I would do it for him, and he ended up being my first customer. Immediately afterwards, I had a request from Keke Rosberg to buy a similar airplane for him; then I had to buy one for Mika Hakkinen, and then Michael Schumacher came to me and said he wanted to sell his Challenger. I did about 10 transactions, just in the racing world. I was doing the job as if it was for me – with a lot of passion, dedication and attention to detail. People loved it.
So, we decided to go further and explore Europe. My wife Daniela and I started Boutsen Aviation: she was in charge of the marketing and presentation and I was in charge of the commercial side.
At the end of 2000 we had our first employee, Dominique Trinquet – who is still with us today and is now president of the company. We have nine people working with us here in Monaco, and we have representatives in India, Russia, northern Europe, eastern Europe and Switzerland. Thierry Boutsen flying his aircraft before hanging up the pilot wings in 2013 How many planes have you sold since the company was founded in 1997?
We have sold 385 planes to date, and every time we make a sale, we celebrate it is a success for the whole team. Our team in aviation is like a racing team – everyone is working together to get the job done and using their capabilities to 100%, or sometimes even more. It will be a very important milestone when we get to 400, but it is due to the hard work of everybody of the company. Do you have a typical client profile at Boutsen Aviation?
There is no such thing as a typical client. However, I would say that 50% of the deals that we do are with brokers who have their own clients that want to buy an airplane. The other half are heads of state, international companies or private individuals. Can you tell us about the relationship you have built with the Princely Family as their official supplier of airplanes?
A few years after I started the company in Monaco, a contact at the Palace said to me that Prince Rainier would like to sell his plane and he asked if I was interested in cooperating with the sale. I of course said “yes, sure”. That was in the year 1999 and since then we have sold all of the airplanes that have been the property of the Principality. How often in a regular year do you normally fly?
I was flying my own plane until about 2013 but then the business developed and I just ran out of time. You see, to be able to fly a plane safely you need to spend a lot of time in a simulator for training. Being in the office from 8am to 8pm every day, there is not enough time left for this kind of stuff. Since then, I have only been flying friends’ airplanes, which I did a couple of weeks ago and I really enjoy it.
Before Covid, I spent 350 hours a year on a plane flying for business, around two to three times a week. What did it mean for you when lockdown hit Monaco in March 2020?
Our biggest markets are the United States, China and India, and the lockdowns in these countries started in December, so we lost our activity and customers from then on. Lockdown in Europe was just a consequence of that. When we went into confinement here in Monaco, we put all of our staff on temporary unemployment and we didn’t do any transactions between March and August. So, for us it was a complete shutdown businesswise. Dominique and I tried to keep ourselves busy so we didn’t disappear from the scene, but we were disadvantaged enormously compared to the US or other European countries which could continue working.
We lost a lot of time and opportunities between January and the end of July. Contracts that had been signed were cancelled because we could not deliver planes. We had two planes due to go to India for six months, and only one could finally leave because we couldn’t get the other plane into the country.
But we have been fully active since August. We delivered two planes recently and we have another four ready to go before the end of the year, hopefully. We are catching up, which is a relief. Inside a Gulfstream G650 How many planes are currently on your listing and what type of aircraft are they?
We have 16 planes for sale on an exclusive basis. We sell all types of business jets, but
70% to 80% of our planes are transatlantic, like Challengers, Gulfstreams, Falcons… big planes that can travel from Nice to Los Angeles, for instance. We also sell biz-liners like the Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) and Airbus Corporate Jet (ACJ).
Covid may have stopped people from flying, but people are now buying planes because of Covid, as the prices have dropped dramatically. The majority of pre-owned planes have fallen in value by as much as 20% in the last three to four months. So, opportunist buyers are entering the market now compared to three months ago. How much money are we talking?
These planes used to sell for between 20 and 35 million. Today, it’s between 15 and 25 million for exactly the same airplane. This is because the inventory has increased. During lockdown, some people wanted to get rid of their planes because they had no need for them. A plane is expensive to buy and maintain, so if you have one that just sits in a hangar for six months, it’s not worth it. What are your clients looking for when buying an aircraft?
The best price, comfort, space, quietness, and range. They want to buy a plane that can get maintenance anywhere in the world; some people want to fly to small runways, others want to go to the big airports, but mostly they use the aircraft because of the flexibility and the confidentiality. Falcon 2000LX Have you noticed any changes in client or customer demand over the past 20 years?
Yes, business aviation has become more common. Most of the big listed companies have their own planes. And not only one – they have three or four. Volkswagen, Swiss watch, pharmaceutical companies… they all have their own planes because they want to be flexible and well organised. So, when we are doing deals with these companies, we mainly speak with their flight department manager or director, who is there to advise companies on what to buy and when to sell. We are talking with professionals much more than 15 years ago. You are an incredibly entrepreneurial spirit, so what is next for Thierry Boutsen?
Boutsen Aviation has been growing and developing, and we have taken quite a good position in the world market. But today we have absolutely no visibility into the future, so our priority is to work to maintain the level where we are at, with the amount of planes that we sell each year, and the quality of work that we deliver.
As the world economy is in chaos, we just want to keep our heads above water.
I am also the Chairman of the Boutsen Group which includes Boutsen Design, run by my wife Daniela, to offer a bespoke and individual design and decoration service for business jets, superyachts and residences. I also run Boutsen Classic Cars, sourcing and selling high-end classic road and race cars for discerning collectors. Then we have the Boutsen Racing Team, and we compete all over the world.
So, personally, I am trying to maintain the four companies to be in good operating condition and be as profitable as possible.
Rokit Venturi Racing, the Monaco-based Formula E team, has been bought by a US investor group, with founder Gildo Pastor still retaining an interest and the team remaining headquartered in the Principality.
Monaco’s Rokit Formula E team, who has shown steady and consistent progress in six short seasons, is now headed up by an investor group led by Scott Swid and José Aznar Botella, who bring decades of global investment experience to the table.
The new ownership will still retain Team Principal Susie Wolff, who also adds managing partner to her title, and founder Gildo Pastor. But they have appointed a new deputy team principal, Jerome d’Ambrosio.
The team will remain Monaco-based and will continue to race under the Venturi name.
“Their investment experience will strengthen our capabilities and provide us with new perspectives and opportunities for the future,” said Wolff. “This move also demonstrates the positive role that the forthcoming cost cap has to play in the commercial viability and therefore appeal of the sport to investors and partners.”
Rokit Venturi got its first victory in season five, which “came much earlier than we honestly expected”, said Wolff, adding: “It’s easy to say season six was challenging but there were highlights, even if I feel as a group, we were capable of much more.”
According to the team principal, the new ownership provides a solid foundation for the long term that the team can build on. Outgoing driver Felipe Massa, Team Principal Susie Wolff, and driver Edoardo Mortara at the Mexico City E-prix in February 2020 (Photo by Sam Bloxham / LAT Images)
Wolff has been credited with much of Venturi’s success. It was on her watch that they won their first victory at Formula E’s 50th race in Hong Kong in 2019. This led to a partnership with telecom innovators Rokit and Mercedes Benz, who became the team’s powertrain supplier.
The team has one outright victory and six podium finishes as it enters its 7th season, as well as a hope that carbon neutral car racing is the way of the future.
The Venturi camp sees the injection of capital as a testament to the growing appeal of Formula E as well as its ability to be a money-maker. For Swid and Botella, it’s a chance to bring a fresh perspective to the team.
“Initially, we were looking at Formula 1 from an investment perspective – but understandably José is a big believer in the potential of Formula E and introduced me to Susie,” said Swid. “From our first meeting, I could see the unique business case the sport and the team present. Investing in Venturi, with its heritage as an original team guided by the visionary Gildo Pastor and competing in an exciting sport that promotes global sustainability and pioneering electric mobility is a great opportunity. Every forward-thinking corporate board in the world is cognisant of the importance of sustainability and is looking for ways to invest in its future.”
He added: “Formula E is in its intermediate stage, having successfully overcome the hurdles of its early period. With this strong foundation, it is a great time to invest when the championship is established and there is still so much growth to come.”
Top photo: Edoardo Mortara driving for Venturi during the Marrakesh E-prix at Circuit International Automobile Moulay El Hassan Marrakesh in February 2020 (Photo by Sam Bloxham / LAT Images)
The United Nations has accepted a resolution presented by Monaco to have sport recognised as a casualty of the Covid pandemic and the recommendation that members states should include sport in their recovery plans.
On 1st December during the General Assembly of the United Nations, Ambassador of Monaco to the UN Isabelle Picco presented the draft resolution entitled ‘Sport, a factor of sustainable development’.
It was adopted by consensus and co-sponsored by 95 Member States.
The resolution recognises the significant repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic on sport, in particular the postponement of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as its socio-economic impacts and consequences on physical and mental health.
The resolution also encourages member states to include sport and physical activity in their post-Covid-19 recovery plans and in their national sustainable development strategies.
This resolution echoes the Joint Declaration that was co-authored by Monaco and Qatar and signed by 118 Member States in June 2020.
The ambassador also spoke about the importance of unhindered access to sport, the acute need for solidarity in the current context, the central role played by sports associations, and
the contribution of digital technologies, using the digital application developed by Peace and Sport as an example.
The Stelios Philanthropic Foundation has donated €50,000 worth of vouchers to the Princess Grace Hospital staff.
The 2,000 workers at the Princess Grace Hospital in Monaco have received an early Christmas present in the form of gift vouchers handed out by the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation on Wednesday.
“A small thank you gift to those on the front line of this pandemic, with our best wishes for a merry Christmas and a happy new year,” said Stelios Haji-Ioannou in a note accompanying the gift.
Every staff member received a booklet with vouchers issued by the company Eden Red for €25. This end of year treat comes on the heels of a similar donation made by the foundation in May of this year.
Mr Haji-Ioannou is best known for being founder and part-owner of low-cost airline EasyJet and its off-shoots. The Greek-Cypriot entrepreneur set up his foundation to “support a diverse range of charitable activities, primarily in places where (the founder) has lived and worked – the UK, Greece, Cyprus and Monaco.”
Photo source: Stelios Foundation
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