Financial Career
In 1990, during François Mitterrand’s second mandate, Jacques Attali gave up politics and left the Elysée Palace. He founded the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), in London, and became its first President. He had initiated the idea of this institution in June 1989, before the fall of the Berlin wall, in order to support the reconstruction of Eastern European countries. Jacques Attali thus founded the first institution dedicated to Eastern Europe. Under the leadership of its President, the EBRD promoted investments which aimed at protecting nuclear power plants, protecting the environment and, more generally, developing infrastructure and reinforcing private sector competitiveness.
In 1991, Jacques Attali invited Mikhail Gorbachev to the EBRD headquarters, in London, against the opinion of British Prime minister John Major. By doing so, he compelled the heads of State of the G7, who were attending a summit in this town, to receive the Soviet head of State. After a stormy phone call between Jacques Attali and John Major, the British press started to criticize the President of the EBRD and spread suspicions about the management of the institution. These suspicions were taken up by some French journalists. Jacques Attali explains his stance in a chapter of his book C’était François Mitterrand, entitled « Verbatim and the EBRD » : « the work in question had been done under the supervision of an international working group to which I did not belong. » Indeed, when Jacques Attali left, voluntarily, the EBRD, the board of governors gave him final discharge for the management of the institution.
In 1993, Jacques Attali won a libel suit ; he had been accused of having reproduced in his book Verbatim, without François Mitterrand’s authorization, secret archives and several sentences of the French head of State which were meant for another book. The Herald Tribune even published, on the front page, an article claiming (wrongly) that President Mitterrand had asked for the book to be withdrawn from selling. François Mitterrand confirmed in a long interview that he had asked Jacques Attali to write this book, and acknowledged that he had proofread it and had been given the possibility to make corrections.
In 1994, Jacques Attali founded Attali & Associates (A&A), which gathers all the competences in strategy consulting, corporate finance and venture capital to help companies develop on the long run with profitability.
In 1998, he founded PlaNet Finance, a non-profit organization which is active in more than 80 countries and provides funding, technical assistance and advisory services to 10,000 microfinance players and stakeholders.
In 2001, Jacques Attali was subject to investigations on the charges of « concealment of company assets which have been misused and influence peddling ». He was discharged on October, 27th 2009 by the magistrate’s court of Paris, « on the benefit of the doubt ».
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