Monaco's man with a plan takes his place centre stage
Prince Albert knows that the principality is an ancient, glittering asset but wants to turn it into a modern, eco-friendly brand — as he tells Freddie Sayers Last week Prince Albert II, ruler of the tiny Mediterranean state of Monaco since his father's death in 2005, came to London to unveil his vision for the principality. The playboy of the gossip columns was nowhere to be seen: on display at a press conference at the Ritz hotel was a softly spoken, Amherst-educated, 49-year-old man with a plan. Using words such as `turnover' rather than 'GDP', the Prince made it quite clear that the oldest luxury brand in Europe is under new ownership, and that its new CEO plans to develop it with all the skill and science of the private equity generation. 'Monaco,' he says, 'is open for business.'
Prince Albert's plan can be seen as a model five-point case study of a post-buyout company relaunch. Step one is perhaps best described as 'decontaminating the brand'. Acutely aware that Somerset Maugham's description of Monaco as 'a sunny place for shady people' has not been forgotten, the Prince is setting about transforming the principality's image. 'We've improved on a lot of aspects of financial regulation,' he says. 'We are not a place that tolerates illegal financial activities or money-laundering in any form. Actually we never have been, but some of these aspects just need to be profiled in a different way.'
The power of the Monaco brand is its glamour, and last week's press conference was perfectly executed to reinforce this core value. The Marie Antoinette suite at the Ritz was bedecked with 200 white and red roses (the colours of the Monaco flag), and the morning air was filled with hushed French voices and air-kisses, coiffed hairstyles and curly moustaches, expensive perfumes and the sound of flowing champagne. I almost genuflected at the supremely elegant consulgeneral, Evelyn Genta, and as even the press instinctively stood for the Prince's arrival, one girl from a major tabloid whispered that she felt strangely nervous. 'Give me a police press conference about a brutal murder, and I know what to do,' she murmured.
With the seductiveness of the brand thus gloriously restored, the second part of Prince Albert's plan appears to be to maximise Monaco's existing offering or, in the language of the business school, to 'go deeper in its existing verticals'. The combination of no income tax and Mediterranean sunshine has long inspired the rich to set up shop in Monaco, but Prince Albert sees new opportunities. With an average age of 45, Monaco's population is among the oldest in the world — young millionaires are wanted.
With its proximity to London, Prince Albert is making a play to attract more 'young affluent British families' to live and work in Monaco. With prime London property prices now more expensive than Monte Carlo, even without a UK crackdown on 'non-doms', this microstate is poised to accommodate quite a few more millionaires.
And so we get to step three in our case study — and the heart and soul of every modern business plan — expansion. Unless he were to ask his gendarmes to annex the city of Nice, Prince Albert might appear to be stuck with his single square mile of territory. But Monaco has territorial waters, see? The enterprising Prince has put out to competitive tender the construction of an island just outside the Fontvieille harbour, which will include new hotels, a university and a museum.
And that is just locally. Due to a revised treaty with France, Monaco is now permitted to have its own diplomatic core and so expand internationally. In September, Prince Albert was in Washington DC to open the new embassy there, and last week he opened the first international outpost in Britain — the Maison de Monaco on Upper Grosvenor Street — and signed a collateral agreement between the London and Monaco Chambers of Commerce. As demonstrated by Dubai, a small land mass is not a barrier to economic might: there is no reason, one day, why there should not be a Monaco-based private bank or a Casino de Monte Carlo in every wealthy city in the world.
The fourth step in the five-point plan is crucial to the success of steps one to three: raising the corporate profile of the firm. In order for Monaco to grow, it must be seen as a proper country, and its sovereign leader seen as a power-player first and a poloplayer second. This is why Prince Albert has been racking up meetings with world leaders throughout his two-year tenure as head of state. Not only Prince Charles and Prince Andrew, but Jacques Chirac, Boris Yeltsin, Nicolas Sarkozy, and most recently, the Siegfried & Roy of the International Political Circus, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. I asked the Prince what the point of all this was. 'We are a sovereign independent country,' he told me. 'We may be small in size but we are to be taken seriously, and be recognised by the international community. We will engage in the great debates of the time.'
And so to the fifth and final step in Prince Albert's relaunch of Monaco Inc and the sign of any truly modern, global corporation: his corporate social responsibility mission. Despite — or perhaps because of — the Monaco Grand Prix and the big boats and the consumer excess of his home state, Prince Albert is passionately devoted to the environmental cause. His first action as head of state was to sign Monaco up to the Kyoto protocol (which he describes as a 'moral imperative'), and soon afterwards he undertook an expedition to retrace his great-greatgrandfather's steps to the Lilliehook Glacier near the North Pole. The Monaco Yacht Show has been carbon-neutral since he took office, and he is considering a congestion charge scheme for the city of Monte Carlo.
For a final flourish, the Prince has launched the Prince Albert II Foundation — funded by contributions both from his personal fortune and the government of Monaco — dedicated to protecting the environment and encouraging sustainable development. It reflects the global scope of his ambition: with directors from 15 different countries (including John Gummer and the Crown Prince of Qatar), it funds projects as diverse as village hydraulics in Burkina Faso and the reintroduction of the bearded vulture to the Alps. With pledges at last month's Clinton Global Initiative in New York and as patron of the UN Billion Tree Campaign, the Prince is setting about establishing himself as a world leader on environmental issues.
The Principality of Monaco has been in the hands of the Grimaldi family for over 700 years, and for the last 49 of these Prince Albert has been laying plans. All credit to him that, instead of lounging in his casino, he is actioning his blue-sky thinking about how to make his ancient asset count in a modern world.
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