France: The Bandage Kings

Four burly, unsmiling men in a black Mercedes-Benz limousine drive unannounced to the doors of a floundering textile company. Brusquely, they insist on seeing the owner—and they offer him a proposition for a takeover on the spot. France's Willot brothers—Bernard, 45, Jean-Pierre, 40, Antoine, 38, Regis, 35—have made that scenario increasingly familiar in European industrial circles. They make it their business to find out about textile firms in financial trouble and move in to grab control at bargain prices. In ten years of incessant acquisitions, they have stitched together the biggest textile combine in the Common Market, comprising some...