Alain Taravella

In 1975, he joined the Brémond group, a real estate development company, where he became head of the leisure division. The group became Pierre & Vacances in 1978, a company specialized in leisure centers. Taravella became CEO in 1985.^[3]

In 1994, he founded Altarea, a shopping center development company. He took advantage of the downturn in the real estate market in the early 1990s to acquire land in droves.^[4] In 1999, he worked on the Bercy Village development project, which Altarea marketed.^[5] The company was listed on the stock exchange in 2004 and in 2007 acquired Cogedim, a real estate developer of housing and offices.

In 2010, after selling the Saint-Georges shopping center in Toulouse to the German Commerz Real,^[6] he led the acquisition of Cap 3000, one of the oldest and most important regional shopping centers in France, in Saint-Laurent-du-Var.^[7] In 2011, he led the acquisition by Cogedim Altarea of the RueDuCommerce shopping site, which was finally sold to Carrefour in 2016.^[8][9]

As of 2021, according to Forbes, Taravella retains 45% ownership of Altarea SCA and had an estimated net worth of $2 billion, making him the 1580th richest person in the world.^[10]