Michelin’s shares have shown signs of recovery from the sharp fall that followed the tragic death of its head, Edouard Michelin, in a boating accident off the coast of Finistère. 

Control of the group has been assumed by his co-managing partner, Michel Rollier, seen by market analysts as a much more cautious accountant than the tyre innovator and motor racing enthusiast that was Edouard Michelin.

Edouard, the 42-year-old great-grandson of his namesake and founder of the company, was controversially chosen in 1999 by his father François, in preference to two older brothers, to head the company because of his success in running their US operation. After gaining an engineering degree in Paris, he started work under an assumed name on the production line at Michelin's factory in Clermont-Ferrand, where he learned invaluable lessons in how to out-manoeuvre trade unions that hitherto had often out-manoeuvred Michelin. The cost-cutting measures he implemented were, however, offset by the costs of the company’s involvement in motor sport, which Edouard enthusiastically supported, including a return to Formula 1. In 2005 he fell out with the international racing organisers, the FIA, over their plan to centralise Grand Prix tyres with a single supplier. Edouard had already decided to leave Formula 1 at the end of this season, a decision his successor is extremely unlikely to revoke. 

Typical of Edouard’s lack of pretentiousness, his last voyage was in a local inshore fishing boat, and not the ocean-going yacht with direction-finding equipment he could certainly have afforded. He set out in a dense fog for the sea bass grounds of the Île de Sein, which is notorious for its treacherous tides and eddies. His body was found face down in the sea, north of the island. Sadly, Edouard Michelin leaves a wife and six children.