PRGAF

Pargesa Holding SA

A Swiss investment holding company that, for four decades, served as the shared vehicle through which Belgian billionaire Albert Frère and Canadian businessman Paul Desmarais steered their joint stakes in major European companies, most notably the Belgian group Groupe Bruxelles Lambert. It was founded in 1981, when the two partners used it to buy the non-French assets of French bank Paribas, sheltering them from that country's wave of nationalizations. Its name blends "Par" from Paribas with other elements of its founding deal. In 2020 it merged into GBL and ceased to exist as a separate listed company.