As France boils under record summer temperatures, the race is on for a French cooling and heating network operator — and JPMorgan Chase is currently leading the competition.
JPMorgan has reportedly emerged as the frontrunner to buy Idex for at least $3.5 billion from the Paris-based private equity firm Antin Infrastructure Partners in spite of a widespread cultural aversion to air-conditioning, Bloomberg reported.
The money-spinning division, led by longtime executive Mary Erdoes, reportedly looks set to beat Canada’s CPP Investments to the company that keeps Paris’ business district, La Defense, from turning into a sauna as suited-up French bankers sweat over what the government is going to tax next.
Temperatures have repeatedly topped 104 degrees Fahrenheit in recent days, with official figures showing at least 1,000 excess deaths tied to the heat.
It’s put French — and European — disdain for A/C to the test, with even the tree-hugging Greens conceding some air-conditioning may be unavoidable, BBC reported.
While French elites have spent years wagging fingers at air-conditioning as American excess and bad for the planet, regular Parisians have been left sweating through hotel rooms and apartments with little more than open windows and a shrug.
Reps for JPMorgan declined to comment. Antic Infrastructure Partners also declined to comment.
American tourists have been puzzled by their oldest ally’s aversion to Arctic blasts of ice-old air, enduring sky-high temperatures in hotel rooms with no A/C as locals seemingly shrug it off — until now.
As many as nine in 10 American homes have air conditioning, compared to just under one in five French households.
Last Friday, left-wing Paris deputy mayor Audrey Palvar directly blamed the US for the heatwave currently engulfing France.
“As the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, you bear a significant amount of responsibility for global warming and the consequences we, in France, are experiencing. Your cities ‘90% air-conditioned’ are not unrelated to this.” the former TV news anchor fumed on Instagram.
Now the A/C wars have even gripped the French parliament ahead of next year’s presidential election in May.
Marine Le Pen of the right-wing National Rally has promised a national rollout of air-conditioning if she is elected as the successor to outgoing President Emmanuel Macron.
“If I am elected president, I will put into place a massive air-conditioning plan,” she said last week, comparing A/C to basic infrastructure as central heating. “It is absurd to have people die because of the heat”
But hard-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has already announced his 2027 presidential bid, insisted France should stay well away from polar power.
“That’s exactly what you must not do. A/C everywhere means making the damage worse,” he claimed. “I don’t put my kid or my granddaughter or my great-granddaughter somewhere that’s air-conditioned from morning to night. It wrecks your sinuses.”
If JPMorgan closes the deal, it will mean American capital once again doing what France’s bickering politicians have proven unable or unwilling to do: actually keep people cool.
The company has just over $4 trillion in assets under management worldwide, according to its website.
