Tapie made his fortune in the late 70's and 80's by acquiring bankrupt companies. The first company that he purchased were paper companies Duverger and Diguet-Denis. Later came larger companies such as Leclanché Wonder – a large producer of batteries. He later sold this company to Ucar. In 1990 Tapie purchased Adidas for nearly 1.6 billion francs. He took up a loan syndicated with a banking pool with a majority of foreign banks (German and Japanese banks for the main part), and in minority from French backers, in particular with the SdBO, the subsidiary of Crédit Lyonnais group hidden for several years. In this opportunity, the AGF, the UAP and Crédit Lyonnais entered the capital of the sporting brand.