François Hubert Marie Perrodo (born 14 February 1977) is a French billionaire businessman, racing driver, and car collector. He is the chairman of Perenco, an oil and gas company with operations in 14 countries,[1] which was founded by his father. In October 2023, Forbes estimated his family to be worth US$10 billion.[2]
Biography
Origin
François Perrodo was born on 14 February 1977 in Singapore. He is the son of Carrie and Hubert Perrodo, French businessman and founder of the oil group Perenco.
After an engineering degree in 2002 from the École Nationale Supérieure du Pétrole et des Moteurs (ENSPM) now called IFP School (French Institute of Petroleum), he received an MBA from INSEAD in Singapore.[6]
Business
Perrodo is the president of the Franco-British Perenco, an oil and gas corporation specialized in secondary recovery from wells the major oil companies have ceased to exploit.[1] He has acquired significant real estate using shell companies in offshore tax havens.[7]
Car collection
Perrodo maintains a large collection of historically significant automobiles and is one of the most prolific French car collectors. He keeps cars in both France and the United Kingdom. Perrodo shares photos and stories of his cars and his racing career on his Instagram account.[8]
Perrodo is a motorsport enthusiast, he started with classic car racing in 2010.[11][12]
He competes in endurance racing in the FIA World Endurance Championship, currently having leveraged his fortune into a ride with AF Corse in the LMP2 class, having initially competed in the GTE Am class from 2013 until 2016.
He has taken part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, V de V Series, Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup, European Le Mans Series (ELMS), United SportsCar Championship and the 24 Hours Series.
Perrodo again competed for AF Corse in the 2022 24 Hours of Le Mans, driving the team's No. 83 LMP2 entry. While running side-by-side with the GTE-Pro class leading No. 64 Corvette of Alexander Sims in the final hours of the race, Perrodo swerved sharply left and sent the Corvette crashing into the barriers in the middle of the Mulsanne Straight. AF Corse's No. 51 GTE-Pro entry was running second in class at the time and went on to inherit the class lead from the Corvette.[13]
Complete European Le Mans Series results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)