SERIOUSLY. The Tarn-et-Garonnais of 2022: Pascal Coste, hairdresser becomes unlimited entrepreneur

After Hassan Bouadar, one of the big bosses of Fedex, guest of honor of the Heads of economy in 2021, another Montalbanis with an atypical and amazing career came to claim his victory in 2022: Pascal Coste. Another success story for a man from a small family with a shopkeeper father and a stay at home mother.

If he now lives in Nice, where he built the headquarters of his group, the businessman, who kept the scissors for ten years, does not forget his origin. montalbanaises.

“I left Montauban for Toulouse at 18 but I studied at Monplaisir college, I got my hairdressing CAP at CFA and I played rugby at USM in minimal and junior. I was there when Montauban rose to the highest level with Laurent Travers, Laurent Labit and Patrick Bardot and I still have the club shirt in my office. I still have family and many friends there. Six of the group’s salons are located in Montauban and among my staff, there are five Montalbanais all born at the Boyé clinic…”

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Choose the Tarn-et-Garonnais of the year 2022

Dropped out of college on the 3rd, a decisive turning point

Initially, Pascal Coste does not necessarily have all the right cards. A student with little academic commitment, he was “dropped” from college in the 3rd class. A first turning point to prove. “My mother has several contacts and at a meal she asked me to choose between a hairdresser and a waiter. I chose to be a hairdresser because if I had been a waiter, I would have been working on Saturday nights and not I would go to the nightclub with my friends. We used to go to “Cavo” back then…”
He cut his teeth in Montauban, before moving to Toulouse in a regional team.

With some friends, I bet to do Stéphanie de Monaco’s hair. I left there and he went to the living room. I gave him a blow-dry.

It was an “absurd” gamble, he said, that would lead him to leave his region… for the Principality of Monaco. “After a well-watered third half with friends, I bet in management to beat Stéphanie de Monaco. At that time, she was singing “Hurricane” and she was well known. I left for Monaco where I received a high -end salon (Jacques Dessange Ed). I had a one in two chance that she would come and get her hair done at our place and she did. I pulled her hair and sent the picture to my friends…”

The star hairdresser will spend almost two years in Monaco, ending his career as a rugby player there “with a very cosmopolitan team of sailors”, before launching his own account by opening his first salon with four friends from Toulouse.

We are in 1988. “From the first year, we made a lot of money and I helped a friend open a second salon. We started again to reach the rate of one show per year. »
Three decades later, Pascal Coste, who created his eponymous brand in 1997, has 350 salons across France, including 160 franchisees. The group employs 2,400 people. He is also involved in online sales since 2008. The “Pascal Coste Shopping” site accounts for 35% of the group’s turnover and is now number one in France in the sale of cosmetic products.

One hundred salons were acquired by 2022

As for the competition, particularly in Montauban, it’s not the type to scare our man. “There is room for everyone. The market is still focused on the self-employed and craftsmen. The three national groups represent only 12% but they achieve 30% of the market in terms of turnover. »
The boss, who bought a hundred salons in the North at a good price in 2022, does not intend to stop there.

“The first step is to consolidate our positions in France. We will need to have 500 to 600 salons and other acquisitions are planned. We offer career opportunities. We are fighting with young people in the age 16 and, after following the full course, they can become their own boss and open a salon. Being stronger in France, we can more easily attack neighboring European countries. Like fashion and gastronomy, this is a job that exporting very well, but we will do it step by step…”

On December 8, a day after his 57th birthday, Pascal Coste recounted his inspiring journey before an audience of business leaders. “It is an honor and a source of pride to be the guest of honor of the Leaders and to be the standard bearer. »
The opportunity to distill a philosophy inherited from his experience.

“Limits are made to be overcome and you must always dare and move forward. I also refer to Paul Ricard who said that success is never the work of one person, but of a whole team. You have to know how to surround the yourself. “