Wendel’s aristocratic family shareholders were meeting on Wednesday to vent their frustrations over how the family silver has been whittled away by the professional managers put in charge of the historic French investment group. Some blame the family patriarch, Baron Ernest-Antoine Sellière, and his protégé, Jean-Bernard Lafonta, the company’s chief executive, for the debacle.

Before the credit crunch erupted and the global economy started losing steam, these blue-blooded investors had enjoyed seeing their net worth steadily rise as a result of the impressive performance of Wendel shares. The group traces its origins back to the days when it made cannons for Louis XIV. It has since undergone several metamorphoses and eventually turned itself into a French private equity fund. Then, this year it decided to abandon its traditional policy of only taking majority stakes in companies to become more akin to an activist fund.