Wendel is the post-industrial incarnation of a manufacturing group that, like Saint-Gobain, is more than 300 years old.
Some big French stocks that would likely benefit: building materials giants Saint-Gobain and Legrand, and builder and property developer Bouygues.
In June Wendel found itself under investigation by the French stockmarket regulator over the timing of its purchases of Saint-Gobain's shares.
Despite the softly-softly approach, Saint-Gobain has reacted defensively, and in May had to deny leaking information about Wendel to the French press.
But last week's manoeuvrings around Saint-Gobain and Lafarge, two large building-materials firms, provide evidence of how much things have changed in French industry.
"Saint-Gobain expects 2009 to be an extremely challenging year, particularly in the first six months, due to a higher year-on-year basis for comparison, " the company said.
Saint-Gobain, one of France's oldest companies, also makes windows for about half the cars produced in Europe, making it exposed to the downturn in the auto industry.
On November 7th Wendel said it had raised to 15.5% the stake of 6% that it had bought in Saint-Gobain, one of the world's leading building-materials companies, barely six weeks earlier.
Whereas rich-world companies, such as Lafarge and Saint-Gobain, are investing in developing countries to increase sales of their cement and building products, Cemex is showing that the same thing can flow in reverse.
Wendel wants Saint-Gobain to cut costs and increase its presence in energy-saving products, but also says it supports the firm's strategy a contradiction that may hamper its efforts to bring about change at the company, observers say.
Most other major insulation industry players are divisions of large conglomerates like Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-B, BRK-A), and Saint Gobain (Paris:SGO).
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