The complete recovery of the electricity giant by the public power remains however suspended from the recourse formed by minority shareholders against the financial operation.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
A turning point but not the end of the soap: the French State crossed, Friday, January 20, the threshold of 90 % of the capital of EDF. This is a crucial step to carry out a public buyout offer (OPA) intended to renature the electricity giant to relaunch it, but whose outcome still depends on a court decision.
“The State crossed on January 19, 2023 the threshold of 90.00 % of the theoretical capital and voting rights of the EDF company”, reports a statement from the Ministry of the Economy published on Friday. The operation, quantified at 9.7 billion euros, is strategic for the State, which wants to build six new generation EPR nuclear reactors, with an option for eight others.
On the stock market plan, this is a decisive course crossed by the State within the framework of its public purchasing offer (OPA), whose deadline had been postponed Sine Die due to a legal recourse for minority shareholders. Henceforth, he will be able to start a compulsory withdrawal from the Paris Stock Exchange, that is to say, to force the minority shareholders remaining to sell their shares, because they now represent less less represent less. 10 % of the capital and voting rights.
unhappy shareholders
However, renationalization, decided last summer when the state held 84 % of the capital, is not yet completed and even seems to have to be a significant delay. The buyout offer, opened on November 24, was to end on December 22. But the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) decided on December 7 to postpone this period “pending the decision of the Paris Court of Appeal on the request of suspended” filed by a group of unhappy minority shareholders of the price proposed.
“We see that the situation is getting bogged down, while it would be enough to find an agreement with an increase in the price that suits all parties, so that appeals cease and that operations can be carried out well, “says Martine Faure, leader of the small rebellious carriers, at the origin of numerous legal remedies brought for months.
These small shareholders are for most employees or former EDF retired employees, for whom the buy -in price, currently set by the State at 12 euros per share, is insufficient. This price was validated by the report of an independent expert, but the small shareholders believe that the company is undervalued and that it was unjustly penalized in its revenues by ARENH, a mechanism imposed by the State Forcing it to sell current at low prices to alternative suppliers.
The stock market gendarme had authorized the launch of the OPA on November 22 on the basis of this report. But an appeal in cancellation of this decision was filed on December 2 before the Paris Court of Appeal, accompanied by a suspended request to its execution.
The audience to examine this stay is scheduled for January 25. Another hearing is then planned at the bottom, on March 23, at the Chamber of Economic and Financial Regulation of the Court of Appeal. “We are on an OPA which generally seems to work. The impact will be relatively minimal”, has nevertheless estimated with the agency France-Presse Alexandre Malric, energy director for CGI Business Consulting.
ARENH, created to promote the emergence of competition between electricity suppliers, is regularly denounced by EDF as a “poison” weighing on its finances. The government is working on another device to replace this mechanism, which will end on December 31, 2025.
More broadly, the question remains unanswered how the State, when it is the only master aboard the company, intends to give EDF the means to build six nuclear reactors of the new generation EPR, with an option For eight others. This project will cost dozens and tens of billions of euros, while EDF finances are burdened by a record debt approaching 60 billion.