(BFM Bourse) – After a lackluster year in 2022, public offerings are boosting the rating at the start of the stock market exercise. But the IPOs still do not compensate for the two effective departures as well as those to come…
In 2022, public offerings were slightly less numerous due to a sluggish market environment. But the 2023 financial year begins and in the first week of February alone, two companies said goodbye to the Stock Exchange while the Rothschild family announced that it wanted to withdraw its investment bank from the Parisian listing.
The simplified tender offer from Concordia, the Rothschild family holding company, could be filed with the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) at the end of the first half of 2023. The offer will be made at a price of 48 euros per share, dividends attached and would reflect a premium of 19% over the last trading price on Friday February 3. To take their bank out of the rating, the Rothschilds will benefit from the support of choice. The owners of Chanel and the Peugeots will help the family to take the former Paris Orléans out of the rating.
If Concordia manages to delist Rothschild & Co, it’s one more partnership limited by shares that will bid farewell to the Paris Stock Exchange.
Somfy and Groupe Flo, two companies well known to the public, have already crossed the threshold. Planned for a long time, the withdrawal of Groupe Flo from the Parisian dimension was effective on Monday February 6 after 25 years of presence on the stock exchange. This operation is the epilogue to the takeover of Groupe Flo in 2017 by Groupe Bertrand. Burdened with debt, the owner of the Hippopotamus chain had been in great difficulty for many years. Back to the wall, Groupe Flo had to find a buyer to restructure.
And so it was Groupe Bertrand who went to the bedside of the seriously ill in the restaurant industry. In August 2019, Groupe Bertrand accelerated the process with the launch of a simplified public buyout offer on the balance of the shares it did not yet hold, to rise to more than 80% of the group’s capital and voting rights. of restoration. Then in the fall of 2022, it launched a public buyout offer at the same price of 21 euros. For the few minority shareholders who did not leave the table, they were able to benefit from an attractive premium of almost 70% on the last quoted price (12.40 euros).
The following Thursday, Somfy lowered the curtain on the Stock Exchange. The Savoyard group bid farewell to the financial markets after several decades of listing following a public takeover bid followed by a squeeze-out from the Despature family. The latter took advantage of the 30% drop in the title of the specialist in the automation of openings and closings of the house and the building to launch its offer at 143 euros per share, last November.
Manutan International and Serma Group on the way out
Another departure with the French specialist in the distance selling of office equipment and industrial equipment, which celebrated its 55th birthday in 2021. Manutan wants to draw a line under its stock market past. The group no longer felt the need to remain listed on the stock market, even though it never approached investors for financing. The Guichard family, with the assistance of the Degroof Petercam bank and the CIC, filed a simplified takeover bid at the end of November 2022 at 100 euros per share. And to encourage minority shareholders to contribute their shares, the Guichard family offers a bonus of 5 euros per share in the event that it manages to reach the threshold of 90% of the capital and voting rights. The appeal of the Guichard family has been heard. And the small additional compensation granted to minority shareholders is not unrelated to the success of this simplified takeover bid.
At the closing of its simplified takeover bid, the Guichard family group held 99.08% of the capital and at least 98.99% of the voting rights of the office equipment and material distribution group. A sufficient number of shares which paved the way for a squeeze-out procedure. The delisting of Manutan shares will take place on Tuesday 22 February.
Manutan will be accompanied by Serma Group. This consultancy and expertise company specializing in embedded and industrial electronic systems will also say goodbye to the Parisian coast on February 22nd. Financière Faraday, which currently owns 99.54% of this consulting and expertise company specializing in on-board and industrial electronic systems, had undertaken to buy back (the few) shares still in circulation at a price of 430 euros.
Other companies are expected to leave the Paris Stock Exchange very soon, such as the bank Union Financière Financière de France (UFF). Abeille Assurances, which held 74.99% of the capital and voting rights of the wealth management specialist, rose to 94.84% of the capital and voting rights following its simplified takeover bid. Abeille Assurances then plans to delist UFF.
The EDF (political) soap opera
For EDF, the exit from the rating will not be as simple. The State currently owns nearly 96% of the capital and at least 96.53% of the energy company’s voting rights following the simplified takeover bid announced this summer. To recover the remaining 4% on the rating, Bercy must wait for a decision from the Paris Court of Appeal. It has been seized of an action for annulment by employee shareholders who dispute the buyback price of 12 euros per share set by the State, deemed too low.
The hearing is scheduled for March 23, with a decision expected no later than May 2. If the judgment of the Court of Appeal confirms that the takeover bid is in conformity, the State will be able to renationalise by buying back the remaining 4% of shares.
In some cases, takeover bids do not meet with the expected success. Minority shareholders declined the offer from Irata, the company owned by the video game group’s chief executive. A few days before Christmas, it had launched a takeover bid on Atari aimed at supporting the company’s strategy. The initiator had then proposed a unit price of 0.19 euro, showing a premium of 46% compared to the last quoted price of 0.13 euro before the announcement.
But for the minority shareholders, the premium is low despite the initiator’s promise to offer “a liquidity opportunity to Atari shareholders in an unstable market context”. It is that Atari is known to regulars on the Parisian coast for having had a chaotic journey. And the word is weak. The title has lost more than 70% of its value over the last 5 years, or even much more if we go back to the stock market peaks of the year 2000.
A rating that is gradually thinning…
For the moment, the number of IPOs still does not compensate for departures from the stock market. Since the beginning of the year, only one company has had the honor of going public. This is the specialist in learning to drive online Lepermislibre, which took its first steps on Euronext Growth on Monday.
A finding that was already visible in 2022. Last year, the Paris Stock Exchange recorded 11 new IPOs (with public offering and not counting SPACs), including 2 on the regulated market of Euronext Paris and 9 on Euronext Growth, the small and mid-cap compartment, against 27 listing exits at the same time, recalls EY in the latest edition of its observatory of public offers.
Sabrina Sadgui – ©2023 BFM Bourse
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