(BFM Bourse) – The French king of cinemas has carried out several operations to prepare for its listing in 2024, reports L’Informé. Pathé first unveiled this listing project in September 2022, to finance major investments.
Pathé is more motivated than ever to enter the stock market in 2024. According to l’Informé, the dean of French cinemas founded by the Pathé brothers in 1896 is still aiming to join the Parisian stock market next year.
The group first unveiled this project in September 2022 in the columns of Les Echos. “Pathé is preparing to be listed on the stock exchange. We have been working on it for at least a year. We are already very advanced to be able to do it in 2024,” announced its president, Jérôme Seydoux, in an interview granted to daily economic life.
To best negotiate this IPO, Jerôme Seydoux cleaned up his affairs, explains L’Informé. The emblematic 89-year-old boss of Pathé has thus carried out several operations, including a simplification of the organization chart of the cinema group and the creation of a holding company at the end of September “to secure the majority of the capital”, adds the media.
Concretely, 51% of Pathé’s capital was transferred to this holding company, according to l’Informed which adds that this operation also valued the cinema company at 1.2 billion euros excluding debt. The remaining 49% could, at least partially, be sold on the stock market and therefore constitute the free float of the future Pathé share, notes the media. Moreover, the statutes of the holding company of which the Informed person has read “clearly evoke the hypothesis of a listing without however specifying the modalities”
Accounts restored
Also, L’Informé explains that Pathé has adjusted its accounts. The group reduced its debt to bring it below the billion euro mark at the end of 2022. Regarding activity, it has almost returned to its pre-Covid level when net profit is positive to around 100 million euros. Better yet, the operation of theaters, which represents a large part of revenues, has become profitable again in 2021, adds L’Informé.
Enough to “attract financial analysts” while the group’s finances have been tested by the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, Pathé having suffered 100 million euros in losses over the 2020 and 2021 financial years.
If the listing project is indeed maintained, “it remains to be seen which banks will be selected”, notes L’Informé. The name of BNP Paribas is “circulating”, also reports the media. Pathé then surrounded itself with the rue d’Antin bank during the sale of CGR, the second largest French network of cinemas not listed on the stock exchange. Contacted by L’Informé, the Pathé company did not respond to the online media.
Attract new shareholders
Via its IPO, Pathé wishes to attract new shareholders with a view to financing significant investments in both theaters and content estimated at 100 million euros by the group. Investments will concern both the renewal of equipment in the rooms but also the content. “Classic digital projectors are now obsolete. They were installed ten years ago and are at the end of their life,” the president of Pathé told Les Echos in September 2022.
The French cinema giant is also counting on the production of series to develop. “To attract talent, we need to be able to work with them on both films and series,” said the boss of Pathé. On this subject, the group intends to launch its own VoD (video on demand) service in France, after having tested an identical service on the Dutch market for five years.
Sabrina Sadgui – ©2023 BFM Bourse