HASsurreal atmosphere, Monday January 8, with the wishes of the Ministry of the Economy and Finance. In a crowded room, the master of the place, Bruno Le Maire, surrounded by the four colleagues reporting to him (budget, industry, trade and digital) delivered his 2024 roadmap in front of a large audience who wondered which of these ministers would still be there the next day. And, since we are in France, everything starts with a promise of “massive simplification” and ends with a good law. Bruno Le Maire intends to present in the spring, if he is still in office, a bill on the financial attractiveness of the Paris market.
The outlines of this text are still very vague, but they are based on the idea that a dynamic economy needs circulating capital. Obviously with the idea of outdoing other European places in this area.
To appreciate France’s strengths, it is enough to look at the latest compilation of experts from Vernimmen, the bible of corporate finance. In their monthly letter published on Monday, they calculated the amount of money returned by CAC 40 companies to their shareholders in the form of dividends or share buybacks in 2023.
Convince French society
With more than 97 billion euros, including 67 billion in the form of dividends, the forty largest French companies have established a historic record, up 20% compared to 2022. This masks a very strong concentration, since six companies (TotalEnergies, BNP Paribas, LVMH, Stellantis, Axa and Sanofi) represent more than half of all CAC 40 payments.
They reflect the resounding health of large French companies, because these payments did not prevent record investments, up 20% in 2023 compared to 2022, and employment up slightly, to nearly 5 million employees. In the magical world of the CAC 40, everyone is a winner. It remains to convince a French society which increasingly doubts the proper sharing of these results. This will require more than one law.