by Julien Ponthus
PARIS, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Minority shareholders of EDF are stepping up their efforts to question the price offered by the French state for the renationalisation of the energy company, fearing that the government will file its takeover bid (OPA) as of this week.
The French government, which owns 83.9% of EDF, announced in mid-July that it was going to launch an offer of 9.7 billion euros to raise the capital to 100%, which will give the executive the elbow room to lead the group, riddled with debt and facing an energy crisis in Europe with the war in Ukraine.
The price proposed by the State of 12 euros per EDF share on the stake it does not yet hold represents a premium of 53% compared to the closing price on July 5, the day before the announcement by the Prime Minister of the project. of renationalization.
But minorities believe that this is not enough.
The Association for the Defense of Minority Shareholders (Adam) sent a letter to the CEO of EDF, Jean-Bernard Lévy, urging him to go to court to claim 8.34 billion euros in compensation from the State after the decision in January by the government to increase the volumes of nuclear electricity sold at a reduced price to the group’s competitors, a measure intended to limit the rise in bills.
EDF filed an appeal with the Council of State two weeks ago to this effect, but Adam considers that only an action before an administrative court before the filing of the takeover bid with the Financial Markets Authority (AMF) would be able to influence the decision of the regulator and that the amount of the estimated damage be taken into account in the valuation of the company.
“It’s this week where everything is played out,” said Colette Neuville, president of Adam, who argues that EDF investors were unfairly asked to foot the bill when the government decided to protect households from the crisis. soaring energy prices.
A source close to EDF rejected the idea that legal proceedings could at this stage have any impact on the AMF’s decision and said the company was already planning to go to court if its request for compensation was denied.
EDF refused to comment on the request of the president of Adam and the AMF declared that it could not decide on particular cases.
NO IMPROVEMENT EXPECTED AT THIS TIME
At the same time, the association Energie en actions, which represents employee shareholders and former employees of EDF, told Reuters that it was working hard to sue the State which it accuses of having jeopardized the financial health of the French group.
“We are working on our objective of filing our complaint before the State submits its offer”, declared Hervé Chefdeville, secretary general of the association.
At the beginning of August, Parliament adopted the amending finance bill for 2022 which includes nearly ten billion euros in credits to finance the renationalization of the energy company, at 12 euros per EDF share.
EDF shares have been fluctuating between 11.8 euros and 11.95 euros for a month, which indicates that funds specializing in the arbitration of mergers and acquisitions transactions do not expect the price of offer is improved.
EDF was listed on the stock market in 2005 at a price of 32 euros per share.
The government had announced that it planned to submit its offer for the 15.9% of the capital it does not own by the beginning of September, with the aim of delisting the group whose debt amounts to more than of 40 billion euros. (Report Julien Ponthus, with Leigh Thomas, French version Laetitia Volga, edited by Kate Entringer)