Will TotalEnergies, for its hundredth anniversary, cross the Atlantic? Its CEO, Patrick Pouyanné, in any case surprised, on Friday April 26, by declaring to the Bloomberg agency that he was studying the possibility of making the New York Stock Exchange the main listing place for the oil group, to the detriment of that of Paris.
Nothing has been decided, but the reflection process has been launched, he explained a few hours later, during the presentation of the company’s latest quarterly results. Mr. Pouyanné will present his conclusions to the board of directors by September. “Then we’ll see.” »
Choosing a quote ” primary ” on Wall Street would obviously be a shock for the Paris Stock Exchange. With a global value of 167 billion euros, TotalEnergies is the fourth market capitalization in the CAC 40 index behind LVMH (397 billion euros), Hermès (247 billion euros) and L’Oréal (233 billion euros). euros). On the American market, the group is only listed in the form of ADR (American Depositary Receipt), a “certificate of deposit” which allows you to buy and sell a security listed in Paris on Wall Street.
Exchange fee
By giving them access to “real” shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange, TotalEnergies would therefore allow North American investors to avoid exchange fees between an ADR denominated in dollars and a share in euros, while avoiding the time difference, the Parisian market closing its doors while it is only 11:30 a.m. in New York.
Above all, the group would take note of the evolution of its shareholder base, which is less and less European: 40% of the capital was in the hands of North American shareholders at the end of 2023 (including 39% in the United States), compared to notably 26% in France and 18% in the rest of Europe.
The trend is even clearer for institutional investors alone, who hold a little more than three quarters of the capital: the Americans own 48% of the shares compared to only 18% for the French. The fund management giant BlackRock alone owns 6.5% of the group’s capital, making it the second largest shareholder behind the company’s employees (7.4%).
And this seesaw movement is only growing, underlines Mr. Pouyanné. “American shareholders buy shares… and it’s not quite the same for European shareholdershe explained to financial analysts on Friday. It seems normal to me to move in the direction of a growing shareholder base. »
You have 35.49% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.