A foreign threat to one of France's "industrial treasures" last week sparked impassioned rhetoric about the need for French companies to remain in local hands. But the political firestorm that erupted around French dairy giant Danone belies the international nature of the CAC 40, the index of France's biggest companies, not to mention the appetite of French groups for foreign assets, some analysts say.
Statistics from TLB, a financial consultancy, show that non-French investment funds have increased their ownership of French companies in recent months, continuing a trend that began in the 1990s.
Foreign investment funds owned 61.4 percent of the shares of companies in the CAC 40 index in June this year, an increase from 55 percent in March, the latest TLB figures, published in French newspaper Les Echos, showed.
Faceless investment funds do not arouse public passions or political indignation, however. They are are simply following "a policy of diversification and optimisation of their portfolios" and have "no desire to seize control of the companies", according to TLB chief executive Thierry Le Bizay.
It was out of fear of a hostile takeover of Danone by US food and snacks manufacturer PepsiCo, a standard-bearer of US capitalism, that prompted a rearguard action by the French government this past week.
Amid rumours PepsiCo was preparing to bid for Danone, the world's biggest dairy product manufacturer, French Prime Minister Dominique De Villepin described the company in patriotic tones as "one of our industrial treasures", vowing to "defend the interests of France".
Under closer analysis, it was revealed that Danone was already 42 percent-owned by foreign investors, with 24 percent held by Anglo-saxon funds, much-maligned in France where resistance to globalisation and market-driven capitalism remains widespread.
Elsewhere in the CAC 40, BTP Lafarge is 50.44 percent owned by non-French investors and Vinci is 48 percent owned by foreign interests, according to the annual reports of the two companies.
Examples of French companies controlled by foreign shareholders are rare, Le Bizay said, pointing to insurer AGF, 58 percent controlled by Allianz of Germany.
According to figures from the national statistics office INSEE, only 17,000 companies out of a total of 2.5 million in France are owned, 50 percent or more, by foreign investors.
And the flows of capital are far from one way. Indeed, the policy of successive governments to build "national champions" in key industrial sectors has enabled French companies to expand overseas by acquiring foreign rivals in multi-billion euro deals.
The latest example is French wine and spirit giant Pernod Ricard, which is in the process of acquiring Britain's Allied Domecq for 7.4 billion pounds (10.64 billion euros, 12.9 billion dollars).
In May this year, power group Electricite de France swallowed Italy's second largest electricity generator Edison.
As for Danone, among a host of other acquisitions, it established itself as the second biggest biscuit maker in the world via the acquisition of General Biscuit in 1986, as well as the European subsidiaries of US group Nabsico.
French investment funds have also benefited from the possibilities offered by globalisation to diversify their portfolios with international assets.
"French funds have an increasingly important amount invested in the United States, and in Asia," said Le Bizay.
However, some analysts have suggested that the lack of a mature capitalised pension industry limits French investment in both national companies and abroad.
Amid all the noise about Danone, which was front page news on Thursday as government ministers lined up to defend the group, US investment fund Starwood Capital announced it had acquired one of the last remaining French family business empires without a murmur of public dissent.
Starwood said on Friday it was acquiring the Taittinger group, owner of a much-loved champagne brand bearing the same name, one of the most luxurious hotels in Paris, the Crillon, and the Baccarat crystal company which has been making glassware for French kings and aristocrats for over 250 years.
Comments
Comments are closed.