No one being a prophet in his country, Patrick Pouyanné, the CEO of TotalEnergies, is exposed to the usual procession of indignant jokes and false trials. Not that the reflection, entrusted by its board of directors, on a possible move of the main listing of the oil company to Wall Street is not a shock.
Obviously, a “TotalExit” of the fourth Parisian market capitalization – the second in the CAC 40 due to a larger float than Hermès and L’Oréal – would constitute an earthquake for the place which would take away the majority of 8% to 9% trading on its flagship index.
But how can we blame it for wanting to get closer to a growing shareholder base in North America which values it better (40% of the capital at the end of 2023, and more than 50% currently according to Bloomberg data) to the detriment of that which entered Europe in a slow attrition dictated by the climate exclusion policies of a growing number of funds?
The “major” is not the only one to pose to European financial centers this difficult dilemma between downgrading and environmental concerns or obsolete rules. Shell thinks about it. The cement manufacturer CRH and the industrial gas producer Linde are pleased to have crossed the Rubicon of New York emigration. In the absence of oil, it is high time to have ideas to stop the bleeding.
To note
The first European oil “major” in terms of net profit (19.8 billion euros in 2023), and world number 1 in the sector in terms of profitability of capital employed (18.9%), TotalEnergies has been setting stock market records since the beginning April, supported by better-than-expected results in the first quarter. But the action of the French group, a quarter of which passes through the certificate listed in the United States (American Deposit Receipt, ADR), still suffers from a discount of 20% to 35% on ExxonMobil and Chevron in terms of price. compared to estimated profits in 2024 and 2025 and enterprise value compared to gross operating surplus.
More than a third of the CAC 40 champions saw their capital mainly held by non-residents at the end of 2022 according to the latest available study from the Banque de France, published at the end of 2023.
Among foreign investors holding French shares, North America weighed on average 38.9%, or 1.7 percentage points more in ten years. The euro zone, Norway and Switzerland represented 47.1%, or 0.9 points less in a decade. Brexit caused the Kingdom to go from 8% in 2015 to 2.9% at the end of 2022.
