DObviously, the big French bosses do not make the already complicated work of the Minister of the Economy easier. The same day, Bruno Le Maire ruffled the feathers of the boss of the SNCF, who signed, according to him, social agreements that were too advantageous, and sounded the alarm in the face of the threat brandished by Patrick Pouyanné, the CEO of TotalEnergies, to move the main listing of his company from Paris to New York.
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Invoking the“supreme interest of the nation”the minister assured, Thursday May 2, at the microphone of BFM-TV “be there to ensure that this does not happen, because it is a serious decision”. If all this was a probe on the part of Patrick Pouyanné to gauge reactions in France, he has his answer: politically, this does not work.
It’s no surprise, but European oil companies need proof of love at the moment, as they feel attacked from all sides. This is also the case for the other major major of the Old Continent, the Anglo-Dutch Shell. It is also studying the possibility of taking its stock price across the Atlantic. For exactly the same reasons.
Growing gap
It is not so much the disenchantment of the general public that upsets them as that of financial investors. Europeans are turning away from them, in order to respect the new criteria for socially responsible investment, when American financiers have less and less this type of concern. Result: the latter now represent 48% of the total institutional ownership of TotalEnergies, compared to 34% for Europeans.
A sign of this growing gap, on May 2, the shareholders’ association Follow This, which intends to push the climate commitments of oil companies, published a resolution, which it will present at the general meeting, demanding more effort from Shell to respect the Paris agreement. And this year, it received the signature of two of the largest European institutional investors, the French Amundi and Axa.
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For the Paris market, depriving itself of such a heavyweight would be very serious. In addition to the loss of liquidity, this could send a signal to other major players who consider themselves poorly valued in Europe. This is the case for many, since over the last twelve months, Wall Street has grown almost twice as much as Europe. Unfortunate, at a time when we are seeking to boost French and European financial attractiveness. Politically, it would be just as disastrous, when those in power only have the word sovereignty on their lips. But at least the message got through.
