A bill aimed at increasing France’s financial attractiveness must be examined by the Finance Committee of the National Assembly on Wednesday. It aims in particular to facilitate IPOs or to encourage the holding of general meetings of shareholders remotely. Presented by the Renaissance deputy Alexandre Holroyd (French people established outside France), the bill must pass in the Hemicycle on April 9, then in the Senate on May 14.
The text, which aims to “increase financing capacities from France and facilitate financing through the market”, includes fourteen articles and involves adjustments to French law. One of the measures that will be presented aims, for example, to facilitate IPOs by promoting the development of shares with multiple voting rights. This mechanism, common in the United States, allows the founders of a company to raise capital while maintaining greater control than with ordinary shares. A second measure would allow private equity funds to invest in listed companies whose capitalization reaches up to 500 million euros, compared to 150 million at present.
This system would make it possible to “bring (…) a little less than a hundred European companies into this pool” of investment, which would be added to the 417 companies with a capitalization of less than 150 million, details Alexandre Holroyd. Five years after the Pacte law, MP Holroyd’s text wants to “enable companies to continue their development thanks to the mobilization of capital from French, European and international investors”, while the European financial center is in full turmoil around the possible creation of a single capital market between the 27.
Furthermore, since the British referendum on Brexit in 2016, many financial players have settled in Paris, creating 7,000 direct and indirect jobs according to Bercy. Since then, Paris has also become the leading European financial center in terms of market capitalization, and the French authorities want to consolidate this achievement. “The development of businesses and their financing must be accompanied by competitive French law, which integrates the latest technological and international developments,” explains the MP – who has the United Kingdom in his constituency – in the introductory remarks of his bill. .