Currently getting dressed up for the Paris Olympics with a purple athletics track and 5G, the Stade de France is at the same time looking for its new concessionaire or owner, really interested candidates must submit their offer on Wednesday.
The State, owner of this sports venue located in Saint-Denis (northern suburbs), launched two procedures in parallel last March: that of a sale and that of the renewal of the concession. The current concession granted in 1995 to the Vinci-Bouygues consortium (two thirds, one third) expires in June 2025.
Initially set for mid-November, the date for submission of offers has been pushed back to January 3.
Before the summer, a first phase allowed interested candidates to come forward. It was at this moment that the owner of PSG, the Qatari Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), officially came out of the woods. In bickering with the Paris town hall which does not want to sell it the Parc des Princes, PSG is studying the file “seriously”, according to a source close to the file, and will submit an offer on Wednesday.
From the start, this candidacy has been seen by many observers as a way of putting pressure on the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo (PS) to relaunch discussions on the Parc des Princes.
“Vinci in a position of strength”
The other contenders, for a buyout or a concession, remain silent. In this confidential procedure, subject to “business secrecy”, as Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra recalled on Wednesday, nothing filters through. Since this summer, candidates have had the detailed specifications in hand.
The Vinci-Bouygues consortium is a good candidate for the concession and sale, according to several sources close to the matter. “Vinci is in a strong position to negotiate, but the State has always found that they are greedy,” notes an expert.
Another candidate for the operation of the Stade de France, according to several sources close to the matter, is the events company GL Events chaired by Olivier Ginon, considered by some to be close to the Élysée.
“It’s curious because that’s not GL Events’ business, they don’t have a stadium,” said a source close to the matter.
To put together this offer, GL Events is supported by “Paris Entertainment Company”, the former SAE POPB operating company majority owned by the city of Paris (and for almost all of the rest by the American company AEG, specialized in the organization of sporting and musical events), and which operates the Accor Arena, the Bataclan, and the future Arena La Chapelle. It remains to be seen who exactly will be part of the offer submitted on Wednesday.
Allocation in 2025
Another mystery: how will the French football and rugby federations – the latter has just announced a hole of 40 million euros – fit into this mechanic when they have always found their agreement with the unfavorable stadium.
The offers will be studied in 2024 and the State will do what it wants, will let the two procedures run or not, will choose to deal with a candidate… The award is planned for 2025.
According to a source close to the matter, the Stade de France would be worth “between 400 and 600 million euros”. The State has not given any indication of price, but it is estimated at 647 million (gross value) as tangible assets in the 2021 State accounts. According to the consortium, its operation has generated, since 2013, a “balanced or slightly profitable” result.
In any case, the candidate who wins will have to carry out a major work program because the enclosure is only “refurbished” in preparation for the 2024 Olympics.
The State has been racking its brains for years and has piled up reports to find out how to best exploit this 80,000-seat enclosure, 25 years after crowning the French team of Zidane and Deschamps as world football champions.
“We will look at the merits of the different files, the economic and technical merits, the integration into the territory (…),” Amélie Oudéa-Castéra simply commented on Wednesday on France 2.
It must be said that since the hasty signing of the initial concession contract, between the two rounds of the 1995 presidential election, this stadium has cost the State dearly, in financial compensation and legal fees. The Court of Auditors calculated in 2018 that the stadium and associated infrastructure represented a total of around 778 million in public expenditure.
