40% of the capital of French companies is held by non-residents

Who really owns the French companies listed on the Paris Stock Exchange? The Banque de France publishes a survey on the composition of the capital of these companies. This shows a strong presence of foreign investors.

The central bank was particularly interested in the companies that make up the CAC 40, the flagship index of the Paris Stock Exchange, CAC for “Continuously Assisted Quotation”, and 40 because this index is made up of 40 companies selected according to criteria well-defined technical and financial aspects. According to the Banque de France, it appears that non-resident investors in France currently hold 40% of the capital of these French companies, which is stable compared to previous years, but below the peak of 48% reached in 2013.

These are large companies, but the investigation deliberately excluded Airbus, Arcelor-Mittal, Stellantis (formerly PSA Peugeot-Citroën) and STMicroelectronics in particular, because their head office is abroad. There therefore remain 35 fully-fledged French companies. Of these companies, 12 are majority-owned by investors from other countries.

Europe, United States and Japan

Eurozone member countries and the United States constitute the majority of these foreign shareholders. Non-residents who are generally found in pension funds, American or Japanese pension funds. That is to say that these are people – this could be individuals – who place their money in financial structures, who themselves take positions in companies listed on the Paris Stock Exchange. Foreigners alone hold 770 billion euros of shares in French companies listed in Paris.

Within Europe, France is not the champion of foreign investor targets. Compared to 40% on the Paris Stock Exchange, we are at more than 50% in Spain and Germany, and up to 85% in the Netherlands.

Can we still talk about strictly French companies?

These companies remain French by nature, because they are based in France and, for the most part, were created there. In addition, these companies, while being French, are what we call multinationals: companies whose main activity is abroad. One of the best examples is the TotalEnergies group.

But above all this raises the question of the freedom left to the bosses of these companies. These leaders manage groups whose global shareholders, very diluted and dispersed, have sometimes different strategic interests, with the sole objective of making profits and recovering their dividends.