“I would be very surprised, but I am waiting for confirmation,” declared the President of the Republic to the Bloomberg agency. The boss of TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanné, said at the end of April that he was considering a main listing on the New York Stock Exchange, due to the rise in shareholding from North America.
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French President Emmanuel Macron declared on Monday May 13 that he would not “no way” delighted if French oil giant TotalEnergies decided to move the main listing of its stock from Paris to New York. The President of the Republic, to whom the Bloomberg agency asked whether he would be “thrilled” of such a decision, replied: “Not at all, and I would be very surprised, but I’m waiting for confirmation.”
The affair started from surprise statements by the group’s boss, Patrick Pouyanné, also to Bloomberg. In an interview published on April 26, the latter said he was considering a primary listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Nearly half of TotalEnergies’ shareholders are now made up of North American institutional shareholders (pension funds, asset managers, insurers, etc.). “It’s not about emotion. It’s about business”added the company director, while ensuring that the head office of this flagship of the CAC 40 would remain in Paris.
Simplified access for American investors
The main argument seems simple: “a growing American shareholder base”which leads the company to question how to “providing easier access to shares for American investors”, he explained to analysts. Faced with this reflection, the Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire had already said at the beginning of May that he intended to fight for this move from the Paris Stock Exchange “does not take place”.
Emmanuel Macron also spoke on Monday on the “need for a real internal market” European. “Energy, finance or telecommunications are key sectors where the single market does not exist, which was a choice from the very beginning”he observed, believing that a “single market approach” would be “much more effective”.
