Government spokeswoman Sibeth Ndiaye said on Wednesday that the question of privatizing Aéroports de Paris (ADP) "cannot be raised immediately given the current" market conditions due to the coronavirus crisis and petrol. "Given the market conditions, anyway, we would be a very poor manager if we made the immediate choice to sell the assets and our holdings in ADP," added the Secretary of State after the Council of Ministers. , on the eve of the deadline for depositing the signatures required for a shared initiative referendum (RIP) on this disputed transaction.
During the last score of the Constitutional Council, the referendum project presented by more than 250 deputies and senators (from LFI to LR) had recorded a little more than 1.1 million supporters, far from 4.7 million (10% of the electoral body) necessary to trigger a RIP.
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A climate not conducive to an IPO
Refusing to comment on this result before the end of the official signature collection period set for midnight Thursday, Sibeth Ndiaye said, however, that "the current market instability" showed "that conditions" were "not at all favorable for the moment at any privatization operation and in particular with regard to ADP ". Requested by AFP, the management of the Aéroports de Paris group did not wish to comment on this announcement.
With the coronavirus crisis, the economic context is no longer conducive to an IPO. Air transport has been hit hard, with airlines and airports undergoing containment measures, the caution of holidaymakers and the cancellation of business trips. At the same time, panic spread to the stock markets, with a fall of more than 12% in the last week of February and a "black Monday" this week, the CAC 40 having fallen by more than 8%, never seen since the 2008 financial crisis.