Lagardère without Arnaud? The Amber Capital fund, which has become the largest shareholder in the French group, unveiled its plan on Thursday to oust the manager, whom he blames for mismanagement, at the approach of a decisive general meeting. "In a normal listed company, there would have been major management changes long ago," said Amber Capital founder Joseph Oughourlian.
Nicolas Sarkozy on the supervisory board
In its plan, the British fund provides for a complete review of the governance of the group now refocused on publishing (Hachette) and distribution (Relay), and which is the parent company of Europe 1, JDD and Paris Match. He notably wishes to "fully renew the supervisory board" but supports the recent cooptations of the former head of state Nicolas Sarkozy and the ex-boss of the SNCF Guillaume Pepy. In a partnership limited by shares, the supervisory board may notably oppose the renewal for six years of the manager's mandate - in this case Arnaud Lagardère, which expires in March 2021.
Lagardère "is managed for the interest of a shareholder who has a huge debt problem and this led him to gradually liquidate the group which had been built by his father" Jean-Luc Lagardère, who died in 2003, attacks Joseph Oughourlian, also president of RC Lens and vice-president of the board of directors of the Spanish press group Prisa. The founder of Amber points to “far below average economic performance” of comparable indices and a series of “disastrous” mergers and acquisitions. It also refers to the debt of the personal holding company of Arnaud Lagardère, mentioned by the latter at some 164 million euros, while a general partner is responsible indefinitely for the debts of the company on his own property.
Qatar making king
The question now is therefore whether Amber will succeed this time in ousting Arnaud Lagardère. Because this desire is not new. In 2018, the fund had failed to elect members to the supervisory board, prevented at the time by the last-minute rallying of Qatar to Arnaud Lagardère. But this time Joseph Oughourlian is confident. "If we assume that Qatar would vote against our resolutions, we would have 20% of the voting rights against us. (…) With a little more than 12%, we are not very far but we have to convince the other shareholders ”, he explained while nearly half of the voting rights are controlled by holders of the floating capital.
The fund also wants to convince the other shareholders to demand the abandonment of the sponsorship in favor of a more traditional limited company. Arnaud Lagardère has always firmly opposed this possibility. Finally, Amber wants to end the payment of the dividend in 2020. It remains to be seen how individual shareholders will react.
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