The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire, in Paris on July 18, 2020. -

Jacques Witt / SIPA

The two groups Suez and Veolia must resume their discussions, failing which the acquisition of the first by its competitor "will not work", again warned Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy, on Tuesday on Franceinfo.

After the sale Monday by Engie of 29.9% of its shares to Veolia, Suez denounced, this Tuesday morning, "new and irregular conditions".

Without an agreement between the two groups, the merger operation "will not work", warned the minister, while the state did not approve the sale Monday during the vote of the board of directors of Engie.

"I hope that the discussions will resume immediately", he added, denouncing "the intransigence" of Suez and "the haste" of Veolia.

Veolia persists and signs

On Monday evening, the board of directors of Engie, the main shareholder of Suez, decided to accept the offer from Veolia, which expired at midnight, and to sell it most of its shares in Suez, for 3.4 Billions of Euro's.

The representatives of the State, a reference shareholder of the energy giant up to 22% and present as such on the group's board of directors, were opposed to this sale, because of the “unfriendly” nature of the case.

Suez, the world's number two in water and waste, has been fighting for its independence since Engie decided to sell its stake and Veolia offered to buy it.

Veolia, world leader in the sector, now intends to initiate a takeover bid on the rest of the shares - at the same attractive price of 18 euros per share - in order to build a “super champion of ecological transition”.

The project, subject to suspensive conditions linked to the approval of the competition authorities, should take 12 to 18 months, estimates Veolia.

The group confirmed its intentions on Monday evening.

But “at the same time, this offer will not be launched without a favorable reception from the board of directors of Suez,” added Veolia, which said it wanted to “resume discussions” on Tuesday with Suez.

It's not win.

Suez is very upset against the idea of ​​any dismantling, synonymous according to him with industrial and social breakage.

"Avoid a creeping takeover"

For him, the sale of this first block of shares was done "in a hostile manner and under unprecedented and irregular conditions", he denounced Tuesday morning, warning that he "will implement all the means at its disposal to protect the interests of its employees, its customers, and all its stakeholders, in particular to ensure equal and fair treatment of all its shareholders, and to avoid a creeping takeover or de facto control ”.

Suez has not yet detailed what “all” these means will be, particularly legal ones.

Among other things, he intends to look at the votes within the Board of Directors of Engie.

According to sources familiar with the matter, Engie's two CFDT directors did not take part in the vote, while the CGT director would have voted against and the CFE-CGC director would have voted in favor of the transaction, against the opinion of his federation.

"Intransigence and haste"

On Monday, the inter-union CFE-CGC, CFDT, CFTC, CGT, FO of the Suez environmental services group had asked the State to "suspend its decision" and "the holding of a parliamentary commission of inquiry "," In order to understand what is happening and especially to avoid in this period of economic crisis and unprecedented Covid, a social massacre endorsed by the Minister of the Economy and the government ".

According to Bruno Le Maire, “an amicable agreement was possible, we have been working on it for days.

(…) We were a few inches from an agreement.

We encountered intransigence from some and haste from others, ”he regretted.

He hoped that "discussions will resume immediately", specifying that he himself would take a step back on this issue, in the midst of the economic crisis.

"I gave a lot in this case and I am thinking above all of the 65 million French people who are worried about their jobs (…), so I will take care of the French", he said.

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