Paris (AFP)
The government called on Suez and Veolia on Tuesday to resume their discussions, failing which the operation to buy back the first by its old competitor "will not work", said Bruno Le Maire, the day after the acquisition of a first block actions by Veolia.
As early as Tuesday morning, Suez showed its intention to fight, denouncing "unprecedented and irregular conditions", after the sale the day before by Engie of 29.9% of its shares to Veolia.
The merger operation "will not work" without an agreement between the two groups, warned the Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire on France Info, while the state did not approve the sale on Monday during the council vote of Engie.
"I hope that the discussions will resume immediately," he added, denouncing "the intransigence" of Suez and "the haste" of Veolia.
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 board of directors of the group, were opposed to this sale, because of the "unfriendly" nature of the file.
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.
- "Intransigence and haste" -
For him, the sale of this first block of shares was made "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, 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, especially legal ones, will be.
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.
On Monday, the inter-union CFE-CGC, CFDT, CFTC, CGT, FO of the environmental services group Suez 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 centimeters away from an agreement. We encountered intransigence on the part of some and the haste of 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.
© 2020 AFP