Takeover of La Provence: the CMA CGM offer approved, Xavier Niel denounces "a forced transition"

Those who were hoping for an end to the legal soap opera opposing for months the global maritime transport giant and the holding company of the founder of Free for control of the regional press group, in which NJJ is already a minority shareholder, may have to wait even longer.

Indeed, the stage announced as decisive of the approval by the board of directors of the CMA CGM offer was immediately contested by NJJ, via its subsidiary Avenir Développement, whose two directors saw their votes against considered as invalid.

This offer to take over 89% of the shares of Groupe Bernard Tapie (GBT), in compulsory liquidation since 2020, in La Provence, had been the only one retained by the liquidators, because the best bidder: CMA CGM had put 81 million euros on the table, against "around" 20 million for NJJ.

The shipowner's project was therefore unanimously approved by the votes cast, ie two out of five.

But of the five directors, only four voted on Monday, including the two GBT representatives who validated CMA CGM's offer: the CEO of La Provence, Jean-Christophe Serfati, and the group's general secretary, Virginie Layani.

The third representative of GBT, Stéphane Tapie, eldest son of the businessman who died in October, could not vote.

He had given his power to an administrator of Avenir Développement, which is "statutory impossible", explained a source familiar with the matter.

Liquidation risk

There remained the two directors of Avenir Développement, a subsidiary of NJJ, which holds the remaining 11% of La Provence but whose takeover offer had been rejected.

The latter, by virtue of a right of approval (right of veto) classic in press companies, could, by a single vote of opposition, counter the entry into the capital of CMA CGM.

Xavier Niel, CEO of the Iliad group, on February 18, 2022 in the Senate Thomas COEX AFP / Archives

What they did not fail to do, despite the warning given by the chairman of the board of directors, Mr. Serfati, who had invited them to "abstain" or to "vote" the approval , as he explained to AFP.

Considering that these opposition votes "manifested the conflict of interest" of Avenir Développement, Mr. Serfati therefore deemed them inadmissible, referring to the judgment of the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal of April 7.

The court had indeed considered that there was "incontestably" a "conflict of interest" for Avenir Développement, both a candidate for the takeover of La Provence and holder of a right of veto against any new entrant.

The latter was initially suspended by the Marseille commercial court in January.

But it was then reinstated by the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal, which then considered that a possible conflict of interest had not yet materialized.

"This choice (Editor's note: by Mr. Serfati), contrary to both the law and the reality of the debates, is likened to a forced passage which only redoubles our fears for the future. We therefore formally contest it" , reacted NJJ in a press release, suggesting that it was studying possible legal proceedings.

For its part, the shipowner CMA CGM, based in Marseilles, was pleased that its project had "today obtained the approval of the board of directors of the La Provence group", which "puts an end to a long and difficult for the employees, whose representatives wanted "this outcome.

Monday evening, however, it was the expectation, again, which seemed to dominate among the union representatives of the 850 employees of the group, publisher of the two flagship titles of the South-East, the daily newspapers La Provence and Corse Matin.

“We are waiting to see what NJJ will do”, because “we still hope to know the two offers” of recovery, reacted to AFP Marie-Cécile Bérenger, CFDT representative, regretting that “once again, ( we are) always in a process where we oust one of the two offers, that carried by a press group".

“We fear that this will get bogged down and that we will end up in receivership or liquidation”, worried for her part Sophie Manelli, elected from the National Union of Journalists (SNJ), considering it difficult to project herself “as long as “we don’t know the legal turn” that the sequel will take.

© 2022 AFP