They dispute the conditions under which the electrician’s board of directors validated the said takeover bid.
EDF shareholders are asking the AMF (Financial Markets Authority) to “to suspend» his decision expected on Tuesday concerning the renationalization of EDF, because they consider themselves aggrieved by the terms of the OPA (public purchase offer) carried out by the State, according to a letter of which AFP obtained a copy on Monday. They indicate that they have summoned EDF before the Paris Commercial Court, an interim hearing scheduled to be held on Monday afternoon and which could put a spoke in the wheel of the procedure.
These shareholders, mostly employees and former employees, and united under the banner of the Fonds Commun de Placement d’Entreprise (FCPE) EDF Actions, with which the association of shareholders Énergie en actions has joined, contest the conditions under which the the electrician’s board of directors validated the said takeover bid. Together they represent around 1.5% of the capital, according to an Energies en actions manager. In particular, they considerthat the Board of Directors was not validly convened, insofar as the statutory convening period of seven days, provided for by EDF’s internal regulations, was not respected».
Deadlines deemed too short
Another grievance,all the documents that should allow the directors to decide on the project» (…) «were not sent to the directors within a reasonable time, since they were received on October 26 between 8 p.m. and 11:02 p.m., i.e. less than 12 hours, and during the night preceding the meeting of the EDF board“, According to this letter. The administrators must have become aware in this period of “more than 500 pages and documents relating to particularly technical financial and legal analyzes“, according to the shareholders who denounce “a serious breach of the duty to inform».
As for the summary proceedings before the Commercial Court, “insofar as the outcome of this hearing (Monday) will have direct consequences on the follow-up to be given to the Offer, and on the validity of the elements filed with the AMF (by EDF), we ask you to suspend the examination of the offer by your services pending the decisionfrom the commercial court, they conclude in their letter to the AMF.
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Unless appealed, the AMF’s decision is expected on Tuesday, for an opening of the offer on Thursday and a closing on December 8. The State-shareholder (which already has 84% of the capital) hopes to obtain, at the close of the takeover bid, 90%, the threshold from which a procedure of compulsory withdrawal from the Stock Exchange can be launched to recover securities. On October 4, the French state officially launched the process of renationalizing EDF, a 9.7 billion euro operation wanted by the government to relaunch a vast nuclear program after a dark year for the electricity group.
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