Recapitalisations to be planned, intervention strategy to be “updated”… The Court of Auditors warns in a report published on Sunday February 6 of the risks weighing following the crisis on the State shareholder, which has already mobilized large resources to support the groups whose he is in the capital. The Court of Auditors has taken an interest in this report in the management by the State of the pandemic as a shareholder of companies, whether through the Agence des participations de l’Etat (APE), which manages the public holdings in large companies (EDF, Air France-KLM, Orange, etc.), or via the Caisse des dépôts (CDC) and Bpifrance.
The Sages welcome the “effective” mobilization of the State in 2020 to support the groups in which it holds part of the capital, considering that the “powerful means” deployed “have played a key role in some large-scale operations”, such as in favor of Air France-KLM, Renault or EDF. In total, these interventions represented “high costs” for the State, underlines the Court, estimating the budgetary impact for 2020 at around 15.5 billion euros: 2.4 billion in uncollected dividends, 9 billion in less revenue on possible disposals, including that of ADP, and 4 billion from capital intervention (excluding the capital increase of 4 billion from the SNCF, considered by the Court as not linked to the crisis).
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Added to this is a loss of assets estimated at approximately 11 billion euros, including 9.7 billion for the portfolio managed by the APE alone, linked to the fall in value of State shareholdings, concentrated in transport and energy, sectors hard hit by the crisis. “Beyond the costs observed in 2020, the health crisis, which is not over at the time of writing this report, has consequences for the prospects of the companies concerned and entails risks of future costs for the public shareholder. “, However, fears the Court.
“Structural” problems of certain flagships
More than for Bpifrance or the Caisse des dépôts (CDC), the Court is especially concerned for the APE, which manages public holdings in large companies: “The delayed effects of the crisis for the holdings managed by the APE might be meaningful,” she warns. She mentions in particular, beyond the 2020 crisis, “recapitalization needs”, for certain industrial flagships, which have “more structural problems of profitability and cash flow”. She cites for example Air France-KLM which already had to transform last year an advance granted by the State into a loan of indefinite duration and launch a first capital increase, essentially subscribed by the State.
In her response to the Court’s report, the chairman of the airline group’s board of directors, Anne-Marie Couderc, also mentions a “capital increase operation in the first half of 2022, which would make it possible “to start repaying the aid from which the group has benefited”. The Court cites an APE study of December 2020 which assesses the need for public money to strengthen the equity of companies in difficulty between 7 and 20 billion euros, according to more or less optimistic scenarios (excluding interventions for EDF and SNCF).
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End of inadmissibility of Jean Castex
Already critical in a 2017 report on the policy of the State as shareholder, the Court this time clearly calls on the latter to “update” the strategy put in place in 2017, which defines that the sale of stakes by the APE must finance its equity investments. Because the crisis has reduced the possibilities of immediate disposals and the collection of dividends, while the needs for intervention are “potentially very high, whether it is a question of supporting public companies in their transformation or of s ‘engage further in the protection of strategic companies, the traditional revenue prospects of the state shareholder are uncertain,’ she notes.
The Court would also like the respective roles of the APE, the CDC and Bpifrance to be clarified for a better policy of the State shareholder. A path that the government does not seem to want to take. In his response to the Court, Prime Minister Jean Castex considers that such a reflection would be “premature” when the 2017 doctrine “showed fully satisfactory consequences” before the crisis.
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