Originally Posted by
San Gottardo
To be fair (I know, that term again
) your observation is true for companies that are (part-)state-owned. But for other major French companies, we have seen a mix of patterns: L'Oréal had a British CEO for a very long time, Sanofi had a Austrian CEO for some time, and AXA just appointed a German CEO.
Well, yes and no. Sure it is lamost "always" the case where there is part state ownership, but where there is none, it is no guarantee that things will be done transparently, and in a way, it is even more shocking. Total? Vinci? BNP Paribas? etc. In fact, it is unclear to me whether the commonality between the examples that you take relates to the fact that they have no state ownership or rather to the fact that they are big but in sectors not considered "strategic" by the French state.
I really do think about the French elite processes that actually goes beyond the intervention of the State as a shareholder.
Originally Posted by
San Gottardo
The thing that makes me a little mad is how for everyone it seems to go by itself that a shareholder who only has 16% and whose interests are not aligned with the those of the company de-facto decides and promotes someone to the CEO job according to criteria which do not make sense in the situation the company is in.
Actually, the state has 17.6% of the shares, and in fairness, because of the double voting rights, that means 35% of the voting rights. To play devil's advocate for a minute, it is admittedly not unusual for such a dominant voter to play a dominant role in nominations (especially considering that most of the rest is highly fractioned).