Originally Posted by
orbitmic
Well, actually, if we are going to into the detail, it is worth remembering that the double vote can only be given to nominative shareholders and not with people owning things such as "titres au porteur", which are typically dominant, especially in cases like AF where the privatisation process was largely advertised through banks to small share holders at the time.
I have of course no insight into the share holding make up of AFKL (they just mention that 74.4% are floating shares, 17.6% to the French state, 6.6% for employees, and 1.4% for self-control, which tells us nothing), but compared to many other French companies, it does not have many declared large institutional shareholders.
So while it is absolutely fair
to mention that the double voting rights do not only apply to the State, I would personally think that your estimate above might be over-pessimistic regarding the actual voting power of the state. That is an unknowledgeable guess on my part though so if you think that I underestimate nominative shareholding in AF I'm happy to take your word for it.
You are quite right that it is hard to estimate.
As of recently, the major shareholders were:
Government of France 17.6%
Employee Stock Ownership Plan 6 .51%
Donald Smith & Co., Inc. 5.80%
Rothschild & Cie Gestion SCA 4.99%
Capital Research & Management 3.08%
Majedie Asset Management Ltd. 2.34%
DNCA Finance SA 2.29%
Dimensional Fund Advisors LP 1.40%
Air France-KLM SA 1.39%
Lazard Frères Gestion SAS 1.36%
Many have been longterm investors (unfortunately for them). Anyone owning more than 5% of the shares must hold them in registered form. I know as a fact that one of those below 5% hase moved to registered shares, but some have probably not. Most small investors have not. So I have no educated guess.
PS: Just a simple point of silly maths. Even if no other shareholder besides the French State had double vote rights, your initial calculation is still incorrect. The total percentage of voting rights of the State would move from 17.6/100 to 35.2/117.6. Sorry
orbitmic, I am ashamed but I could not resist.