[ad_1]
The British activist fund, which holds about 5% of the capital of the media group according to Refinitiv data, estimates in a letter to the supervisory board and obtained by Reuters that the recent evolution of the share price is the "most obvious developer" the gravity of the situation ".
At 11:46, Lagardère shares sold 2.0747% to 23.6 euros, underperforming the European sector index (-0.73%).
Entering the capital three years ago, Amber is the third largest shareholder in the group behind Qatar's sovereign wealth fund (13%) and Arnaud Lagardère (7.4%), which manages the limited partnership.
He failed last year in his attempt to secure the nomination of two candidates for the Supervisory Board, in particular because of Qatar's support, which initially appeared to support his project.
Since then, Pierre Lescure, former president of Canal +, has resigned while several historical members of the board like Georges Chodron de Courcel (former CEO of BNP Paribas, 69 years old) and François Roussely (former CEO of EDF, 74 years old) have not requested the renewal of their respective mandates.
Lagardère has also launched an extensive divestiture program aimed at refocusing on airport publishing and shops, responding to Amber's wishes, which, however, consider that they are "much too slow".
Lagardère hopes to make a total of more than one billion euros of these disposals, which will result in an exit from the media group (outside the Sunday newspaper, Europe 1 and Paris Match) and sports.
According to Amber, however, only 253 million euros of assets have actually been sold to date, which leads the group to still bear restructuring and excessive depreciation charges. He also wondered about the management's desire to keep Europe 1 radio, whose losses are considered significant by the fund and which is now supervised directly by Arnaud Lagardère.
The fund also advocates for a governance review. He wondered in particular about the cost represented by Lagardère Capital & Management (LC & M), a holding company of Arnaud Lagardère, which invoices its services to the group even though the two operating structures (publishing and travel retail) have teams of managers. qualified.
Finally, the fund asks the supervisory board – the only true counter-power in a limited partnership – to play its full role, ensuring in particular when the mandate of the manager, Arnaud Lagardère, is renewed. "the most qualified to perform these functions".
The Lagardère group has not reacted immediately to this information.
(Jean-Michel Bélot, edited by Bertrand Boucey)
Source link