Agence des participations de l'État (French pronunciation: [aʒɑ̃s de paʁtisipasjɔ̃ də leta], APE, lit. 'State Participations Agency'), created in 2004 under the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin, is the French agency responsible for managing the State's shareholdings in companies of strategic importance. As of 2022, APE has €732.514 billion worth of assets under management, which includes investments in companies involved in energy, industry, defence, transport, communication and finance, among others.
Contents
History
The State participation agency is a Service à compétence nationale (service with national competence) created in September 2004.
The creation of the Agency responded to the need to clarify the role of a shareholder of the State and the promotion of its patrimonial interests alongside the regulatory functions, tax collection, sectoral supervision, buyer that the State exercises.
This first step provided the State with a structure embodying and exclusively exercising its role as a shareholder. The second step was to endow the APE with greater autonomy. The appointment of a State Equity Commissioner, reporting directly to the French Ministry of the Economy and Finance, completed the process. Since May 2017, the APE has 88 companies in its portfolio.
Since 2001, the activity of the State shareholder has been traced every year in a report appended to the draft Loi de finances en France (Finance law in France).
Operations
The main operations carried out by the agency were:
2003
Merger of Air-France and KLM
Transformation of DCN into a public limited company in 2003, which became Naval Group in 2017
2004
Transformation of France Telecom into a public limited company in 2004, which became Orange in 2006
2005
Merger between SNECMA and SAGEM, which became Safran in 2005
Opening of the capital of EDF with nearly 5 million subscriptions from individuals
Initial public offering of Gaz de France and its listing on CAC 40
Transformation of ADP into a public limited company
2006
Opening of the capital and the IPO of Aéroports de Paris in 2006 with 2.6M orders
Disposal of Société des autoroutes du Nord et de l'Est de la France, Autoroutes Paris-Rhin-Rhône and Autoroutes du Sud de la France
2007
Entry of Thales into the capital of DCN
2008
Merger between Gaz de France and Suez to create the GDF-Suez group which became Engie in 2015
Goal
The four missions of the Agency are as follows: Foster the economic performance of companies, their profitability and their long-term development; Act as a wise shareholder in corporate governance companies; Manage the portfolio of investments through acquisitions, disposals or shareholder mergers; Promote the exemplarity and social and environmental responsibility of companies.
The agency exercises the usual responsibilities of shareholders. In particular, the members of the agency represent the State on the boards of directors. The agency "ensures a sufficient level of control in companies operating in sectors that are particularly sensitive in terms of sovereignty". It enforces political decisions in corporate governance, such as feminization, and executive compensation.
Since 2017, the Agency has revised its shareholder strategy. From now on, the State is intended to be a shareholder in three types of companies: strategic companies which contribute to sovereignty (defense and nuclear), companies participating in public service missions or of national or local general interest for which regulation would be insufficient to preserve public interests and ensure public service missions, companies in difficulty whose disappearance could lead to a systemic risk.
Direction
The successive directors have been:
Denis Samuel-Lajeunesse appointed general manager of the State participation agency on 15 September 2004
Bruno Bézard appointed director general of the state participation agency on 26 February 2007
Jean-Dominique Comolli appointed Commissioner for State Investments on 15 September 2010
David Azéma appointed Commissioner for State Investments on 1 September 2012
Régis Turrini appointed Commissioner for State Investments on 1 September 2014
Martin Vial appointed Commissioner for State Investments on 24 August 2015.
For the performance of its missions, the APE has a tight team of 53 people, mostly civil servants. As of 1 July 2019, it had 27 senior executives and investment managers (General management and investment management) traditionally from engineering bodies (44%), but also, in order to diversify profiles, from other bodies. (30% civil administrators, 33% civil servants from other bodies – INSEE, Banque de France, IGF, Cour des comptes) or contract employees. Nearly 30% of the senior managers of the APE are also graduates of a major business school. The areas of expertise (financial, legal, audit and accounting and communication), support functions and secretariats employ 26 people.
List of firms
Resulting from historical stratification, the entities falling within the scope of APE represent both companies in various sectors (services and finance, energy, transport, industry) and multiple statutes – public limited companies in the majority of cases, but also public institutions of an industrial and commercial nature (établissements publics à caractère industriel et commercial – EPIC).