(VF)En France, les actions à droit de vote double, les actions sans droit de vote et les participations indirectes, croisées ou pyramidales, permettent de contrôler une société avec un apport minimal en capital. Cet article analyse l’utilisation et l’effet de levier de ces mécanismes sur un échantillon de 560 sociétés cotées françaises en 2000. Les résultats révèlent le recours peu fréquent aux actions sans droit de vote et aux participations croisées. À l’inverse, les trois quarts des sociétés présentent des actions à droit de vote double et un tiers sont contrôlées via une pyramide. Mais au-delà d’un succès commun, actions à droit de vote double et pyramides ne se confondent pas:les actionnaires publics et financiers paraissent préférer les pyramides ; les actionnaires familiaux, les actions à droit de vote double. Les pyramides dissocient les droits aux cash-flows du contrôle de 43% en moyenne et les actions à droit de vote double, de 12%. Les pyramides apparaissent donc comme le levier de con-trôle le plus puissant.(VA)French law authorizes listed companies to use several devices to achieve control with a relatively small fraction of ownership. Double voting shares, non-voting shares, cross holdings, and pyramids are among these devices. We collected data for a sample of 560 French listed firms for the year 2000. This data reveals the rare use of non-voting shares and crossholdings and the widespread use of both double voting shares and pyramids. The latter two devices seem to be substitutes for each other. The extent of their use seems to depend upon the controlling shareholder’s identity. Pyramids are more frequent among stated-owned firms and firms controlled by a widely held financial institution. Double voting shares are more used by family firms. Pyramiding seems to be a device that ensures a large discrepancy between ownership and con-trol, accounting on average for 43% of the excess control, whereas double voting shares account for a difference of merely 12%.
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Volume (Year): 11 (2008) Issue (Month): 3 (September) Pages: 95-124 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
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