FRANCE: AMF Proposal to Reduce Major Shareholding Threshold

Wednesday April 29 2020

The Autorite de Marches Financiers (AMF) has published a report on shareholder activism. In the report the AMF discuss proposals on enhancing transparency on stake building by lowering the first legal notification threshold to 3%.

France is one of the only “large” jurisdictions in Europe to limit itself to the 5% threshold provided by the Transparency Directive. Thresholds of 1%, 2% or 3% have been introduced in numerous European countries, including Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Italy.

In the proposal the AMF cite the impact of lowering the threshold could be significantly reduced if they do not  apply to all securities (e.g. by exempting stocks listed on a growth market for SMEs) or all holders (e.g. by exempting UCITS), or if it only concerned voting rights.

In addition to lowering the threshold, the AMF may introduce additional information to be disclosed on the major shareholding disclosure form.

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