Still in its infancy in France, employee shareholding can lead to great successes. Like La Redoute, which will donate no less than 100,000 euros on average to each company shareholder employee.
recollection of facts In 2014, the legendary mail order brand was on the brink of the abyss. Kering then sells the company for a symbolic 1 euro to two of his managers: Eric Courteille and Nathalie Balla.
To turn the company around thanks to a new digital-oriented strategy, these two bosses immediately decided to partner employees, in particular through an employee participation pact made with Equalis Capital through the New R holding company and a FCPE (Fonds company investment fund). Nearly a thousand employees respond to this call (but we do not know the starting point).
The new strategy is beginning to bear fruit. To the point that the Galeries Lafayette group decided to take over 51% of the company in 2018.
“Token” initial bet
Free to exercise their right of sale, the managers of New R, who still owned 49% of La Redoute with the employees who had signed the FCPE takeover bid, sold their shares in December 2022 when the rise of Galeries Lafayette to 100% of the capital La Redoute went public.
A very nice operation since the capitalization has multiplied by 5 since 2019.
As a result, the thousand worker shareholders of La Redoute and Relais Colis “will dole out around 100 million euros, or 100,000 euros on average per person for a token initial investment less than ten years ago. the most profitable savings plans”, reads a press release from Equalis Capital.
Renault or Totalenergies promote employee participation
Employee shareholding continues to be the prerogative of large groups. Renault thus announced at the end of last year the launch of a comprehensive dedicated plan. The goal: to get its employees to own 10% of its capital by 2030. However, the group is quite a good student in this area with 3.61% of its total shareholding.
By way of comparison, “employees of companies in the SBF 120 (stock market index in which Renault is listed, editor’s note) own an average of 2.62% of the capital,” explains Mirela Stoeva, director of studies at Eres, a management and consulting firm specializing in employee savings, retirement and employee stock ownership.
However, other companies have much higher employee ownership stakes, such as TotalEnergies (the participation of the workers there represented a little more than 6.8% of the capital at the end of 2021).
Remember that all companies (with the exception of SARLs), regardless of their size, can offer their employees to become shareholders.
Source: BFM TV
