''Agence des participations de l'État'' (APE, literally "State Participations Agency"), created in 2004 under the government of

Jean-Pierre Raffarin Jean-Pierre Raffarin (; born 3 August 1948) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 6 May 2002 to 31 May 2005. He resigned after France's rejection of the referendum on the European Union draft constitution. Howeve ...

, is the French agency responsible for managing the State's shareholdings in companies of strategic importance. As of 2021, APE has €685.3 billion worth of assets under management, which includes investments in companies involved in energy, industry, defence, transport, communication and finance, among others.

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 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, legally ''Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V.'' (literal translation: Royal Aviation Company Plc.), is the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands. KLM is headquartered in Amstelveen, with its hub at nearby Amste ...

** Transformation into

public limited company A public limited company (legally abbreviated to PLC or plc) is a type of public company under United Kingdom company law, some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth jurisdictions, and the Republic of Ireland. It is a limited liability company ...

of DCN in 2003, which became

Naval Group Naval Group is a major French industrial group specialized in naval defense design, development and construction. Its headquarters are located in Paris. Heir to the French naval dockyards initiated in 1631 by Cardinal Richelieu and to the Direc ...

in 2017 *2004 ** Transformation into a public limited company of

France Telecom Orange S.A. (), formerly France Télécom S.A. (stylized as france telecom) is a French multinational telecommunications corporation. It has 266 million customers worldwide and employs 89,000 people in France, and 59,000 elsewhere. In 2015, ...

, in 2004, which became

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...

in 2006 *2005 ** Merger between

SNECMA Safran Aircraft Engines, previously Snecma (''Société nationale d'études et de construction de moteurs d'aviation'') or Snecma Moteurs, is a French aerospace engine manufacturer headquartered in Courcouronnes and a subsidiary of Safran. It ...

and SAGEM which gave Safran ** Opening of the capital of

EDF EDF may refer to: Organisations * Eclaireurs de France, a French Scouting association * Education for Development Foundation, a Thai charity * Électricité de France, a French energy company ** EDF Energy, their British subsidiary ** EDF Luminus, ...

with nearly 5 million subscriptions from individuals ** Initial public offering of

Gaz de France Gaz de France (GDF) was a French company which produced, transported and sold natural gas around the world, especially in France, its main market. The company was also particularly active in Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany, and other Europea ...

and its listing on

CAC 40 The CAC 40 (french: CAC quarante ) (''Cotation Assistée en Continu'') is a benchmark French stock market index. The index represents a capitalization-weighted measure of the 40 most significant stocks among the 100 largest market caps on the E ...

** Transformation into a public limited company of ADP *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 Thales of Miletus ( ; grc-gre, Θαλῆς; ) was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, statesman, and pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. He was one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regarded him ...

into the capital of DCN *2008 ** Merger between

and

Suez Suez ( ar, السويس '; ) is a seaport city (population of about 750,000 ) in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez (a branch of the Red Sea), near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boun ...

to create the GDF-Suez group which became

Engie Engie SA is a French multinational utility company, headquartered in La Défense, Courbevoie, which operates in the fields of energy transition, electricity generation and distribution, natural gas, nuclear, renewable energy and petroleum. ...

in 2015 *2010 ** Merger of the two tunnel boring companies SFTRF and ATMB ** Transformation into a public limited company of La Poste *2012 ** Recapitalization of

Dexia Dexia N.V./S.A., or the Dexia Group, is a Franco-Belgian financial institution formed in 1996. At its peak in 2010, it had about 35,200 members of staff and a core shareholders' equity of €19.2 billion. In 2008, the bank entered severe ...

*2013 ** Takeover of the debt of the EPFR - Établissement public de financement et de restructuration (Public financing and restructuring institution) contracted vis-à-vis

Crédit Lyonnais The Crédit Lyonnais (, "Lyon Credit ompany) was a major French bank, created in 1863 and absorbed by former rival Crédit Agricole in 2003. Its head office was initially in Lyon but moved to Paris in 1882. In the early years of the 20th c ...

** Creation of the

Bpifrance ''Banque publique d'investissement'' (literally ''renchPublic Investment Bank'', also known as Bpifrance, BPI Groupe S.A.) is a French public investment bank. It is a joint venture of two public entities: the Caisse des dépôts et consignations ...

(BPI) *2014 ** Acquisition of a stake in

PSA Peugeot Citroën The PSA Group (), legally known as Peugeot S.A. (Peugeot Société Anonyme, trading as Groupe PSA; formerly known as PSA Peugeot Citroën from 1991 to 2016) was a French multinational automotive manufacturing company which produced automobiles ...

** Acquisition of a stake in

Marseille Provence Airport Marseille Provence Airport () is an international airport located 27 km (17 miles) northwest of Marseille, on the territory of Marignane, both ''communes'' of the Bouches-du-Rhône ''département'' in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur '' r� ...

*2015 ** Restructuring of the nuclear sector started with

, Areva and

Orano Orano SA is a multinational nuclear fuel cycle company headquartered in Châtillon, Hauts-de-Seine, France. The company is engaged in uranium mining, conversion-enrichment, spent fuel recycling, nuclear logistics, dismantling, and nuclear cy ...

** Restructuring of the land armaments sector with the merger of Nexter and KMW to form

KNDS The KMW+Nexter Defense Systems (KNDS) is a European defence industry holding company, which is the result of a merger between Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Nexter Systems. The joint holding company is based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. History KNDS is ...

*2017 ** Merger between

Safran Safran S.A. is a French multinational company that designs, develops and manufactures aircraft engines, rocket engines as well as various aerospace and defense-related equipment or their components. It was formed by a merger between SNECMA and ...

and Zodiac Aérospace ** Provisional nationalization of the

Chantiers de l'Atlantique Chantiers de l'Atlantique is a shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France. It is one of the world's largest shipyards, constructing a wide range of commercial, naval, and passenger ships. It is located near Nantes, at the mouth of the Loire river and ...

Saint-Nazaire Saint-Nazaire (; ; Gallo: ''Saint-Nazère/Saint-Nazaer'') is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany. The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary, near the Atlantic Ocean ...

*2018 ** Reform of the

public broadcasting Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

** New Railway Pact *2019 ** Privatization of La Française des Jeux

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

shareholder A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal own ...

s. In particular, the members of the agency represent the State on the

boards of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

. The agency “ensures a sufficient level of

control Control may refer to: Basic meanings Economics and business * Control (management), an element of management * Control, an element of management accounting * Comptroller (or controller), a senior financial officer in an organization * Controllin ...

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 September 15, 2004 * Bruno Bézard appointed director general of the state participation agency on February 26, 2007 * Jean-Dominique Comolli appointed Commissioner for State Investments on September 15, 2010 *

David Azéma David Azéma (born 22 November 1960) is a French businessman, and a former chairman and chief executive of Eurostar from 1999 to 2002; he worked with the French government's Agence des participations de l'État, and is chairman of Global Infras ...

appointed Commissioner for State Investments on September 1, 2012 * Régis Turrini appointed Commissioner for State Investments on September 1, 2014 * Martin Vial appointed Commissioner for State Investments on August 24, 2015. For the performance of its missions, the APE has a tight team of 53 people, mostly civil servants. As of July 1, 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).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Agence des participations de l'Etat Economy of France Government agencies of France Agence

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...