France’s Ministry of the Economy and Finance has initiated its ‘public reward’ for investors that took part in the Paris Euronext IPO of Française des Jeux (FDJ) in November 2019.
Groupe FDJ’s public investors will be awarded one additional share for each tranche of 10 IPO shares bought, with the supplement paid for by the French government.
The offer, which will be activated from May 24, has been guaranteed for public investors who have kept hold of their FDJ IPO shares for the past 18 months.
FDJ said in a statement to shareholders: “These additional shares already exist and are currently owned by the State. There will therefore be no creation of new shares or dilution of shareholders following this transaction.”
The reward was established by Bruno Le Maire, France’s Minister of Economy, as an incentive to stimulate public investment in FDJ, supporting the En Marche government’s plans to privatise the former state-owned lottery operator by listing FDJ on the Paris Euronext Exchange.
2019’s IPO of FDJ was recognised as the first divestment made by the En Marche government, spearheading its ‘Pacte Loi’ enterprise programme to minimise the state’s holdings in several public institutions.
An oversubscribed listing on the Paris Exchange saw FDJ register as Europe’s second-largest lottery operator, achieving a corporate valuation of €3.8bn – €4bn.
Despite its listing success, FDJ’s immediate performance was side-tracked by the pandemic events of 2020, which saw its POS retail network severely disrupted as 2020 corporate revenues declined by 7% to €16bn.