Air France KLM in free fall on the Paris Stock Exchange after the entry into the capital of the Dutch government and the harsh reaction of France.
The stock opened trading down 9%. Just over an hour later, it even dropped 14,06% to 10,94 euros.
The Dutch government announced yesterday, February 26, that it had gone up to the 12,8% stake in the company for an investment of 680 million euros. Not only that, the announced goal would be to reach 14%. Why exactly 14 percent? The percentage does not seem to be exactly random, given that the current majority shareholder of the company is the French State with 14,3% of the capital.
However, the Netherlands did not inform either the company's board or the French shareholder of their intentions, unleashing the fury of Paris which reacted by stating that the airline must remain free from “state interference”. According to what was declared by the French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire to the newspaper Les Echos it is "essential to respect the principles of good governance" without national interference. The new stake will in fact allow the Hague government to ask for seats on the board at the next shareholders' meeting, dealing on an equal footing with the transalpines.
“By buying these shares, the Dutch government wants to be capable of directly influencing the future development of Air France-KLM, in order to best ensure the Dutch public interest,” Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra replied remotely during a press conference in The Hague. "There was simply too little state influence in KLM to be able to look after the Dutch public interest well," the minister added, according to Bloomberg reports. In fact, we recall that the two companies merged in 2004 but continue to operate mainly as separate brands.
