(News Bulletin 247) – Employee shareholding in the 120 main French listed companies remains at a high level. According to Eres’ annual barometer, 41 collective shareholding plans were offered to employees last year, for a total subscribed amount of 3.9 billion euros, a record.

The sharing of value in companies is at the heart of discussions in the National Assembly. The lower house broadly approved the “value-sharing” bill in its first reading on Thursday. The text of the law is, among other things, intended to develop employee shareholding, a system which had been supported long before by General de Gaulle.

More than 65 years after the implementation of these compulsory financial participations within companies with more than 100 employees, employee share ownership is still on the rise. And this appetite for this device is particularly well marked in the largest listed groups in the country.

Among the most fervent supporters of their company, we can mention the employees of Renault. Renaulution Shareplan, the employee shareholding plan of the Diamond brand has enabled its employees to hold around 4.7% of the capital since February. Renault hopes to emulate and thus achieve the objective of 10% employee shareholders by 2030.

More than a third of SBF employees 120 shareholders

Moreover, the employees of the main French companies listed on the Stock Exchange still believe in the prospects of their group. More than a third of the employees of the SBF 120 (a stock market index comprising the companies of the CAC 40 as well as 80 other companies, which collectively represent more than 80% of the capitalization of the Parisian market), are shareholders of their company, thus reveals the Overview of employee shareholding carried out each year since 2006 by Eres. They hold an average of 2.4% of the capital of the company that employs them

“In total, the SBF120 has 2.42 million employee shareholders. They hold nearly 68 billion euros in assets of their company. Thus, the average asset held by an employee shareholder is 28,070 euros”, comments Mirela Stoeva, Director of Studies at Eres.

Something new, Eres has established a ranking of the 7 companies in which employees are the main shareholder. In first place on this podium, we find Eiffage with 19.30% of the capital held by its employees as of December 31, 2022, followed by Vinci (9.90%) and Saint-Gobain (8.93%). Societe Generale (7.93%), Spie (7%), Totalenergies (6.80%) and finally, Veolia (6.50%) complete this list.

In 2022, 41 collective operations were therefore offered to employees of 38 SBF 120 companies, including 3 making their very first offer to their employees last year.

Above all, the total amounts subscribed remained on the rise last year, exceeding the records set in 2021. They increased by 5.4% over the year, from 3.7 billion euros in 2022 to 3.9 billion euros in 2021, a new historic record.

On average, employees invested 5,300 euros per person (including matching contributions) in the capital of their own company during the employee shareholding operations that took place last year. Despite the fall in the markets, Eres therefore notes a real enthusiasm among employees for these value-sharing mechanisms.

Also, employees who subscribed to an employee shareholding operation, carried out by SBF 120 companies between 2006 and 2017, were winners in 82% of cases with the dividend and the discount (without taking the contribution into account), explains Eres, where an individual shareholder would have won in only 76% of cases.

A poorly developed mechanism in listed SMEs

Above all, companies have everything to gain by involving their employees in their capital. The firm emphasizes the importance for them of involving their employees in the life of their company. In companies that have set up an employee shareholding plan, the number of voluntary departures is almost twice as low as that of companies with a very weak employee shareholding culture: 6.8% against 11.3%.

While employee ownership is widespread in large companies, this is not the case in small and medium-sized listed companies. However, the 2019 Pacte law reinforces the attractiveness of employee share ownership for this type of company, especially for those operating in the financial markets.

Listing on the stock market provides employees of small and medium-sized businesses with additional liquidity, with “the satisfaction of selling shares at a price reflecting the performance of the company to which they will have contributed”, recalled Nisa at the start of the year. Benaddi, Partner at EuroLand Corporate. “An economic performance, which according to many studies, is superior over time, when employees are involved in the capital” she adds.

The specialist then illustrated this relationship performance / employee involvement in capital with the example of Visativ, the specialist in digital transformation and innovation for SMEs and ETIs, listed on the stock exchange since 2014. The group based not far de Lyon has for several years placed the sharing of value with its employees at the heart of its overall development strategy.

But Visiativ still remains an exception in the world of small and medium-sized enterprises and mid-cap companies, even if their number has doubled since 2015. The Pacte Law aims for a target of 10% of the capital of French companies held by employees at horizon 2030.