(News Bulletin 247) – Guest of BFM Business, Stéphane Pallez, CEO of FDJ, indicated that she hopes that the European Commission will render its decision on the investigation into exclusive rights, opened in 2021, “during the month of October “. The manager judged that in the event that Brussels announced a price supplement, the amount should not exceed a figure of around 300 million euros.

This is a file that has poisoned FDJ’s stock market life for more than three years: the investigation into the exclusive rights granted to FDJ during its privatization in 2019.

Brussels opened an investigation in 2021 into the allocation by the French state to FDJ of these exclusive rights to the physical and online lottery as well as to sports betting for a period of 25 years in exchange for a balance of 380 million euros. The European Commission is investigating whether this operation, carried out as part of the privatization of the group, did not provide an undue advantage to the company.

The European Commission’s verdict has been a long time coming. The market fears that it will result in a significant additional price for the group (the Citi bank mentioned more than 1.5 billion euros in 2022). This uncertainty undermines visibility on FDJ shares.

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“We are nearing the end”

Invited on BFM Business this Thursday evening, the CEO of FDJ, Stéphane Pallez, however warned that the decision could soon arrive.

“We believe that we are nearing the end of this process. We understood that the outgoing Commission which is still active would like to resolve this issue before handing over to the new Commission, which will take office in November,” said declared the manager in Good Evening Business.

“During the month of October, we hope to have good news on this subject,” she added.

As for a potential price supplement, if Brussels were to pronounce one, Stéphane Pallez judged that this “adjustment” would not exceed an amount “rather in the low hundreds of millions of euros, which we have perfectly taken into account “.

This supplement “cannot, in our opinion, exceed a range of around 300 million euros”, explained the CEO.

Stéphane Pallez also indicated that an increase in tax levies on gambling was not, according to her, on the government’s agenda.

An article in Les Echos raised this possibility on Thursday, which caused FDJ shares to fall by 6.36% this Thursday on the Paris Stock Exchange. This measure could appear in the Social Security financing bill (PLFSS) which must be presented next week to the Council of Ministers.

“I have been verified at the source and today there is no measure of this type in the PLFSS, which has not yet been adopted. But my information is that there is no basis, of the government’s decision to impose this type of taxation”, she argued. “That there are people in offices looking for additional revenue is possible” but “I checked the state apparatus and today it is not the government’s position to put this type of measure in the PLFSS”, she added.