Many French enterprises
have undergone worldwide growth, most of which have successfully done so, our
country being today known as a “nursery” for the creation and development of MNEs.
The governance of these enterprises has largely changed with time, with
increasingly international Board of Directors and in some flagship cases, non-French
directors. Some groups are present in several countries with no more than
10/15% of their turnover in each country, learn to manage multicultural enterprises,
often with a largely spread and varied share ownership, without any dominant
shareholding allowing for an “anchoring” of the enterprise in a country. The
development of teleconferencing allows for acceleration of their international
growth with managing teams that may be global, spread across the planet in
order to be closer to their markets, and to be able to react with increased
speed during the accelerated development stages where competition is very hard.
These Multinational Enterprises
become Supranational, and are then free to relocate production centres,
research centres, teams, cash flows, or even governance in light of interests
of the Enterprise and of all of its components, without any component being able
to exert a major influence (the directors then become the ultimate decision-makers…).
Belgium is currently
in this situation with most of its enterprises no longer having their
registered office in Belgium or having been bought out… A few examples can be
found in France, in particular when the Chairman of Arcelor Mittal came to see
the President of the Republic who was unable to come up with arguments against
the decision to shut down sites which were presented as being non-profitable…
The trend seems inevitable
but still!
Enterprises that become
Supranational become de facto stateless.
Without a strong anchoring of the shareholding or without anchoring in a
country/region, they will not be able to resist takeover bids as the shareholders
will only see the potential upside. It is an illusion to believe that this
status will protect them on the long run since States will not wish to defend enterprises
having played a selfish game rather than that of the community. The RSE policies
that they may certainly have developed will not offset the decisions that may
have been taken in the interests of the Enterprise alone.
The underlying question
is then a matter of governance: which governance is suited for such enterprises?
How can one anchor them in a country, a region so that they can grow and consider
both their own interests and the interests of the community having allowed them
to grow, so as to allow that community to partake in the results of this
success, namely through taxation?
This fundamental question
is at stake today for many enterprises, their Board of Directors and their shareholders.
Shareholders, what do you think?
Olivier de Guerre
PhiTrust Active Investors
PhiTrust Active Investors
olivier.deguerre@phitrust.com
