Agence des participations de l'État

Government agency overview
Formed	2004
Jurisdiction	France
Motto	Incarner l'État actionnaire
Employees	53 (2018)
Minister responsible	Ministry of the Economy and Finance
Website	economie.gouv.fr/ape

Agence des participations de l'État (French pronunciation: [aʒɑ̃s de paʁtisipasjɔ̃ də leta], APE, lit. 'State Participations Agency'), created in 2004 under the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin, is the French agency responsible for managing the State's shareholdings in companies of strategic importance.^[1] As of 2022, APE has €732.514 billion worth of assets under management, which includes investments in companies involved in energy, industry, defence, transport, communication and finance, among others.^[2]

The State participation agency is a Service à compétence nationale (service with national competence) created in September 2004.^[3] The creation of the Agency responded to the need to clarify the role of a shareholder of the State and the promotion of its patrimonial interests alongside the regulatory functions, tax collection, sectoral supervision, buyer that the State exercises.

This first step provided the State with a structure embodying and exclusively exercising its role as a shareholder. The second step was to endow the APE with greater autonomy. The appointment of a State Equity Commissioner, reporting directly to the French Ministry of the Economy and Finance, completed the process. Since May 2017, the APE has 88 companies ^[4] in its portfolio.

Since 2001, the activity of the State shareholder has been traced every year in a report appended to the draft Loi de finances en France (Finance law in France).^[5]

The main operations carried out by the agency were:

• 2003
  • Merger of Air-France and KLM
  • Transformation of DCN into a public limited company in 2003, which became Naval Group in 2017
• 2004
  • Transformation of France Telecom into a public limited company in 2004, which became Orange in 2006
• 2005
  • Merger between SNECMA and SAGEM, which became Safran in 2005
  • Opening of the capital of EDF with nearly 5 million subscriptions from individuals
  • Initial public offering of Gaz de France and its listing on CAC 40
  • Transformation of ADP into a public limited company
• 2006
  • Opening of the capital and the IPO of Aéroports de Paris in 2006 with 2.6M orders
  • Disposal of Société des autoroutes du Nord et de l'Est de la France, Autoroutes Paris-Rhin-Rhône and Autoroutes du Sud de la France
• 2007
  • Entry of Thales into the capital of DCN
• 2008
  • Merger between Gaz de France and Suez to create the GDF-Suez group which became Engie in 2015
• 2010
  • Merger of the two tunnel boring companies SFTRF and ATMB
  • Transformation of La Poste into a public limited company
• 2012
  • Recapitalization of Dexia
• 2013
  • Takeover of the debt of the EPFR - Établissement public de financement et de restructuration (Public financing and restructuring institution) contracted vis-à-vis Crédit Lyonnais
  • Creation of the Bpifrance (BPI)
• 2014
  • Acquisition of a stake in PSA Peugeot Citroën
  • Acquisition of a stake in Marseille Provence Airport
• 2015
  • Restructuring of the nuclear sector started with EDF, Areva and Orano
  • Restructuring of the land armaments sector with the merger of Nexter and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann to form KNDS
• 2017
  • Merger between Safran and Zodiac Aérospace
  • Provisional nationalization of the Chantiers de l'Atlantique of Saint-Nazaire
• 2018
  • Reform of the public broadcasting
  • New Railway Pact
• 2019
  • Privatization of La Française des Jeux
• 2023
  • Elimination of GIAT Industries from the SNPE-Eurenco structure^[6]

The four missions of the Agency are as follows: Foster the economic performance of companies, their profitability and their long-term development; Act as a wise shareholder in corporate governance companies; Manage the portfolio of investments through acquisitions, disposals or shareholder mergers; Promote the exemplarity and social and environmental responsibility of companies.^[7]

The agency exercises the usual responsibilities of shareholders. In particular, the members of the agency represent the State on the boards of directors. The agency “ensures a sufficient level of control in companies operating in sectors that are particularly sensitive in terms of sovereignty”. It enforces political decisions in corporate governance, such as feminization, and executive compensation.^[8]

Since 2017, the Agency has revised its shareholder strategy.^[9] From now on, the State is intended to be a shareholder in three types of companies: strategic companies which contribute to sovereignty (defense and nuclear), companies participating in public service missions or of national or local general interest for which regulation would be insufficient to preserve public interests and ensure public service missions, companies in difficulty whose disappearance could lead to a systemic risk.

The successive directors have been:

• Denis Samuel-Lajeunesse appointed general manager of the State participation agency on September 15, 2004^[10]
• Bruno Bézard appointed director general of the state participation agency on February 26, 2007^[11]
• Jean-Dominique Comolli appointed Commissioner for State Investments on September 15, 2010^[12]
• David Azéma appointed Commissioner for State Investments on September 1, 2012^[13]
• Régis Turrini appointed Commissioner for State Investments on September 1, 2014^[14]
• Martin Vial appointed Commissioner for State Investments on August 24, 2015.

For the performance of its missions, the APE has a tight team of 53 people, mostly civil servants. As of July 1, 2019, it had 27 senior executives and investment managers (General management and investment management) traditionally from engineering bodies (44%), but also, in order to diversify profiles, from other bodies. (30% civil administrators, 33% civil servants from other bodies - INSEE, Banque de France, IGF, Cour des comptes) or contract employees. Nearly 30% of the senior managers of the APE are also graduates of a major business school. The areas of expertise (financial, legal, audit and accounting and communication), support functions and secretariats employ 26 people.^[15]

Resulting from historical stratification, the entities falling within the scope of APE represent both companies in various sectors (services and finance, energy, transport, industry) and multiple statutes – public limited companies in the majority of cases, but also public institutions of an industrial and commercial nature (établissements publics à caractère industriel et commercial - EPIC).^[8][16]

• Bpifrance (company)
• Caisse des dépôts et consignations
• Établissement public à caractère industriel et commercial
• Government-owned corporation

• Official website (in French)