There are about 3.3 million individual shareholders in France representing about 6.5% of all shareholding in the 40 largest French companies, two times less than in 2009. The figure remains approximate because, for unclear reasons, companies are reluctant to reveal their numbers. Banks appear to communicate more openly on this issue.
Guillaume Prache, Managing Director at BETTER FINANCE, said that "the desire from listed companies to better identify who their shareholders are is quite real. This is one of the major priorities in the ongoing revision of the EU Directive on shareholder rights, but the great majority of companies still refuse to communicate the precise composition of their shareholder structure, including to the owners who are individual shareholders. Certain strategic implications related to divulging this information is causing this attitude. “
This doesn’t only happen in France but all over the European Union according to Mr. Prache. He explains this is due to "the lack of interest and real political will." “There is not a single line mentioning the need to develop individual shareholdership in the recent EU Green Paper on Capital Markets”.
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