We meet today from today to examine the grievances Wendel and Deutsche Bank

We meet today - from today to examine the grievances Wendel and Deutsche Bank. We are not before the LVMH-Hermes folder. "At the outset of the hearing, yesterday afternoon, Daniel Labetoulle the implicitly: erupted late October of LVMH (owner of the"voices") in the capital of rival Hermes is in all minds. Several lawyers from the square, the outcome of this case should indeed not miss from interfering with the investigation of the MFA to the rise in the capital of LVMH in Hermes, which should last several months. For the President of the commission of the authority of des marchés financiers (AMF) sanctions, this operation has however nothing to do with the entry of Wendel investment company in the capital of Saint-Gobain, three years ago. In both cases, it is certainly "swaps", a category of financial instruments that allows in certain situations to expose economically to the capital of a company without holding securities in own. But this will stop the "similarities". A view supported by the rapporteur of the commission, Guillaume Jalenques de Labeau, a few minutes later, before setting out the reasons for which he recommended that the sanctions Committee to abandon purely and simply the complaints notified to Wendel and its former Chairman of the Executive Board, Jean-Bernard Lafonta, sitting yesterday alongside a row of lawyers.

The AMF investigators and the College of the regulator criticized the investment firm and its former leader did not have time informed the public of the financial transaction that it was conducting on Saint-Gobain between December 2006 and September 2007. A financial transaction which was in their eyes a "privileged information" at the time, which should give rise to a communication to the public "as soon as possible", as stated the regulations of the AMF. The origin of these suspicions: the successive purchase four banks (Deutsche Bank, Natixis, HSBC, Société Générale) packages of "total return swaps" (TSR) attached to the Saint-Gobain shares over the period concerned. These contracts to transferring all of the performance of an asset held in exchange for a variable reference. The operation allowed Wendel, Saint-Gobain today first shareholder with 17 of the titles, to expose economically to the capital of the manufacturer of construction materials, without titles, since contracts dénouaient in cash.

Lack of clarity

The problem in the eyes of investigators is that the ultimate intention of these operations were not economic but well capital-intensive. According to their thesis, the amounts involved were too high so that they do not induce the desire to takeover a significant share (23) of the capital of Saint-Gobain - movement perceived as hostile by the latter term. A thesis supported by the statements he is less than three weeks by Arnaud Desclèves, former Legal Director licensed Wendel to fault the year spent. According to this evidence, the intentions were clear from the beginning: ride to the capital of Saint-Gobain.

The study of the minutes of supervisory and executive boards, the rapporteur of the commission of the penalties of the MFA has however indicated yesterday came to the conclusion that this project was not clearly defined by the direction at the time and that the grievances were therefore not based. He failed to add Wendel, as of September 2007, started to buy shares on a regular basis directly on the market, in accordance with reporting threshold crossing. Other hearings should follow.