Pourquoi certaines sociétés belges s'introduisent-elles sur la bourse Euronext de Paris ?

Abstract

The 1990s saw a peak in the number of cross-listings, an operation that consists of listing a company's shares both on its domestic market and on a foreign market. Looking at the stock market news in our country, it is not uncommon to find that some Belgian companies choose to cross-list their shares on the Euronext stock exchange in Paris as well as in Brussels, or to list directly on Euronext Paris. The objective of this work is to explain the motivations of these migrations. However, the motivations of one company are not necessarily those of another. First of all, it is in the interest of a Belgian company to be listed on the Paris market if it has an activity in France and if the company is partly (or wholly) owned by French shareholders. The attractiveness of the Paris financial place is also a key element in this migration. Then, access to capital is improved as a result of listing on the French market. Listing on the French market also has a significant advantage in terms of increasing the liquidity of securities. However, this migration may be perceived as a problem. When a Belgian company chooses to list itself on its domestic market, it will continue to develop there, create jobs and create economic attractiveness, which will not be the case if it lists itself on the French market. It is likely to start opening up from a financial, shareholder and legal point of view, and may choose to relocate its activities to France. My recommendations are therefore aimed at improving the attractiveness of the Belgian financial place in order to contain these companies within the country.