Major shareholder reduces Eutelsat stake
February 22, 2019
By Chris Forrester
BPI France (Banque Publique d’Investissement), a French state-backed investment bank, has significantly reduced its stake-holding in Eutelsat.
BPI has sold about 15.5 million shares in the French satellite operator, and equal to 6.67 per cent of the company. BPI will retain about 19.8 per cent of its Eutelsat holdings.
“This partial disposal reflects our strategy of active portfolio management and will allow to finance other growth companies,” BPI CEO Nicolas Dufourcqsays.
The move also means that BPI will lose one seat of its three on the Eutelsat board of directors.
Eutelsat’s share price in early trading on February 22nd was down (4.37 per cent) marginally on the news, and analysts expect the stock to be “soggy” as a result of such a large batch of shares being placed on the market.