Opacity Through Entity Renaming

"Did you say transparency? Bernard Arnault will once again, on May 25, 2000, change the names of his head companies, an unusual practice in large listed groups and which Bernard Tapie, at his beginnings, had made a specialty of to confuse the former shareholders of the companies he took control of. On"

"His 36% stake in Financière Agache is held by Férinel, which changes its name for the first time (a practice that will become systematic to confuse matters) to Arnault and Associates SA. He then offers financiers a 49% stake in this new company."

"How is it that LVMH did not appear during the threshold declarations at the time of the wave of Bouygues share purchases in 1999? Already, its presence was masked by a sleight of hand. In December 1999, LVMH loaned to Financière Agache, another head company owned 100% by Groupe Arnault, the 3.11% of Bouygues acquired that year. "When LVMH, a listed company and star of the CAC 40, crossed the 5% threshold in Bouygues, there was no declaration because its shares were assimilated to those of Groupe Arnault, which indirectly controls LVMH and had already crossed this threshold," write Les Échos. As a result, LVMH did not appear in the notice of the Financial Markets Council mentioning, at the end of 1999, the crossing of the 10% threshold of Bouygues' capital by Groupe Arnault."