Client Alert
French Issuers: All You Need to Know for your Next Equity Offering
April 03, 2009
Erwan Barre and Guillaume Boitel
Faced with the economic downturn and increasingly difficult access to credit, as well as with deteriorating profitability, some publicly traded companies are considering an issuance of equity securities to strengthen their balance sheets and financial structure and, in some cases, maintain their credit ratings with rating agencies . This trend, which mainly affected banks in 2008, has broadened in recent months to include non-financial companies.
To prepare for such a transaction, which might need to be realized on short notice, it is worth reviewing certain problem areas and constraints that issuers may encounter, both with respect to the structure of their transactions and the information to be disclosed to the market, especially in light of recent changes in applicable law and regulations.