France Telecom’s partial flotation yesterday saw shares open at FF215 yesterday – making a sizable profit for the four million or saw private investors who bought shares at FF182. More than 10 million shares were traded in the first fifteen minutes of trade after trade opened in Paris as institutional investors, who paid a premium price of FF187 for their shares – 5% of the shares they had wanted, piled into the market to snap up any shares offered by the public. The opening price of FF215 gave France Telecom a market capitalization of FF215bn francs making it the largest market capitalization of any French company ahead of Elf-Aquitaine’s FF203bn. On Wall Street, France Telecom started trading at $34.4375 with its ADRs were the fifth most active stock on the New York exchange. By the time markets closed, France Telecom has a market capitalization of FF206.5bn. France Telecom now ranks eleven in the world telecom companies’ league by market value but the fourth largest by revenues. Some 3.9 million retail investors signed up for shares, including 125,000 staff – 70% of the company’s total workforce. The sale of 23% of the French government’s holding in France Telecom raised $42bn and was the country’s biggest ever flotation. The sale followed a U-turn by the socialist government, which was initially opposed to a sell- off.
