By America Hernandez
PARIS (Reuters) -A group of EDF minority shareholders who are challenging the French state’s full nationalisation of the utility on Tuesday said they would drop their request to suspend squeeze-out proceedings.
The group said in a statement the government had given a guarantee that no such proceedings would take place before the Paris Court of Appeal had ruled on the legal grounds for the take-over.
A hearing on the motion to stay a forced sale of outstanding EDF shares had been scheduled for the morning of Jan. 25. The final court decision on the takeover bid is expected no later than May 2.
The government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The group of minority shareholders cited written comments by French stock market watchdog AMF, submitted to the Paris Court of Appeal, specifying that the shareholders’ request for a stay should not be heard “in view of the state’s pledge … to not implement a [delisting] targeting the EDF shares before the Court of Appeal ruled on the merits.”
France’s economy ministry had announced last Friday that the state had acquired 90% of EDF’s capital and voting rights, enabling it to delist the company in pursuit of a full nationalisation.
(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel, Leigh Thomas and America Hernandez; Editing by Dominique Vdalon and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
