Due to the Tech sector’s tremendous potential to boost French economic growth, Caisse des Dépôts, the biggest institutional investor in listed French SMEs, and Euronext, the leading pan-European exchange in the Eurozone, today announced a joint initiative to accelerate growth at small and medium-sized Tech companies listed in Paris. This involves:
- launching a €100 million investment programme dedicated to small caps;
- creating a Euronext Tech Croissance index[1] to give the performance of these Tech names a higher profile.
Paris – 18 September 2019 – Caisse de Dépôts (CDC) already has a strong presence in French and other equity markets, with stocks accounting for 22% of its €173[2] billion investment portfolio, and now aims to step up its equity holdings – most notably in listed mid and small caps – in light of today’s persistently low interest-rate environment.
As a long-term asset manager, CDC has a total of €2.5 billion invested in this market segment. CDC plans to beef up its presence in the Tech sector in particular, given that the companies involved require greater long-range support than those of any other sector.
Starting in early July, CDC has accordingly decided to invest €100 million in smaller Tech names listed on Euronext Paris whose market capitalization is under €1 billion. The investments will be made through its subsidiary for listed SMEs, CDC Croissance.
Moreover, Caisse de Dépôts and Euronext have teamed up to ensure that listed Tech SMEs with long-term capital needs can demonstrate their full potential to investors in France, the rest of Europe and beyond who are willing to assist them.
Their goal is to hasten the advent of a broader, more active market for Tech stocks in France.
In coordination with the experts at CDC Croissance, Euronext has therefore created a market index for Tech SMEs listed in Paris called Euronext Tech Croissance. The index is composed of high-potential companies with trading liquidity in excess of €10,000 per day and market capitalization of between €25 million and €1 billion, and which are representative of the Tech sector as a whole.
The 150 names included operate in such areas as cleantech, ad tech, fab tech, sport tech, fintech, the Internet of Things, food tech and ed tech.
“In rolling out this investment programme, we aim to step up our presence in the listed small-cap Tech segment and help keep the market active,” said Olivier Mareuse, CDC’s Chief Investment Officer.
“As we are already heavily involved with efforts to support Europe’s Tech sector, we are extremely pleased today with the new Euronext Tech Croissance index. Through this initiative, we aim to showcase the innovative Tech companies listed on our exchanges and give them additional means to make the most of their growth potential,” added Nicolas Rivard, the Head of Advanced Data Services at Euronext.
Appendix: The appended document provides a number of facts and figures on the Euronext Tech Croissance index and its reconstituted market performance since 2006.
CONTACTS
Euronext
Media Team (Europe/Paris): +33 1 70 48 24 45;
mediateam@euronext.com
Caisse des Dépôts
Caisse des Dépôts Group – Press Department: +33 1 58 50 40 00
1 The index was introduced on 19 June and can serve investors as a regulatory or trading benchmark: https://live.euronext.com/en/product/indices/FR0013425352-XPAR
[2] VM in Md€ at 30-06-2019