Gérard Charreaux

Efficiency of French Privatizations: A Dynamic Vision

The French privatizations program is one of the principal programs worldwide regarding the volume of equity issues. A reading of the privatization process through the corporate governance theory resulted in the development of a model allowing to take into account, on the one hand, the temporal dimension of the privatization process, and on the other hand, the contextual, organizational, governance and strategic variables that influence this process. After having replicated a certain number of traditional tests, we tested this model on a sample of 19 French privatized firms over a seven-year horizon, which resulted in the following conclusions. The favorable incidence traditionally attributed to privatizations was not truly confirmed for French privatizations, at least for the considered horizon. Privatization induces a significant positive effect on performance for only a small number of firms. The importance of the effect, however, is subordinate to some of the suggested variables.