Under siege 困兽之斗

Aggressive foreign shareholders have attacked several French firms in recent years. Both Valeo, a medium-sized car-parts firm, and Atos Origin, an IT company, changed their management and strategy following activist campaigns. Colony Capital, a property fund based in Los Angeles, helped shake up Carrefour, a multinational retailer. Alexander Vik, a Norwegian investor, made an unsuccessful run at Vivendi, a telecoms and entertainment firm. But the attempt by Guy Wyser-Pratte, a New York financier, to alter the corporate structure and strategy of Lagardère, a media firm, will be by far the most daring and difficult. Mr Wyser-Pratte is seeking a seat on the firm’s board at its annual general meeting on April 27th.

近几年来，外国股东们已经对好几家法国公司进行侵略性的攻击。法雷奥——一家中规模汽车配件公司——和源讯——一家IT公司——都随着这场激进运动改变了它们的管理策略。科隆投资——一个总部在洛杉矶的投资机构——促进了家乐福（跨国零售商）的改组。挪威投资家亚历山大•维克对威望迪通讯娱乐公司的攻击最终落空。但纽约金融家盖威舍帕拉特却正试图改变拉加代尔的企业结构与策略，此举极其大胆也极其困难。于是盖威舍帕拉特正试图在公司4月27日召开的常务年会上谋求董事会的一席之地。

Lagardère, founded by one of France’s best-known entrepreneurs, the late Jean-Luc Lagardère, used to have interests in cars, telecoms and arms manufacturing as well as in media. It still owns a 7.5% stake in EADS, Europe’s aerospace and defence champion. Lagardère also has a stake in Le Monde, the newspaper of the French elite, and publishes Paris Match, a celebrity and news magazine. The world’s second-biggest publisher of books, it is behind Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling vampire novels and the comic-strip adventures of Astérix, a cunning Gallic warrior.

拉加代尔，由法国最著名的企业家之一，已过世的让吕克•拉加代尔创建。公司业务曾广泛涉及到汽车，通讯，军工及传媒的投资，并至今还拥有欧洲宇航防务集团7.5%的股份。同时，拉加代尔也有在《世界报》、《法国精英报》的股权及出版《巴黎竞赛》（一个社会名流与新闻的杂志）。作为世界第二大图书出版商，仅落后于史蒂芬梅尔最畅销的吸血鬼小说与狡猾的高卢战士阿斯泰里克斯的冒险连环画。

If Mr Wyser-Pratte wins a seat on the board, he will push for a change to the firm’s status as a limited partnership in which two general partners—Arnaud Lagardère, son of Jean-Luc, and a company that he controls—have unlimited liability for the debts of the firm in return for near-total control. The board’s powers are limited so that ordinary shareholders have little sway over the running of the company. Most shareholder proposals, for instance, must be approved in advance by Mr Lagardère, who owns less than 10% of Lagardère’s shares.

如果威舍帕拉特在董事会赢得一席之地，他将推动公司改变目前的有限合伙制结构，现在两个主要合股人——让吕克的儿子阿尔诺·拉加代尔，以及一个有他控制的公司——因对公司债务负无限责任而导致他们几乎拥有公司所有的控制权。董事会的权利被限制以至于普通股东无法左右公司的运行。大多数股东建议，例如，必须要事先得到拉加代尔先生的同意，但他仅拥有不到10%的股份。

Such an arrangement, which virtually precludes a takeover, is very unusual among large French firms, according to RiskMetrics, an advisory service for institutional investors. Of the 84 companies with a market capitalisation of more than