France wants to go from a startup nation to an IPO nation. However, at the moment, France still badly lags behind the UK and Germany. To change that, President Emmanuel Macron has put in place an ambitious plan to address the deficiencies in France’s public markets. The goal: 10 French Tech IPOs by 2025.
To understand the challenges and needs, I spoke to Aurélien Narminio, head of equity listing at the Euronext stock exchange. Euronext is the largest European stock market and is working in partnership with the French government and institutions like Bpifrance to improve the conditions for IPOs.
Q: The French government has set a goal to see more tech unicorns going public here in France. How has Euronext viewed these initiatives?
AN: There's a strong focus from the government on stimulating a strong technology ecosystem in France. And as an exchange, for us, it's very interesting. We represent seven listing venues as Euronext: Oslo, Dublin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Milan, and Lisbon. So we are joining forces with different parties that are interested in making sure things have been going in the right direction. We’ve managed to gather very positive momentum around those initiatives with public authorities but also with the private sector. There’s a network effect in what the government tries to create that helps us as private-sector players.
Q: What has Euronext already been doing to catalyze more IPOs across Europe?
