MIDAS SHARE TIPS: Should you say oui to Canal+? The French media giant debuts in London after the Paris Stock Exchange snub

Eager shoppers looking for a last-minute stocking stuffer could do worse than buy 1,000 years of bothering the French.

Author Stephen Clarke’s fabulous tour through ten centuries of Anglo-French relations reveals that croissants were created by an Austrian baker, William the Conqueror was a sworn enemy of France and the guillotine was invented in Yorkshire.

Now a new mockery can be added to the list: French billionaire Vincent Bollore’s decision to list the country’s main media business, Canal+, on the London stock exchange, not the Paris one.

Canal+ has been hailed as the biggest IPO in the UK for over two years.

Valued at more than £2 billion, Bollore’s decision has provided a much-needed boost to the London market, which has suffered as sentiment has turned against UK shares and investors have increasingly invested their money in US stocks.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves made the most of the London coup, inviting Canal+ boss Maxime Saada to 11 Downing Street last week and telling him how excited she was by the decision to list here.

But for small investors, the key question is whether the shares will prove a dazzling addition to the UK market or a flop, like so many debuts in recent years.

The first signs are not encouraging. The shares started trading at 290p but ended the day down more than 20 per cent at 226.4p. They fell again yesterday, falling another 6.8 per cent, or 15.35p, to 211.05p.

Unlike most IPOs, Canal+ is, in City parlance, a spin-off. That means it will be spun off from parent company Vivendi, a multibillion-dollar conglomerate listed in France.

Some Vivendi shareholders only want to own French shares and others are prevented from owning investments outside Paris, so there are many sellers. Others are sold for tax reasons.

Potential buyers are biding their time, weighing whether they want the new shares and, if so, at what price. So should small British investors buy this newly listed French company?

Canal+ was founded 40 years ago as a French subscription television channel. Today, it is a global entertainment company operating in more than 50 countries.

StudioCanal, established together with the television division, has been a key contributor to the growth. Now it is a major production house and is behind the Christmas hit Paddington in Peru.

Regarded by many as absolutely adorable, and despised by others as sentimental, Paddington In Peru is undoubtedly a record-breaker, earning almost £10 million in its opening weekend.

Featuring stars such as Ben Whishaw, Olivia Colman and Hugh Bonneville, the film would seem to embody the culture and values ​​of the United Kingdom.

But StudioCanal, which made it, has a slate that includes a number of quintessentially British titles, such as Wicked Little Letters, also starring Oscar winner Colman, and Amy Winehouse’s life story Back To Black.

There’s also a rich library of movies and series, one of the largest in the world, with 8,000 offerings to its name, from Terminator 2 and Rambo to Bridget Jones and Love Actually.

Television companies have had a torrid time in the digital age. Streaming companies like Netflix, Apple and Amazon have upended the industry, offering highly flexible subscription deals that give couch surfers access to countless movies and series at any time of the day or night.

Here, BBC and ITV have been playing catch-up with iPlayer and ITV X. But Canal+ boss Saada took a different approach.

With a mix of Gallic charm and Parisian panache, he approached Netflix with a proposal: that instead of operating as rivals, they could act as partners.

In practice, this meant that Canal+ would offer its subscribers a premium package, combining its own range of existing titles with access to Netflix’s entire portfolio of films and series.

Netflix boss Reed Hastings agreed and Saada has since persuaded Apple TV, Paramount and producer HBO Max to join the party. Canal+ can therefore present itself to industry rivals and potential investors as a unique “super aggregator.”

For subscribers, it means being able to choose from a wide range of entertainment on a single platform. No more switching from one transmitter to another.

Even sports fans are well catered for, with Premier League matches and Formula One races, as well as numerous lesser-known competitions.

Monthly prices range from €2 to €80 and the group has almost 27 million subscribers.

Saada and his team are ambitious and hope to take the number of paid subscribers to 50 million and more through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions.

UK couch surfers are not in Saada’s sights, so we are unable to subscribe and there are no plans to change in the short term. Further afield, however, Canal+ has built up a 45% stake in MultiChoice, a leading entertainment company in Africa, offering television, video, streaming and sports to millions of consumers across the continent.

Earlier this year, Saada, 54, launched a bid to acquire the remaining shares of MultiChoice, a deal recommended by MultiChoice’s board of directors and which would transform Canal+’s business.

The group also has a growing presence in Asia, with a significant 37 percent stake in the popular streaming platform Viu, a stake that is likely to increase over time.

Saada’s group even includes a You Tube-style video-sharing platform known as Daily Motion, which offers free access to news, sports, music and entertainment clips.

Traditional UK TV channels have been slow to recognize the importance of video sharing apps. ITV agreed last week to broadcast its programs

YouTube. Canal+ bought Daily Motion almost a decade ago and monthly viewing figures run into the hundreds of millions.

So why would this entrepreneurial French media company choose to take its shares public in London?

And how tempting is it for UK investors? Canal+ has been integrated into Vivendi, a growing French conglomerate, for years.

More recently, Bollore has strived to present the group as a media and communications specialist, including companies such as advertising agency Havas and publishing house Louis Hachette.

Bollore and his family own about 30 percent of the shares, but other investors continue to see the company as something of a hodgepodge.

Vincent Bollore, 72, finally admitted that they might be right and opted to split the business into its constituent parts: Havas listing in Amsterdam, Hachette and Vivendi remaining in Paris and Canal+, the jewel in the crown, opting for London.

Those close to the company cite three fundamental reasons for the decision. First of all, Canal+ wants to be known as an international media outlet, not just a French one.

Two-thirds of its subscribers come from outside France and that percentage is likely to increase over time.

London is home to many foreign companies and institutional investors based in the City are believed to be more receptive to non-domestic operators than their cross-Channel counterparts.

Secondly, Canal+ produces a lot of movies and TV series in English, so it made sense to include them in an English-speaking country.

The third reason relates to MultiChoice. If that deal goes through, Canal+ would also try to list on the Johannesburg stock exchange. London has a fast track deal with the South Africans, so a second listing would be relatively easy to arrange.

However, life is unlikely to be easy in London, at least in the early days. Canal+ shares have had a poor start and are likely to fall further.

The company operates in a highly competitive market. Last year, it generated €6.2bn (£5.1bn) of revenue and €472m of underlying profits.

A slight improvement is expected this year, but the group is fighting with French authorities over a complex tax issue and some parts of the business are making losses.

Brighter prospects are forecast for 2025, particularly if the MultiChoice deal is successful.

Is this stock a buy? Canal+ can be an attractive bet for investors with a long-term vision.

Some brokers believe the price could double over the next year, so individual investors may want to buy some shares early. But there is no need to rush. It will almost certainly take a while for Canal+ to prove itself.