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Elsa Keslassy
International Correspondent
@elsakeslassy See All
Gaumont One of France’s oldest film companies, Gaumont (“The Stranger”) is edging toward a delisting from Euronext Paris after a standoff with minority investors seeking an exit.
The Seydoux family — which controls close to 90% of the company — has been ordered by the French watchdog body, Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), to make an offer to buy out all remaining shareholders, including funds such as HMG, Gay-Lussac and Axxion. The ruling from the AMF was made in October 2025, and was upheld by the Paris Court of Appeal last week.
Under the ruling, Gaumont had to file a public buyout offer within six months. That deadline now expires in mid-April. By then, the company’s majority shareholders – including Nicolas Seydoux, Sidonie Dumas (Gaumont’s CEO), Michel Seydoux and Pénélope Seydoux, as well as Ciné Par, Nicolas Seydoux’s holding — must set an offer price, have the valuation approved by an independent expert, and secure full financing.
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The standoff with minority shareholders took root after 2017, when Gaumont sold its 34% stake in its cinema joint venture with Pathé, ran by Nicolas’s brother Jerome Seydoux, for €380 million and repurchased a large portion of its publicly traded stock.
These moves allowed the Seydoux family to increase its control to 90% of the company, but in the years that followed, trading in Gaumont shares steadily dried up, prompting one of its shareholders, the fund manager Axxion, to petition the AMF in 2025, arguing they were effectively locked into the stock. The AMF ultimately deemed admissible the request of Axxion. Since a single valid request is sufficient to trigger a buyout obligation for all minority shareholders under French law, the Seydoux family found itself forced to launch a buyout offer.
In its ruling, the AMF pointed that Gaumont’s annual trading volumes fell dramatically, reaching just over 17,000 shares in 2024. The regulator also estimated that it could take “between six and 17 years” for some investors to sell their holdings and concluded that “the possibility… to sell their shares on the market, under normal conditions of time and price, appears durably compromised and without prospect of improvement.”
Gaumont and its controlling shareholders initially challenged the AMF’s ruling, arguing that some investors were seeking to force a buyout at an advantageous price. Now that they’ve lost the appeal, the Seydoux family finds itself in a tricky spot.
“They may be tempted to lower the valuation, but doing so would weaken the asset and expose it strategically,” says an industry source.
Gaumont, which turned 130 last year, reported stable revenue at €150 million (€172 million) in 2025 but saw its losses soar by 153% to €19.5 million. While its cinema business was down 23%, theatrical activity in France jumped by 89% to €14 million, with strong box office performances for movies such as Franck Dubosc’s “A Bear in the Jura” and Ken Scott’s “My Mother, God and Sylvie Vartan.” But the company has faced structural challenges since selling its stake in exhibition in 2017 to focus on production and distribution, including in the U.S. A number of factors, including the showdown of streamers’ commissions, led Gaumont to shutter the bulk of its business across the Atlantic.
Pathé, meanwhile, started plotting an IPO several years ago and ultimately abandoned the project. The company is still led by 91 year-old Jerome Seydoux and welcomed a minority shareholder, Rodolphe Saadé, a French-Lebanese shipping billionaire who took a 20% stake in the company, last year.
Another big French studio, UGC, which operates one of France’s leading cinema chains, welcomed Canal+ group as its minority shareholder with 34% stake last year. Under the deal, Canal+ will be able to gain full control of UGC in 2028.
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