ABSTRACT

Over the last 30 years, French investment capital rose to third place in the world in terms of amounts invested, just behind the United States and the UK. The advocates of this sector obtained a favorable set of rules (legal, accounting, and above all tax related) from public authorities keen to promote an equity economy. To what extent were promoters of private equity in France inspired by Anglo-Saxon professionals, while at the same time pushing their agenda through country-specific rules? This chapter deals with the creation of such a rule which, at the end of the 1990s, led to a shift in collective saving toward capital investment funds: the introduction, driven by the socialist government of the time, of so-called DSK life insurance contracts, the tax exemption of which was conditional on investment in companies not listed on the stock exchange. Taking this as our starting point, we relate how investment capital representatives persuaded public authorities to allow them to coproduce rules strengthening the hold that funds have over the companies they target, and how the investors in charge of such restructuring became richer. This chapter thus contributes to contemporary debates on regulatory capture and, more generally, on the power of dominant economic actors in the political sphere. It will be based on the original archives of the principal association that represents investment capital professionals in their dealings with public authorities and other actors at the Paris stock exchange: France Invest – formerly the Association Française des Investisseurs en Capital (AFIC). It will also make use of 12 interviews with former AFIC chairmen who are also directors of the leading French investment funds.