Total & Merrill Lynch, French scams

[dawnstar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

You may not realize it but France is again very much immersed in
scandals involving bribes, kickbacks, scams, involving French national
and European politics at the highest level, straight up to today's news
of the condemnation of former NATO chairman. A little house cleaning,
yes, but its still business as usual. 

With Total's sister rival company Elf leading headline news tonight over
the year long scandal implicating former French foreign Minister and
currently President of Conseil Constitutionnel, - one of the highest
ranked personalities in the French state -- charged with
a multimillion dollar kickback scam involving Total's sister rival
company, the giant oil group Elf, and frigates sold to Taiwan,
EuroBurmanet wishes all a merry holidays, and gives you this latest news
of how TOTAL hopes to win over US institutional investors. Some seven
people have been "mise en examen", suppoened by the judges handling the
affair. Of course, TOTAL has a lot of business in partnership around the
world with Elf. They are more partners, than rivals but the world
business press likes to see them as separate and independent companies.
Competition is golden rule.

"Former Nato Chief Guilty of Corruption"/"Shame for Belgium's favourite
son"/
But look at what happened to the former head of Nato, over bribes taken
from French defense industry's favorite arms manufacturer Dassault. Both
ex Nato chairman, a meekish unassuming mole-like creature, Willy Claes
(Belgium deputry prime minister and economics minister before his
promotion to Nato), along with 11 defendants including another former
vice-premier and two formr ministers. "Many Belgiums saw the case as a
judgement on the country's whole 1980s political culture." 
"Serge Dassault, head of Dassault Aviation and one of France's
best-known industrialists, received a two-year suspended sentence for
his part in making payments to the Belgium socialist party to secure a
defense contract...The group makes the highly successful Falcon
executive jet and the Mirage and next-generation Rafale fighters."
(President Chirac has been a strong lobbyist for the French Rafale
fighter. sic)

Meanwhile, Serge Dassault was elsewhere, far from the courtroom, tending
company business "as shareholders ratified the transfer of the French
state's 46 percent stake in Dassault to Aerospatiale." Aerospatiale
carries the French state's industrial interest in the Airbus consortium.
Aerospatiale is now finalising its merger with the defense industry and
French media magnate (they own George in the US) Lagadere, bringing its
space launcher and vehicle interests to the new European space group
with General Electric Company of the UK, Daimler Chrysler Aerospace of
Germany and Finmeccanica of Italy, along with Dasa Raumfahrt
Infrastruktur, Dornier Satellitensystem and Alenia Spazio -- for a
combined business annual turnover of $3.17 billion. Global times means
global business mergers...

Still on the Nato kickback scam court ruling:
--"No appeal is possible becaue the involvement of former ministers
meant the case was heard by the country's highest court. Mr. Dassault
was found guilty of 'active corruption' for arranging payments to the
francophone socialists."
$$$
With its stock sliding, and billions of dollars wiped off its total
capital share value in one day after the deal was announced December 1,
now facing a General Assembly Shareholder meeting
in Paris January 14, TOTAL SA, hired US investment bank Merrill Lynch
to win over confidence of institutional investors -nearly one quarter of
Total stock held by US investors
$$$$$
"Merrill to help promote Total/Petrofina deal
Financial Times (UK) December 24, 1998, p12
By Jane Martinson (Investment Correspondent) 

Total, the French oil group, has drafted in a second investment bank to
try to overcome lacklustershareholder support for its proposed takeover
of Beligum's Petrofina, it emerged yesterday.
The group has appointed Merrill Lynch, the US investment bank, to beef
up its presentation o the $13 billion deal, which has so far failed to
win over sceptical shareholders.
Credit Suisse First Boston, the Swiss-US investment bank which worked on
the initial valuation and roadshow for the group, will continue to act
as adviser.
Total said yesterday it had decided to appoint an extra bank for the
second round of roadshows in the run-up to the all-important shareholder
meeting on January 14. "We wanted to have some more help, so we
appointed Merrill Lynch as an equity adviser," it said.
Shares in Total fell 12 percent the day after the deal was announced on
Dec 1, as doubts arose about 37 percent premium the group is paying for
Petrofina and the extent of possible cost savings and synergies.
The price continued to fall until just over a week ago, when a series of
meetings between management and shareholders appeared to start paying
off. Merrill was appointed a wekk or so after the deal was announced.
Total has previously won support from investors for its emphasis on the
more lucrative upstream business (exploration/production sic) rather
than the less attractive, and capital intensive, refining and marketing
end.
Some of this month's dissatisfaction is undrstood to have been prompted
by fears that this approach would change following the Petrofina
takeover.
US investors hold about one-quarter of the company's shares and have
been particularly keen on details of any proposed merger savings.
Merrill is expected to move from ninth to fourth place in the European
mergers and acquisitions league table for 1998, having advised on a raft
of deals including the $54b BP-Amoco mergr and the $13b merger of
Belgian banks Credit Bank and Cera. end