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Share capital and share ownership
7.7 Share ownership structure as of December 31, 2015 and significant changes over the last three fiscal years
DANONE
REGISTRATION DOCUMENT 2015
316
Significant changes in Company's share ownership over the last three fiscal years
Share ownership and voting rights of the Company's principal shareholders
Year ended December 31
2015
2014
2013
Shareholders
Number of
shares
% of total
shares
% of net
voting
rights
(a)
Number of
shares
% of total
shares
% of net
voting
rights
(a)
Number of
shares
% of total
shares
% of net
voting
rights
(a)
MFS group
(b)
83,804,278
12.8% 10.8% 80,984,423
12.6% 10.3% 68,665,265
10.9% 8.7%
Sofina & Henex
group
14,110,330
2.2% 3.3% 13,957,819
2.2% 4.4% 13,584,541
2.2% 4.0%
First Eagle
Investment
Management
14,797,091
2.3% 2.3% 12,681,299
2.0% 2.0%
−
−
−
Amundi Asset
Management
11,447,283
1.7% 1.8% 13,574,413
2.1% 2.1% 14,048,609
2.2% 2.3%
Harris
Associates
11,277,884
1.7% 1.7% 19,551,538
3.0% 3.1% 14,426,983
2.3% 2.4%
CDC group
10,823,151
1.7% 1.7% 10,557,910
1.6% 1.7% 9,145,941
1.4% 1.5%
Norges Bank
9,357,050
1.4% 1.5% 9,665,010
1.5% 1.5% 10,761,115
1.7% 1.8%
Natixis Asset
Management
(c)
10,720,048
1.6% 0.8% 12,363,241
1.9% 1.1% 14,651,596
2.3% 1.5%
Employee
shareholding
“Fonds Danone”
company
investment fund 8,190,638
1.3% 2.5% 8,429,898
1.3% 2.6% 8,269,252
1.3% 2.6%
Treasury shares
– the Company 33,946,170
5.2%
− 37,933,295
5.9%
− 38,828,409
6.2%
−
Treasury shares
– Danone Spain
subsidiary
5,780,005
0.9%
− 5,780,005
0.9%
− 5,780,005
0.9%
−
Others
440,697,272
67.3% 73.7% 418,218,922
65.0% 71.3% 432,772,057
68.6% 75.2%
Total
654,951,200
100.0% 100.0% 643,792,000
100.0% 100.0% 631,028,000
100.0% 100.0%
(a) This percentage excludes shares held by the Company and its subsidiaries, which are stripped of voting rights.
(b) See hereafter for details on MFS group's position.
(c) Natixis Asset Management indicated that it held 5,310,766 voting rights as of December 31, 2015 and that this number of voting rights (gross and net) that it
owns in the Company is less than the number of shares that it holds, as some of its clients retain the voting right attached to the shares it manages.
Interest held by the MFS group
The Massachusetts Financial Services group (“MFS”) has gradually
increased its stake in the Company's share capital to 12.8% as of
December 31, 2015.
Until August 2012, the MFS group declared that it recognized sepa-
rately the DANONE securities held by the various entities within its
group. Prior to that date, two MFS group entities, MFS Investment
Management andMFS Institutional Advisors, Inc., hadmade separate
declarations of crossing thresholds to the Company.
On August 13, 2012, Massachusetts Financial Services Company
indicated to the Company that it had, on August 8, 2012, in ac-
cordance with the provisions of Article 223-12-II-1 of the general
regulations of the French Financial Markets Authority, abandoned
its disaggregation policy, which had aimed to recognize separately
in two groups of companies the stakes in the Company's share
capital owned. This decision has resulted, since August 8, 2012, in
the aggregation at Massachusetts Financial Services Company level
of all the DANONE shares held by the MFS group.
This decision also led the MFS group to declare the crossing of a
threshold to the French Financial Markets Authority on August 10,
2012. Abandoning this disaggregation policy led the MFS group to
cross the legal thresholds of 5% of capital and voting rights of the
Company (declaration No. 212C1042).
OnNovember 14, 2014, MFS declared to the French Financial Markets
Authority that it had increased its shareholding in Danone above
the 10% threshold (declaration No. 214C2390).
On April 29, 2015, MFS declared to the French Financial Markets
Authority that it had increased its voting rights in Danone above the
10% threshold and that it held 68,202,789 shares representing the
same number of voting rights, i.e. 10.59% of the share capital and
10.02% of the voting rights. On that occasion, MFS declared that it
did not plan to acquire control of the Company and did not intend