The Peugeot family could find itself with a majority stake in PSA Peugeot Citroën as a result of the company's share buyback programme.
Pierre Peugeot, right, the head of the PSA supervisory board, acknowledged that the family may come to control more than 50% of the votes in the company though the process could take up to a decade.
In recent years PSA, which makes the Citroën C5 Break, above, has had a policy of buying back and then cancelling its own shares which in turn has meant a relative increase in the family's holding.
At the start of the buy-back programme the family had 22.68% of the shares and 34.37% of the voting rights but by the end of last year it owned 26.46% of the shares and spoke for almost 40% of the votes. That proportion of the votes will rise again after this month's shareholder meeting approved an extension of the share buyback programme.
"The increase in the family stake is purely a mechanical process as a result of the company buying back the shares. Getting to 50% will depend on whether the buyback programme continues," said one industry source.
The Peugeot family already has sufficient votes to block significant changes to the group's structure and its increasing authority can only strengthen the hand of executive board chairman Jean-Martin Folz.
