NextFin News - French financial prosecutors have expanded a long-running investigation into the business dealings of billionaire Vincent Bolloré to include Morgan Stanley, examining the bank’s role in the €5.7 billion ($6.2 billion) sale of Bolloré SE’s African logistics unit. According to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg, investigators are scrutinizing whether the 2022 divestiture to Mediterranean Shipping Co. (MSC) involved any irregularities or served as a mechanism to obscure previous legal liabilities. The probe marks a significant escalation in the judicial pressure facing both the French industrialist and the Wall Street institutions that facilitate his global dealmaking.
The inquiry originates from a decade-old investigation into how Bolloré’s group obtained port concessions in Togo and Guinea. While Bolloré previously attempted to settle these allegations through a plea deal in 2021—admitting to corruption in exchange for a fine—a French judge rejected the settlement, insisting that the gravity of the charges required a full trial. Prosecutors are now looking at the subsequent sale of the logistics business to determine if the transaction’s structure or valuation was influenced by the ongoing criminal proceedings. Morgan Stanley, which acted as a financial advisor to Bolloré SE during the multi-billion euro sale, has been asked to provide documentation regarding its due diligence and the internal valuation metrics used during the negotiations.
Legal experts suggest that the inclusion of a major American investment bank indicates prosecutors are searching for a "paper trail" that might link the corporate divestiture to the personal legal strategies of the Bolloré family. Under French law, banks can be held liable if they are found to have knowingly assisted in transactions that facilitate money laundering or the concealment of the proceeds of corruption. However, a spokesperson for Bolloré SE maintained that the sale to MSC was a transparent, competitive process conducted at arm's length, aimed at refocusing the group on its media and communications assets, such as Vivendi SE.
The timing of the probe is particularly sensitive for Morgan Stanley, which has spent the last two years navigating various regulatory hurdles in Europe and the United States. While the bank has not been formally charged with any wrongdoing, the request for information alone signals that French authorities are no longer content with targeting individual executives and are instead looking at the institutional architecture of large-scale M&A. For the Bolloré empire, the investigation threatens to overshadow its recent pivot toward the media sector, where it has been aggressively consolidating its influence through entities like Canal+ and Havas.
Market reaction to the news has been relatively muted, as investors have grown accustomed to the legal volatility surrounding the Bolloré family. Nevertheless, the broadening of the probe into the advisory level could set a precedent for how European regulators scrutinize the exit strategies of companies under criminal investigation. If prosecutors find evidence that the €5.7 billion price tag was inflated or that the sale was used to shield assets from potential future seizures, the legal ramifications could extend far beyond the borders of France, impacting the broader appetite for African infrastructure investments.
Explore more exclusive insights at nextfin.ai.
