Liquidity Matters — Re-Rating Lumiform S.A. on Euronext Paris

A four-round, advanced corporate-finance and equity-capital-markets simulation set inside Lumiform S.A., a EUR 480M-revenue, EUR 76M-EBITDA French specialty-materials manufacturer (Lyon, founded 1991, ~2,300 staff) listed on Euronext Paris.

Lumiform is a thinly traded mid-cap: average daily volume of only EUR 1.1M, a 65 bp bid-ask spread, just 31% institutional ownership, a founding family holding 28% with double-voting rights, and sell-side coverage down to a single analyst. It trades at 7.2x EV/EBITDA against peers at 9.0x — a ~20% illiquidity-and-governance discount worth roughly EUR 137M of enterprise value.

On 11 May 2026 an activist-leaning fund publishes a note demanding change before the AGM in ten weeks, and a family-linked holder signals it may sell a 9% block (~EUR 39M) into a thin market. Playing the CFO, you must convert governance, listing and investor-relations choices into multiple expansion while protecting firm value through a liquidity shock.

Round 1 (Diagnose): trace the causal chain liquidity -> transaction costs -> institutional demand -> valuation multiple and judge the two strongest drivers of the discount — the trap is earnings tunnel vision, believing better guidance alone closes a liquidity discount.

Round 2 (Structure): set the listing compartment, board independence, the double-voting-rights structure and a liquidity provider, facing the control-versus-value trade-off — entrenching family control while expecting institutions to pay peer multiples caps the re-rating, and over-engineering every lever at once with no sequencing wastes credibility.

Round 3 (IR & Block): choose an investor-relations move (IR head, roadshow, restored coverage) and manage the 9% block — an orderly placement to new institutions versus dumping it into a thin tape that signals distress — while a mid-round liquidity shock (accelerated block or market-wide risk-off) tests whether you confuse a market-wide price fall with firm-specific repricing.

Round 4 (Re-Rate): assemble the integrated case for the board and the activist fund, owning the control trade-off and showing how the levers lift liquidity, lower the spread, attract institutions and narrow the EV/EBITDA discount toward 9.0x.

The math rewards demand-and-ability levers working together, fair sequencing and an orderly block, and punishes the five classic errors: earnings tunnel vision, control at all costs, mishandling the block, plumbing without demand, and confusing price with value.

Final KPIs track the EV/EBITDA multiple (turns), the bid-ask spread (bp), institutional ownership (%) and recovered enterprise value (EUR M of the EUR 137M at stake). Grounded in Alexis Guyot's research linking market liquidity and corporate governance to firm value.

An advanced simulation for participants used to working with the main frameworks and trade-offs of the subject, designed for executive education and experienced professionals.