Take advantage of Shareholder Club Benefits for Exceptional Visits

If you want to buy shares, don’t go through a traditional bank which will charge you a lot of fees. I advise you to go through Boursorama, which I mentioned in this article.

I have already touched on the subject in this article: as self-employed people, we assume that we have to rely only on ourselves for our retirement. If we are entitled to a small pension, it will be a bonus.

Among other investments, we therefore invest part of our savings by becoming a shareholder in listed companies. This is riskier than an A passbook, but in the long term, it is likely to be much more successful.

It isn’t well known (and this should not be the motivation for the investment) but some companies have a shareholders’ club that will give access to certain more or less interesting advantages. And in some cases this may be of interest to us travelers: free access to certain visits or events, access to places closed to the public, …

Shareholders’ Club: what is it?

When you buy a share in a company, you become a de facto co-owner of the company. In return for the risk you take (by investing your savings), you have the right to participate in the company’s decisions (through voting at general meetings) and to receive a share of the profits (when it distributes a dividend).

If you buy a share in LVMH, you are therefore a co-owner of the company alongside Bernard Arnault. The only difference is that he has many (many many many) more shares than you. And of course, your weight in the voting and in the profit-sharing is correlated to the number of shares you own.

Some large companies decide to pamper their shareholders by offering them the opportunity to join a shareholders’ club.

The shareholders’ club enables the company to build shareholder loyalty by providing regular information on the company’s activities and also by offering gifts and benefits.

There is a logic behind this: by creating a sense of belonging, shareholders will be more loyal, which can help support the share price (the fewer sellers there are, the less likely the share is to fall).

Membership in the shareholders’ club is free. All that is required is proof of ownership of at least X shares (in most cases, a single share is sufficient).

The “entry ticket” is therefore very variable. At the time I am writing these lines in July 2020, an LVMH share costs €408 while a Crédit Agricole share is worth €9.21.

The LVMH Shareholders’ Club

As I am very rarely in France, I have not yet been able to take advantage of the benefits of the LVMH shareholders’ club. Because of the Covid, we planned a tour of France that went through Reims.

I remembered that LVMH offered visits to some of its Champagne cellars in Reims. Visits to these cellars are open to the public, but as a member of the shareholders’ club, I am entitled to free access for two people.

We were therefore able to book a visit to the cellars of Moët & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot in Reims. But also a visit of Hennessy in Cognac.

All these visits still represent a value of 150 €.

In addition, LVMH also offers its shareholders visits to places that are usually closed to the public, such as the LVMH workshops in Asnières or the Berluti brand custom footwear workshop. I hope that we will have the opportunity to take advantage of this one of these days.

The Vinci shareholders’ club

Vinci is a major player in the construction industry in France, and as such offers its shareholders the opportunity to visit some of the company’s achievements.

BNP Paribas shareholders’ circle

Throughout the year and everywhere in France, BNP Paribas offers its shareholders an impressive list of museum visits, cinema tickets, concerts, sporting events, etc.

The Accor Hotels shareholders’ club

The hotelier’s shareholder club was historically very interesting because it allowed him to be awarded Platinum status, which offered VIP treatment with an almost guaranteed upgrade when staying at the chain’s hotels.

This great advantage ended in 2015 before I was able to benefit from it. The status offered is now the Gold status, much less interesting.

The EDF shareholders’ club

Being an EDF shareholder isn’t a long quiet river for historical shareholders (the price has risen from €82 in 2007 to €9.58 today)

We can console ourselves a little bit with its very active shareholders’ club, which allows us to visit places that are simply inaccessible to the public otherwise.

List of shareholders’ club

This list isn’t exhaustive.

• Accor Hotel
• Paris Airport (ADP)
• Air France: accessible as of 50 shares held
• Arkema: accessible from 5 shares
• Axa
• BNP Paribas
• Carrefour
• Claranova: accessible from 100 shares
• Compagnie des Alpes: offers a two-day ski pass per year in the group’s ski areas. As well as two entries in the group’s parks (Asterix park, …). Advantage multiplied by 3 if you hold 400 shares.
• Compagnie du Montblanc
• Crédit Agricole
• Disneyland Paris: offered many advantages and discounts. It was suspended in 2017 (but extended by 10 years for those who were already members)
• Edenred
• EDF
• Engie : many events proposed
• Eurotunnel: now Getlink
• Française des Jeux (FDJ) : the privatization is recent, the company communicated on the fact that there would be a shareholders’ club
• GDF Suez
• Gecina: accessible as from 10 shares held
• Getlink: 30% discount for 6 trips in the year
• Lanson : offers special rates for its Champagnes 🙂
• LVMH
• Natixis
• Nexans
• Nexity
• OL Group: the Lyon Olympic soccer club invites its shareholders to soccer matches and events. Progressive benefits depending on the number of shares held.
• Orange: 15% discount on equipment (but not subscription)
• Perno Ricard : many visits and tastings 🙂
• Peugeot
• Renault
• Safran
• Saint Gobain
• Schneider Electric
• Société Générale: numerous invitations to visits, sporting events, concerts, etc.
• Sodexo
• Technip
• Total: minimum 50 shares
• Valeo
• Vallourec
• Veolia
• Vinci
• Vivendi
• Xilam

Conclusion

As you have seen, membership in a shareholders’ club can be interesting and allow you to participate in new events.

But don’t forget that becoming a shareholder in a company is above all an investment. The few advantages you will have enjoyed will have little flavour if your savings are squandered by an unfortunate investment