Crédit Agricole

Crédit Agricole’s recent takeover of Crédit Lyonnais (CL), one of the biggest in French and European banking history, along with a respectable performance amid the trying conditions of 2002 have won the award for the French agriculture bank.

As a result of the E19.5bn takeover, Crédit Agricole is the eurozone’s third-largest bank in terms of market capitalisation, behind French rival BNP Paribas (which it trounced in the CL bid) and Dutch banking giant ING. The acquisition also enabled the bank to expand its strong market position in France. It has more than 21 million customers, nearly all of whom are in France.

Synergies from the merger are expected to be about E760m, the lion’s share of which will come not from each bank’s extensive retail networks in France but from their commercial and investment banking arms. CL will, in any case, keep its brand name and there is little geographic overlap in each bank’s retail network.

Crédit Agricole’s position in the French consumer credit market was further boosted by last year’s E2.5bn acquisition of Finaref.

Crédit Agricole chairman René Carron and CEO Jean Laurent agreed that 2002 was an historic year for the bank. In a joint statement, they said: “We adapted to the expectations of a major quoted company and created a strong following of institutional shareholders; in line with the strategy announced at the time of our listing – to reinforce our retail banking offering in France and to build a strong presence throughout Europe in consumer financing – we undertook a number of large scale operations, such as acquiring Finaref and launching a successful friendly offer for Crédit Lyonnais, and strengthened our asset base. Our core businesses performed above expectations.

“Our tie-up with Crédit Lyonnais means we will be retaining and further developing two very successful autonomous retail networks. We will reallocate the assets and reduce the costs of our corporate and investment banking divisions as we merge them and thus radically improve the profitability of the business.”

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