Dependability paramount for BNP Paribas' EMEA head

Yannick Jung

At a time when the European banking sector has been under sustained pressure, BNP Paribas (BNPP) has been notable in its ambition to grow, and to take on the world’s leading banks within its target markets. As Yannick Jung, the bank’s head of global banking for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), puts it: “We aim to become the leading banking partner for corporates in EMEA.”

Global banking EMEA is a large team, with 2300 staff operating across 34 different countries. Key target markets for the bank include the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and the Nordics, with a broader target of being one of Europe’s top three corporate and investment banks by revenue.

Corporate clients

Mr Jung has headed up global banking EMEA since January 2018, when the division was created, and regrouped the bank’s coverage, financing and advisory, and transaction banking capabilities together for all its corporate clients under the corporate and institutional bank (CIB) in the region. The core focus of the division, in line with BNPP’s wider strategy, is to grow and strengthen the bank’s corporate client base by supporting clients’ needs and helping them to manage their funding, risk management and treasury flows.

The team manages relationships with a group of more than 10,000 corporates. “It is growing and building an important number of relationships across the region,” says Mr Jung.

With client relationships front and centre of the bank’s growth strategy, it is clear why Mr Jung was chosen for the job. He has been in senior client-facing roles at BNPP since 2012, most recently as head of corporate clients financing and advisory EMEA, and prior to that as EMEA head of coverage for corporate clients. He also worked as BNPP’s Tokyo branch manager between 2007 and 2012, and as a telecoms banker for the bank prior to this, from 1997.

He also brings a laser-like focus to cultivating this area of the business. “We have been very clear within the leadership team about what our starting point was, where we wanted to go and what we needed to do to get there,” says Mr Jung.

Five aims

For Mr Jung there are five main areas of focus, which have driven the work of his division. These are: to focus on building trusted partnerships with clients through strategic discussions; to expand the client base; to enable clients to access an increasing range of products and services provided by the bank; to leverage an integrated banking model, where the bank can offer a package of complementary services; and to focus on transforming operating models and infrastructure to ensure clients get the best service.

“We have stuck to those five principles, in the good and bad quarters, even when wider market conditions have deteriorated and revenue pools have shrunk – and we will continue to do so even through the current situation,” says Mr Jung.

Although when the division was created in 2018 it did start to create some “good commercial results early on”, these did not immediately translate into strong financial results. Mr Jung found this tough, given what he knew was happening on the ground, with new client relationships being forged and teams going after new opportunities. But in the last quarter of 2018, and throughout 2019, these efforts appeared to be paying off. “Throughout 2019 we saw clients turning to us more and more; with a growing client base, we climbed up the ranks in all of our businesses,” he says.

Moving up the rankings

Mr Jung is pleased that BNPP has continued to consolidate its position in its historic stronghold of debt capital markets, and made progress in the equities space as well, an area where it has struggled to make an impact in the past. But in 2019 BNPP got into the top 10 within EMEA league tables for equities transactions and the top five in the initial public offering field. “Overall, we’re pleased with that progress,” says Mr Jung, attributing it to a disciplined focus on cultivating the right client relationships and pursuing the right transactions.

These gains have stood the bank in good stead for taking on its competitors. “Dealogic has put us as the number six global provider and number one European provider of investment banking services as measured by revenues in 2019,” says Mr Jung.

BNPP’s global banking EMEA unit is highly engaged in supporting the overall push of the group around sustainability, notably in financing projects contributing to the energy transition and sectors that are advancing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. According to league table data compiled by Bloomberg, BNPP was lead arranger for almost half the sustainability-linked loans issued in 2019, topping the table for a second year running. For example, in a landmark deal, BNPP was the sole financial arranger and underwriter/bookrunner of the €2.3bn financing of the 480-megawatt greenfield offshore wind farm at Saint-Nazaire on the French Atlantic coast near Brittany.

On-the-ground presence

BNPP’s local presence in its target markets (“we don’t fly teams in from overseas; we have people on the ground”) and reliability are what Mr Jung believes will continue to win over clients.

“Historically, we are a steady ship that stands alongside clients and always sets achievable goals. We might not promise the moon but will deliver on what we say,” he says. “We are building up a reputation for reliability, and clients are starting to remember us for it. This is particularly true in the current situation, as banks carry out an essential mission to support the economy as a whole.

“We have been more active in helping our clients to set up alternative credit and to secure short-term credit facilities. We are advising them also on how to best structure and deploy their lines of credit, or by reviewing several options in terms of capital requirements, investments, as well as advising them on balance sheet options or solutions.”

Building up its standing and attracting business as a result has been a slow burn for the bank, but it is having results on several fronts, such as establishing a reputation as a leading bank not only in euro transactions but in US dollar markets as well. Mr Jung cites the example of a several-billion-US-dollar bond issuance in late 2019 for a global European company, where BNPP worked on the transaction alongside three US banks.

A trusted adviser

A key objective for the bank has also been to increase revenue from advisory services too, and Mr Jung believes BNPP is making good progress “on engaging with clients on their strategic options”. He cites several recent transactions where BNPP has acted in an advisory capacity, such as for the German company Symrise, a global supplier of fragrances, ingredients and solutions for food production.

However, Mr Jung believes there is room for improvement, particularly on advisory work with private equity sponsors. This is an important issue because “private equity sponsors account for 25% of the investment banking fee pot in Europe”, he says.

For Mr Jung, in a market where there are no longer cosy relationships between banks and clients – “clients want the right service at the right price and the level of complexity of advice they want has moved up the scale” – being a focused and reliable partner will continue to set BNPP apart. “We stay as close as we can to our clients. We listen, we test ideas and we try to go even deeper into what I would call a partnership,” he says. “For me, it is not about frills and thrills – it is about being highly dependable.”

This interview took place in early March 2020, before the full impact of the coronavirus pandemic was known.