2006 will be remembered as an outstanding vintage

2006 will be remembered as an outstanding vintage. For at least two reasons. Firstly, the banks will post record annual profits, exceeding perhaps 25 billion euros, after the 21 billion euros recorded a year earlier, thanks to a very favourable, especially in the first half, and at a cost of even very low risk. The universal bank in the French model is effective, international, market, trades financing and asset management activities that appear, at least for BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Credit Agricole SA, as valuable relay of growth one retail banking at the threshold of maturity in France.

As such, 2006 is also a white stone: never again before banks is invested in international retail bank. In a year, French groups have spent more than 22 billion euros to acquire credit institutions, primarily in Europe, but also in the Mediterranean basin. At this game, BNP Paribas has been the most daring with the lightning takeover and unexpected of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), in February, to EUR 9 billion. To date, it is the largest acquisition of a foreign bank by a Frenchman.

Italian banking thaw

Banking thaw operated in Italy last year also took Credit Agricole SA. The Group had already swept the 50 of Fidis, the subsidiary of Fiat Auto credit for EUR 1 billion in July. But the end of August between Banca Intesa and Sanpaolo IMI announced merger forced it to rethink its strategy in the Peninsula: losing its position as the reference of Banca Intesa shareholder, the French group has gained a network of more than 660 agencies concentrated in the North of the Italy, around the very profitable Fund of saving of Parma (Cariparma), for EUR 6 billion.

An operation, there still, unexpected, that came to complete a first year very active group mutual from the Hexagon, with the acquisition of EAB in Egypt, Index Bank in Ukraine, its strengthening in the insurance to the Portugal via Banco Espirito Santo and the difficult OPA on the fourth Greek Bank, Emporiki, finalized this summer to EUR 2.1 billion. In total, Crédit Agricole will have invested nearly 10 billion euros in 2006 or twice what it had announced in December 2005 with its development plan international.

A little more "wise", Société Générale will have conducted two operations of significance in 2006: the acquisition of Splitska Banka, the fifth Croatian Bank for more than 1 billion euros in April. the rise in the capital of Rosbank, the second Russian private bank, 20 in September... with an option to take control with 2.3 to 2.6 billion in total by end 2008. The Bank also raised its line of business titles in the third rank of international actors of conservation in Europe, with more than 2,000 billion euros of retained assets and more than 366 billion of administered assets by acquiring the activities of the Italian UniCredit to 548 million euros. Back to square one, by contrast, in China, where Citigroup blew him Guangdong Development Bank. Eighteen months of iron arm will have not allowed the French Bank to win.