By Lionel Laurent
PARIS, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Jean-Laurent Bonnafe's rise to become chief executive of French bank BNP Paribas was perfectly scripted and the bespectacled rugby fan knows the bank better than anyone after a decade hammering its acquisitions into shape.
Outwardly shy 50-year-old Bonnafe was flagged back in February as the replacement for the flamboyant Baudouin Prot, who steered the bank through the financial crisis and now takes the chairman's seat from Michel Pebereau.
Taking over the day-to-day running of the biggest bank in the euro zone at the height of the crisis in the region will test Bonnafe's improvisation skills.
He will need to juggle sweeping asset sales, job cuts and a pullback in lending in response to regulatory demands for banks to hold more capital as a buffer against future downturns.
For the ex-BNP banker who first hired him in 1993, Bonnafe's past experience and his time spent working under Prot and Pebereau, mean he is up to the challenge.
"I put great trust in a trio of men: Michel Pebereau, Baudouin Prot and Jean-Laurent Bonnafe. If the first two picked the third to take charge of the bank's future then I'm sure it's the right choice," Ervin Rosenberg told Reuters.
"Bonnafe will be entirely able to meet the difficult task ahead of him."
(Read on...)
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