Credit Agricole Slims Down With Private-Equity Sale

(Reuters was alone in getting the price-tag of the deal)

By Lionel Laurent and Simon Meads
PARIS/LONDON, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Credit Agricole , is selling its private equity unit for more than 300 million euros ($390 million), a banking source close to the deal said, as the French bank looks to cut its exposure to risky assets.
In spite of large disposals in 2011, banks still have tens of billions of dollars in private equity assets. That raises the prospect of more sales as they try to shrink balance sheets.
The sale to Coller Capital, a British-based firm which specialises in buying secondary private equity assets, will reduce the risk-weighted assets of Credit Agricole by 900 million euros, the French bank said on Friday.
That is a fraction of the 30 billion euros in risk-weighted assets the bank -- which this week announced its second profit warning of the year -- has said it aims to ditch by January 2013.
"In terms of risk-weighted assets, it is peanuts compared with Credit Agricole's total of 370 billion," said one London-based analyst.
"But it is another sign that banks are unwinding all the kinds of activities that were very sexy during the leverage boom. This kind of thing takes up management time and has an unfavourable impact under Basel III."

(Read on...)