French bank property retreat opens door to funds

(Full story)


By Lionel Laurent
PARIS, Feb 28 (Reuters) - French banks are beating a retreat from the property sector, leaving a key under the doormat for private-equity investors, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds.

BNP Paribas, Societe Generale and Credit Agricole are all hawking bundles of property loans to prospective buyers to shrink their balance sheets to meet tough new rules designed to clamp down on risk, according to two Paris-based real-estate bankers.

The potential impact is significant as banks account for two-thirds of European commercial property lending, with more than 384 billion euros' worth of loans maturing in 2012-2014. But prospective buyers and investors like private-equity funds and insurers will be on hand to pick up some of the slack, property market experts say.

"The banks' retreat does have a rather considerable impact on investment...(But) it does leave substantial room for manoeuvre for all the private-equity funds that tend to come from the United States," said Magali Marton, head of EMEA research for property consultancy DTZ.

Bankers go on election charm offensive

(Full story)

By Lionel Laurent and Matthieu Protard

PARIS | Fri Feb 24, 2012 8:41am GMT

Feb 24 (Reuters) - Faced with the prospect of becoming the scapegoats of an increasingly bitter presidential showdown, French banks are stepping up their own campaign to convince the public and politicians of their worth.

Armed with upbeat statistics on loan growth in France and scare stories about what a crackdown on banks could do to the economy, they are pressing their case face-to-face with politicians and wooing the public with advertising campaigns.


One in-demand lunch companion is Francois Hollande, the Socialist presidential candidate taking on conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. Seen as a pragmatist rather than a firebrand by some bankers, Hollande has nonetheless pledged to break up French banks and slap them with new taxes if elected.

"We recently invited Francois Hollande into our offices and told him our point of view," an executive at one of France's biggest banks told Reuters. "We explained how things were getting dramatic. He sat with us and listened."

Hollande's team declined to comment. 

"Hollande discount" hangs over French banks

(Full story)


By Lionel Laurent
PARIS, Feb 10 (Reuters) - A declaration of war against the world of finance by French Socialist presidential front-runner Francois Hollande is threatening a rally over the past month in the shares of France's top banks.

Although a wave of cheap funding from the European Central Bank has pushed back the likelihood of a eurozone break-up and restored some confidence in French banks, the prospect of Hollande becoming the first Socialist president in 17 years is worrying some in the markets.

Hollande, a bespectacled career politician who has called finance his biggest foe, has sketched the broad outlines of measures including an extra tax on banks, separating their socially useful activities from those seen as speculative, and a ban on what he calls toxic loans.

The proposals are vague - and there are some doubts as to what extent they would be implemented if Hollande finds himself in the Elysee Palace in May - but they could cut fairly deeply into banks' profits at a time of already sluggish growth.

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, an investment bank, estimates their impact at around 10 percent of annual earnings for top banks including BNP Paribas and Societe Generale, or a combined 1.7 billion euros ($2.3 billion).

"The measures are a bit fuzzy in our view, and these kinds of worries mean that if the rally continues I doubt French banks will be investors' preferred choice," said Marco Bruzzo, head of Mirabaud Gestion, an asset management company, in Paris.