Exclusive: Gecina to replace CEO with Generali exec

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PARIS | Thu Mar 28, 2013 7:31am EDT

(Reuters) - Property group Gecina (GFCP.PA) plans to replace its current CEO Bernard Michel with Generali's (GASI.MI) Philippe Depoux, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, in the latest sign of upheaval at the French company.

Michel, who has just turned 65, was due to relinquish his post in the coming months because of the company's mandatory retirement age of 65 and will remain chairman.

Gecina is in the throes of a shareholder shake-up after its two key Spanish shareholders filed forbankruptcy in October. Investment fund Blackstone (BX.N) and Canadian real-estate fund Ivanhoe Cambridge have since bought more of the company's debt.

"(Generali Real-Estate France Head) Philippe Depoux is set to be named as the next CEO of Gecina," one of the sources said.

(Reporting by Matthias Blamont and Lionel Laurent; Editing by Elena Berton)

Exclusive: Europeans lobby Fed's Tarullo over bank curbs

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By Lionel Laurent and Philipp Halstrick

PARIS/FRANKFURT | Fri Mar 22, 2013 4:24pm EDT

(Reuters) - European bankers are lobbying U.S. Federal Reserve board member Dan Tarullo in an attempt to dilute curbs that would tighten oversight of foreign banks in the United States and squeeze their profits in the world's biggest financial market.

Tarullo's plan would force foreign banks to group all their subsidiaries under a holding company, subject to the same capital standards as U.S. holding companies. The biggest banks would also need to hold liquidity buffers.

Bankers say the plan would worsen an already fragmented regulatory landscape as the European Union pushes ahead with plans to cap bankers' bonuses and to limit risky trading. Euro zone banks believe the combination will make it tough to compete for talent or for profits against U.S. rivals.

The heads of France's BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA) and Germany's Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) recently met Tarullo following the adoption of his foreign bank proposals in December, sources with direct knowledge of the meetings said.

The Fed confirmed Tarullo met with Deutsche Bank on March 7. It did not have an immediate comment on the meeting with BNP Paribas.

Other lenders including Societe Generale (SOGN.PA) are putting pressure via representatives in lobbying hub Brussels, the sources said.

"It's an outrageous plan that will further balkanize the banking sector," said a French banking lobby source.

"Thank goodness we will have a banking union with the European Central Bank as chief supervisor in place soon. Tarullo's proposal will be the first issue to be addressed."

Fed records show that executives from Deutsche Bank and Paribas, including Deutsche's co-CEO Anshu Jain and BNP's CEO Jean-Laurent Bonnafe, as well as officials from Britain's Barclays (BARC.L) and representatives from the French Embassy have met with Fed representatives in recent weeks.

Qatari bank looking beyond Europe

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By Lionel Laurent

CANNES, France, March 14 (Reuters) - The real-estate arm of Qinvest, the Qatari investment bank that helped fund London's Shard tower, will focus on the United States and its home market and avoid Europe this year, a top executive said.

The European market is increasingly crowded and facing the twin pressures of a fragile economy and fresh central bank liquidity driving up asset prices, Qinvest head Craig Cowie told Reuters. That is encouraging the company to channel its approximately $200 million of available property investment capital elsewhere, he said.

Qatari investors have been big post-financial crisis buyers of prime European real estate, from Harrods department store in London to the Peninsula Hotel in Paris. Qinvest has specific limitations, however, as it is not a deep-pocketed sovereign wealth fund and as it applies Sharia Islamic rules.

With targeted returns of up to 6 percent and over, the bank's plan is to focus on assets in U.S. retail - such as single-tenant units on New York City's Fifth Avenue - and in the less liquid and less crowded Qatari market.

"This year we are going to try and do a little bit more in Qatar and the North American market," Cowie said in an interview on the sidelines of the MIPIM property conference in Cannes. "The European market is just getting very crowded again."

Qinvest is a unit of Qatar Islamic Bank and is in the process of taking over Egyptian investment bank EFG Hermes , though regulators have yet to approve the deal.

Cowie declined to comment on the situation beyond saying it was up to the regulator to decide. If the deal goes ahead, given that EFG does not have a real estate operation, Cowie said his division would probably continue investing as before.

Qinvest's European investments, including the Shard and industrial property assets in Paris, were acquired around two years ago at a time when debt was harder to come by and when financially robust investors were in shorter supply, Cowie said.

The bank has since sold its stake in the Shard.

"There's lots of new equity washing around - Chinese, Malaysian, North American," he said. "It's a lot more crowded and harder to do off-market or discreet deals. It's tougher to compete."

Cowie, a South African who previously worked for Al Rajhi in Saudi Arabia before joining Qinvest, also said that uncertain growth prospects were pressuring returns in Western Europe and putting the brakes on activity elsewhere.

"The world is still fragile ... Some parts of Europe are completely stalled," he added.

Analysis: Second swing at Asia growth plan for BNP

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By Swati Pandey and Lionel Laurent

HONG KONG/PARIS | Thu Mar 7, 2013 6:39pm EST

(Reuters) - BNP Paribas's (BNPP.PA) second attempt since 2010 to expand in Asia is a bold move by the bank, as it plans a big hiring push at a time when many Western banks in the region are still scaling back.

BNP's Asia revamp is the first sign this year of a broad regional,investment banking growth plan in a part of the world where revenues in the sector have dropped and costs have risen. While other banks are selectively growing certain investment banking or trading units amid broader cuts, BNP's ambitious plan to hire 1,300 bankers over three years in Asia is the most eye-catching move yet.

But in a change from its traditional business model in Asia -- partly forced upon it by regulatory pressure at home -- the bank plans less big corporate lending against its own balance sheet and more indirect financing and advisory work.

That could be difficult, say some analysts, in a region where corporate clients expect their banks to "pay to play".

"If BNP is thinking they are going to get those ancillary businesses without providing the loans, that's wishful thinking," said Ismael Pili, head of financials research for Asia at Macquarie Securities.

The damage inflicted on balance sheets by the eurozone crisis prompted BNP, like its peers, to withdraw parts of its business from Asia in 2011, offloading billions of dollars of loans to other banks in a painful bout of "de-leveraging".

Now, supported by a stronger capital base than its domestic rivals, BNP hopes to build on its traditional strength in trade finance and fixed income and derivatives in Asia whilst others remain hunkered down in Europe.

"We have completed the adaptation process and we're out of the blocks ahead of most of our competitors," said Eric Raynaud, CEO of Asia Pacific, in an emailed response to Reuters.

SocGen to announce new CFO, top exec Ripoll to quit -sources

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By Lionel Laurent and Matthias Blamont

PARIS, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Societe Generale will name a new chief financial officer on Wednesday, seeking stability in the role after Bertrand Badre quit a year into the job, sources close to the matter told Reuters.

Internal candidates at France's No.2 listed bank are the frontrunners to replace Badre, who is leaving in March to join the World Bank, the sources said. Among those in the frame are Deputy CFO Philippe Heim and the head of specialist financial services Didier Hauguel.

Though analysts say the final choice is unlikely to have a major impact on market perceptions of the bank, which also reports fourth-quarter results on Wednesday, Chief Executive Frederic Oudea is under pressure to give clues on its long-term strategy.

The bank is at the end a year-long drive to reduce debt and beef up its balance sheet, while rivals such as UBS and Barclays are launching major overhauls.

Two people close to the bank also said that Jacques Ripoll, head of its asset-gathering division GIMS, would step down. Ripoll was offered the CFO job early in the process but turned it down, they said.

A SocGen spokeswoman declined to comment.

The average forecast in a Reuters poll of eight analysts is for the bank to swing to a fourth-quarter net loss of 237 million euros ($317 million), compared with a quarterly profit of 100 million euros in 2011.

This would put SocGen's total annual profit at 1 billion euros - a far cry from the 6 billion euro target set by CEO Oudea in 2010. Though the bank shelved this target in 2011, it has yet to say how it will fight the euro zone's sluggish economic recovery and tougher regulation.

SocGen shares are up 13 percent so far this year, against an 8 percent gain for the STOXX Europe 600 bank index. ($1 = 0.7474 euros)

A very un-French love letter to hedge funds, courtesy of France's finance minister

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By Lionel Laurent

PARIS, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Hedge funds play a vital role in the French economy, finance minister Pierre Moscovici said, in comments aimed at defending a government plan to ringfence banks' proprietary trading and leave hedge-fund financing intact.

The proposed reforms, set to be debated in parliament this month, would force banks to make proprietary trading a separate self-funded entity and ban them from owning or operating hedge funds. Secured hedge-fund financing would be left intact.

"While some of these funds have strategies that should be criticised, today the vast majority are necessary and essential players when it comes to financing the economy, whether we like it or not," Moscovici wrote on his official website on Tuesday.

He cited small to medium-sized companies raising funds on the convertible bond market as an example of hedge funds' usefulness. "Hedge funds can represent 60 to 80 percent of demand on this market and so are essential for placing the securities in the best possible conditions for the companies."

Moscovici's stance was at odds with traditional anti-finance rhetoric from politicians on all sides. 

President Francois Hollande said during his 2012 campaign that "speculative funds ... (were) vectors of instability", while his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy called them "predators" in 2007.

A Paris-based hedge fund manager said the government was changing its rhetoric to drum up support for the reforms and also to build confidence at a time of economic stagnation and bad blood among voters over stubbornly high unemployment.

"For 10 months the government has spent so much time bashing entrepreneurs and the businessworld that it must be thinking it is time to mend relations," he said. "It is tactical."

Belgium seen reversing out of BNP Paribas this year

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By Lionel Laurent

PARIS, Feb 4 (Reuters) - A market rally has raised expectations that Belgium will sell its six billion-euro ($8.2 billion) stake in French bank BNP Paribas, leading the way for other indebted governments to recoup bank bailout funds from the 2008 financial crisis.

Banking sources say no official talks have begun but some see a deal happening within the year. A successful sale could encourage other countries with significant bank stakes such as Britain and the Netherlands to follow suit.

"It's possible that a deal will happen this year," an advisory banker familiar with the matter said. "Belgium needs the funds and there is still a bit of upside left in BNP's shares."

Belgium's economy has only seen one quarter of growth in the last six, pressuring the government to find new ways to cut the public deficit, while BNP's share price has soared more than 30 percent over the past 12 months. The STOXX Europe 600 banks index is up 12 percent over the same period.

"Talks have not yet officially begun on this," another banker said, but added that further share gains would bring the process closer.

Politician Wouter Beke flagged a potential sale in December, telling Tijd newspaper that Belgium's aim was not to remain a shareholder of BNP and that the timing of the sale would depend on the stock market.

"It would make sense for Belgium, even if the timing is not clear," said Yohan Salleron, fund manager at Mandarine Gestion in Paris.

Belgium took its 10 percent stake at 68 euros per share in 2008 as part of BNP's rescue of collapsed Benelux bank Fortis, seen today as one of the French bank's canniest acquisitions.

BNP shares today trade almost one third below that level, meaning Belgium would actually lose money at market prices, but investors and analysts say that interest from foreign bidders willing to pay a premium or the use of a convertible bond could offset this. An extended rally could also bump up the price.