No one expected Mitterand to go after them, as he was going to nationalize Paribas & it's bad business to prosecute one's own clients.
It is the story of the determination of President Mitterand to nationalize Paribas, along with a list of others, and the equal determination of the president of Paribas to get his company's most enterprising foreign-banking subsidiariesNParibas Suisse, in Geneva; and Cobepa, in BrusselsNoff that list.
Paribas's president managed in the course of two days this fall to "liberate" Paribas Suisse and Cobepa from Mitterand's list by selling the French majority holding in the Swiss subsidiary to the Belgian subsidiary and vice versa.
The French ambassador to China, Pierre Morel, sent a letter to the Chinese finance minister, Xiang Huaicheng, asking him to look favorably on Paribas as a gesture to European-Chinese ties.
Société Générale raised its offer for Paribas to around euro19 billion ($20 billion).
SocGen wanted to merge with Paribas, another bank, but was foiled by BNP, which had made its own offer for Paribas and, as the one clear result of the confused battle, won control of it.The grander aim of BNP, however, had been to take over SocGen as well, and to roll the three banks into one French giant—"SBP to take on the rest of Europe from a position of strength (see chart).
One reason for the mostly generous reception given by the French media to the Carrefour-Promodès merger is that it comes so soon after the unfriendly, messy and only partly successful effort of Banque Nationale de Paris to acquire both Paribas and Société Générale.
Germany's Commerzbank now wants to build one; Paribas of France is busily expanding its investment-banking division; in America, Chase Manhattan has ambitions in the business.Even if the industry did reach some steady state a handful of dominant global firms, high barriers to entry would margins get much fatter?
The Dutch-domiciled Gucci fought off France's LVMH with the help of white knight Pinault-Printemps-Redoute. Bank Socit Gnrale lost Paribas to Banque National de Paris in a nasty three-way fight, and no Pac-Man defense could save Elf Aquitaine from TotalFina's bayonetting.
The Dutch-domiciled Gucci fought off France's LVMH with the help of white knight Pinault-Printemps-Redoute. Bank Socit Gnrale lost Paribas to Banque National de Paris in a nasty three-way fight, and a Pac-Man defense couldn't save Elf Aquitaine from TotalFina's bayonetting.
