Word: mistral
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...comments Thursday on its contemplation of Société Générale, according to Mistral, increases the likelihood of a more complex acquisition scheme: the break up of Société Générale's retail network, which BNP covets, from investment banking activities, which interest Crédit Agricole. By tipping its hand, Mistral notes, BNP may be signaling to rivals now mobilizing in the wake of the debacle that it's about to launch a bid it had contemplated even before the Kerviel affair. Meanwhile, comments by French officials indicating the government...
...Virtually every time there's been a major traumatic episode at a bank or financial institution, the final page has ultimately been turned with the company being bought out," notes Jacques Mistral, head of economic research at the French Institute of Foreign Relations in Paris. Despite that record, Mistral says he doubts that Bouton is staying on specifically to prepare Société Générale's sale. "Everyone there is still fully focused on surviving this scandal - the here and now," Mistral argues. "When the time comes where it's inevitable Soci...
...rale in an attempted three-way merger with French bank Paribas. Bouton's defensive maneuvers to prevent that were strengthened by labor stoppages by bank employees, many of them shareholders, whose support of Bouton since the Kerviel debacle has been solid. Despite that collective determination, Mistral says Société Générale's hostility to mergers has become a handicap in a sector where growth and geographical expansion via consolidation is the rule. That position, Mistral continues, means Société Générale has "always been viewed in Europe as being perched...
...Mistral says that could involve getting unions to accept Sarkozy's main demand: increasing the number of years public sector employees must work to qualify for full pensions to match the levels in the private sector. State-owned employers would then be allowed to come up with salary or benefit trade-offs that would make that retirement reform acceptable. "That way, Sarkozy applies reform where others failed, and unions and employees feel they've come away better off," Mistral explains...
Keeping his distance has other strategic value for the French President. "Should this become a Thatcherian struggle with unions for survival, Sarkozy's position above the fray will allow him to appeal directly to the public for it to choose sides - meaning his," Mistral says. "By resurfacing as things really get tough, he's in a better position to make a convincing appeal that he'll now try to over come union defiance - but will need demonstrative backing of the public...