After the Airbus of the rail, Alstom-Siemens, Airbus a the bank BNP Paribas-Commerzbank soon on the track ? Fifteen days after the rumours came from Germany of an interest of the French group for the second German bank, and the support of Angela Merkel in this scenario, the Canard Enchaîné believes that the president and Emmanuel Macron “would be a (very) good eye, a merger between BNP Paribas and Commerzbank,” he wrote in its issue of 4 October. When asked about this in the weekly report to the press of the Council of ministers, the government spokesman has rather abounded in this sense :
“Today the international development policy of BNP Paribas is BNP Paribas and it is good that she also goes to Germany, and to a large bank that Commerzbank,” said Christophe Castaner. “I do not want to pronounce on such or such an approximation especially when it is not formalised, the economic stakes are such that it is not for me to comment”, he added.
“Good for the taxpayer German” ?
The German State, which has 15.6% of the share capital of Commerzbank, has not hidden that he was happy to seller of his / her participation, if the price seemed “good for the taxpayer German”, while denying having engaged in discussions or granted mandate. In 2008-2009, in the midst of the financial crisis, to save it from bankruptcy, Berlin had injected a total 18 billion euros in Commerzbank, which has repaid $ 14.3 billion in 2011. Its cost price is 18 euros, while the bank’s Mittelstand rating currently 11,36 euros, valuing the participation of the German government to € 2.2 billion. A difference of more than 50%.
The finance and business magazine WirtschaftsWoche revealed that Angela Merkel’s government favoured a solution to the franco-German, who could not, however, merge as the name : BNP is six times larger in market value than Commerzbank (84 billion euros, against 14 billion). The Reuters news agency had evoked an interest of the Italian UniCredit, which was finally denied.
Radio Silence at BNP Paribas for the moment. Last week, the first bank in the euro zone in terms of assets has just presented its development plan in Germany, which is presented as a priority market, where it employs 5,000 people (particularly in the online bank Consors bank). The boss of the subsidiary Lutz Diederichs has, however, insured that it would rely “only on the internal growth”.
(with AFP)
