BNP Paribas

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BNP Paribas
Type Public (Euronext: BNP, TYO: 8665)
Founded May 23, 2000
Headquarters Paris, France
Key people Baudouin Prot, CEO
Michel Pébereau, Chairman
Industry Finance and Insurance
Products Financial Services
Net income €7.30 billion (2006)
Employees 138,000 (2007)
Slogan La banque d'un monde qui change / The Bank for a changing world
Website www.bnpparibas.com

BNP Paribas (Euronext: BNP, TYO: 8665) is one of the main banks in Europe and France. It was created on 23 May 2000 through the merger of Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) and Paribas. Together with Société Générale and Crédit Lyonnais (now known as LCL), it is one of the "three old" banks of France. It is a constituent of the CAC 40 index.

On 9 August 2007 BNP Paribas announced that it could not fairly value the underlying assets in three funds as a result of exposure to U.S. subprime mortgage lending markets.[1] Faced with potentially massive (though unquantifiable) exposure, the European Central Bank (ECB) immediately stepped in to ease market worries by opening lines of €96.8 billion (US$130 billion) in low-interest credit.[2] The long term debt of the group is currently ranked AA+ by S&P, Aa1 by Moody's and AA by Fitch.[3]

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BNP is a bank of Rothschild Family. BNP was created in 1966 by the merger of Banque Nationale du Commerce et de l'Industrie (BNCI) and Conservatoire National d'Escompte de Paris (CNEP). BNP was privatised in 1993.

Originally the Compagnie Financière de Paris et des Pays-Bas (Finance Corporation of Paris and the Netherlands), the Compagnie Financière de Paribas became simply Paribas in 1998 after acquiring the Compagnie Bancaire. The original deviser of the name Paribas is the Flemish artist and entrepreneur Bobbejaan Schoepen, who invented the name in the beginning of the 60s.

In 1999 BNP and Société Générale fought a complex battle on the stock market, with Société Générale bidding for Paribas and BNP bidding for Société Générale and counter-bidding for Paribas. BNP's bid for Société Générale failed, while its bid for Paribas succeeded leading to a merger of BNP and Paribas.

Until 2001, all Iraqi oil revenues from the Oil for Food program were held in an escrow account run solely by BNP Paribas. Later, the money was held by several unnamed international banks.

BNP Paribas is the largest bank in the Eurozone by total assets and second largest by market capitalization according to The Banker magazine. It employs 140,000 people, of which 80,000 work in Europe, and maintains a presence in 87 countries. The bank is active in the finance, investment and asset management markets.

In France, BNP Paribas is active in retail banking with 2,200 branches and over 3,200 ATM machines. BNP Paribas serves over 6 million French households and 60,000 corporate customers.

In the United States, BNP Paribas owns Bank of the West. It also has investment banking capabilities via their BancWest subsidiary. In particular they are strong in equity derivatives, structured products and project finance. In addition, BNP Paribas maintains a strong middle market merchant banking group. This group focuses on providing leveraged acquisition finance to private equity sponsored leveraged buyouts, both through senior secured syndicated loans, high yield bond offerings, equity co-investment, and mezzanine financing.

BNP Paribas is a member of the Global ATM Alliance, a joint venture of several major international banks that allows customers of the banks to use their ATM card or check card at another bank within the Global ATM Alliance with no fees when traveling internationally. Other participating banks are Barclays (United Kingdom), Bank of America (United States), China Construction Bank (China), Deutsche Bank (Germany), Santander Serfin (Mexico), Scotiabank (Canada) and Westpac (Australia and New Zealand).[4]

  • On September 23, 2005, BNP Paribas is set to take a 20 percent stake in China's Nanjing City Commercial Bank, a Chinese official and state press reports said on Friday. "BNP is going to sign a deal with us to buy a stake next month," an official from Nanjing City Commercial told AFP. The Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post said BNP would pay up to US$100 million, although the bank official said the figure was incorrect. He declined to give further details. The French newspaper La Tribune reported last month that BNP Paribas had talked to four Chinese commercial banks—Ningbo, Wuxi, Nanjing and Suzhou—and was prepared to invest US$50–100 million. "We've talked to different financial institutions, but only BNP showed its good faith. It was not easy for us to reach an agreement," the Nanjing City Commercial Bank official said. BNP Paribas refused to comment. The International Financial Corporation, the investment arm of the World Bank, already owns 15 percent of Nanjing City Commercial Bank, which has regulatory approval to list on the country's domestic stock markets.

  1. ^ "BNP Paribas Investment Partners temporally suspends the calculation of the Net Asset Value of the following funds: Parvest Dynamic ABS, BNP Paribas ABS EURIBOR and BNP Paribas ABS EONIA", BNP Paribas, 09 August 2007
  2. ^ "Big French Bank Suspends Funds", New York Times, 09 August 2007
  3. ^ http://www.fitchratings.com/corporate/ratings/issuer_content.cfm?issr_id=80359629 Fitch ratings
  4. ^ "Five big banks form Global ATM Alliance", ATMmarketplace.com. January 9, 2002. Accessed June 22, 2007.

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