The Crédit national (lit. 'National Credit [Company]') was a French government-sponsored bank, created in 1919 on the initiative of senior civil servant Charles Laurent. It eventually merged in 1996 with Banque Française du Commerce Extérieur (BFCE) to form Natexis, later absorbed into Groupe BPCE.
 Former head office 45-47, rue Saint-Dominique, Paris | |
| Formation | 1919 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Charles Laurent, Emmanuel Derode |
| Headquarters | Paris, France |
| Services | banking |
Overview
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The Crédit National was established by special legislation of 10 October 1919. Although it had private-sector ownership, it was a sui generis hybrid between public and private-sector banking templates, intended to facilitate the financing of France’s reconstruction following the devastation of World War I. It financed itself through bond issuance and lotteries, with a government guarantee that was itself backed in principle by the expectation of German war reparations.[1]: 128
By the mid-1990s, the Crédit National was still a listed company with mostly dispersed ownership, even though insurer AXA held a 9.5-percent stake following a recent transaction.[2] In 1995, the Crédit National announced it would take over majority control of the previously government-owned BFCE, partly financing the transaction by selling a 20 percent stake in export credit insurer Coface to state-owned insurer AGF. Upon completion of the transaction in 1996, the merged entity, renamed Natexis, became France's fourth-largest commercial bank by total assets, just behind the so-called "three old ones" (Banque Nationale de Paris, Crédit Lyonnais and Société Générale; French: les trois vieilles) and ahead of Crédit Commercial de France.[3]
Leadership
editPresidents
edit- Charles Lawrence: 1919
- Louis Martin: 1920 — 1936
- Wilfrid Baumgartner: 1936 — 1949
- Jacques Brunet: 1949 — 1960
- John Saltes: 1960-1972
- Bernard Clappier: 1973 — 1974
- André de Lattre: 1974 — 1982
- Jean Saint-Geours: 1982 — 1987
- Paul Mentré: 1987 — 1990
- Yves Lyon-Caen: 1990 — 1993
- Jean-Yves Haberer: 1993 — 1994
- Emmanuel Rodocanachi: 1994 — 1998[4]
Directors
edit- Marcel Frachon: 1919 — 1929
- Jean du Buit: 1929 — 1942
See also
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Notes
edit- ^ Era Dabla-Norris, ed. (2019), Debt and Entanglements Between the Wars, Washington DC: International Monetary Fund
- ^ Pascale Santi (17 August 1995). "Recomposition en cours du capital du Crédit National avec la reprise de la BFCE". Les Échos.
- ^ "Le Crédit national offre plus de 3 milliards pour la BFCE - Le décret de privatisation publié hier annonce l'avènement du quatrième groupe bancaire en France". Libération. 14 December 1995.
- ^ "Emmanuel Rodocanachi prend le relais au Crédit National". lesechos.fr. 1994-05-19. Retrieved 2016-05-22.
Sources
edit- Robert beef, The National Credit , Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1923.
- The National Credit, medium credit institution and long term, 1951.
- National Credit 1919-1969 , Paris, Havas-Conseil 1969.
- Patrice Baubeau Arnaud Lavit d'Hautefort, Michel Lescure, The National Credit from 1919 to 1994. public history of a private company, Paris, JC Lattes, 1994.
- National Committee Corporate Credit. Jubilee 1945-1995 1995.