Why Natixis is bidding goodbye to the public markets

Natixis’s decision to wave goodbye to its public shareholders marks the end of a painful two decades on the stock exchange. Its future now, as a 100%-owned subsidiary of French mutual group BPCE, will be much more akin to DZ Bank, the unlisted institution housing the corporate banking activities of Germany’s cooperative banks, as well as their asset management and insurance businesses.

This overdue move comes after outsized losses last spring, related to the effect of Europe’s dividend ban on Natixis’s equity derivatives positions.