When in June the Czech government chose Société Générale as the strategic investor for the country’s second-largest bank, the critics began to scoff. The sceptics – many of them analysts from the French bank’s rivals – slammed SocGen’s decision to pay e1.2 billion ($1.1 billion) for 60% of Prague-based Komercni Banka as overpriced. After all, they said, Komercni had a history of bad loans on the corporate side and only a limited retail business. Despite a generous government bailout, SocGen had been stung, they argued.
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