Probably no significance was intended in the date chosen by the board of Caisse d’Epargne to give the green light for the merger of its investment banking and asset management businesses with those of Banque Populaire. But the superstitious among its rivals can only have had their anxieties intensified by the date, 06/06/06 – also chosen as the release date for a remake of horror classic The Omen.
The merged business, to be called Natixis, creates a new force in the French investment banking and asset management scenes that analysts and bankers are talking up as a credible challenger to national champions BNP Paribas and Société Générale to the extent that Calyon doesn’t even enter the conversation.
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