2 billion and very complementary activities

It is the heart of the approximation. IXIS CIB, bank financing and investment of the Group Caisse d'Epargne, and Natexis Banques Populaires wholesale Bank, are expected to merge with NatIxis. Two banks of equivalent sizes (1.3 billion euros of GDP in 2005 to Ixis, Natexis EUR 1.2 billion) and very complementary activities. On paper, in any case.

The most obvious examples are activities where one of the two houses is absent. On the securitization, 400 employees of Ixis, 200 in front office, generate $ 500 million of income where Natexis realizes that some operations on the claims of customers or on its own portfolio. Conversely, Natexis is very present on the currency market, where Ixis has only two or three traders, on the financing of assets (aviation and shipping), where the Caisses d'Epargne realized that a few "deals", and especially on raw materials financing or financing export, including Ixis is absent. "We will achieve larger balance twice explains an operational." "The new set will thus win tenders to which he could not answer before".

Even where the two banks are apparently competing, each believes it is its specialty. On the bond, for example. Natexis is well placed in the corporate, Ixis on the inflation-indexed bond and the "covered bonds". On funding of projects, where the teams are comparable (between 25 and 30 people) but distributed differently: Natexis is mainly on energy ("oil & gas" and "utilities") and the mineral products, Ixis more on infrastructure.

Everything remains to be done

"Ixis is rather a market structure that developed recently on financing, summarizes a head." For Natexis, is the opposite. "Each will therefore rely on each other to grow there where he wanted, faster and at lower cost. Rapprochement with Natexis should thus give a serious blow of Accelerator development plan that was launched Ixis to strengthen funding platform. For its part, Natexis, which began after its setbacks in 2002, to re-deploy on derivatives shares, can count on the expertise of the teams of Ixis, who always won money on this activity. Is no a priori duplicates on this job. Everyone is delighted to find the reinforcement in the other, as recruitment done these last months by Calyon and BNP Paribas have helped create a shortage of staff.

The overlap could come from low value-added activities, including brokerage the new set retain it, for example, two stockbroking companies For the rest, they should remain limited. "Analysts argue too big numbers of synergies of costs and overestimate the loss of GDP." They tend to reason on the model of previous operations. The mergers of the size of BNP Paribas and Calyon, there were necessarily losses for merged entities worked with the same business model and the same customers. "Natexis and Ixis are smaller, trades are complementary and we do not have the same customers," said an official.

Is to transform the test in terms of income. While working on the design of products, first. IXIS could take advantage of the strengths of Natexis commodity and foreign exchange market to develop new structured products. Developing cross-selling, then. LBO financing and real estate financing, for example, the two groups bring to the new set of historical clients different Natexis works primarily on the 'corporate' French, Ixis more funds and international. "If it crosses the deals where we intervened last year, it will generate additional mandates," said one operational. Everything remains to be done.