Crédit Industriel et Commercial
Parent Banque Fédérative du Crédit Mutuel | | |
Website | cic.fr |
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The Crédit Industriel et Commercial (CIC, "Industrial and Commercial Credit Company") is a bank and financial services group in France, founded in 1859. It has been majority owned by Crédit Mutuel, one of the country's top five banking groups, since 1998, and fully owned since 2017.
History
Creation and independent development
The Société générale de crédit industriel et commercial was founded on 7 May 1859, mainly on the initiative of banker
The CIC soon opened a number of other branches in Paris,[2]: 26 and in the 1860s actively developed its international lending, not least in the newly formed Kingdom of Italy.[2]: 32 In France outside Paris, unlike the Crédit Lyonnais (est. 1863) and Société Générale (est. 1864) which created networks of their own provincial branches, the CIC sponsored a number of affiliated but autonomous regional banks. In the early years, these included the Société Marseillaise de Crédit (SMC) in Marseille (est. 1865); the Société lyonnaise de dépôts, de comptes courants et de crédit industriel in Lyon (est. 1865); and the Société de crédit industriel et de dépôts du Nord (1866), a build-up of the Comptoir d'escompte de Lille created in 1848, which in 1871 would become the Crédit du Nord. These initial achievements were fragile, however, not least because the CIC held no equity shares in the allied banks. The Crédit du Nord escaped the CIC’s influence as early as the 1870s,[3]: 29–30 and so did the SMC in the early 20th century.[3]: 26
In the late 1860s, the CIC lent to the
In Paris, in its first few decades the CIC's network of branches lagged well behind those of its two main rivals, Crédit Lyonnais and Société Générale.[2]: 50 Outside the capital, the CIC kept its strategy of fostering the creation or build-up of regional banks. It thus sponsored the Société stéphanoise de dépôts, de comptes courants et de crédit industriel in Saint-Étienne (est. 1879); the Société bordelaise de crédit industriel et dépôts in Bordeaux (est. 1880); and the Société nancéienne de crédit industriel et dépôts in Nancy (est. 1881). The bank in Saint-Étienne, however, failed and was liquidated in 1883.[2]: 50–51
In November 1889, the bank's head office was relocated to a new building on 66, rue de la Victoire, where it would remain for over a century.[2]: 56 In August 1895, the CIC also opened a branch in London, at 126, Cannon Street.[2]: 64 In 1903, it sponsored the creation of the Société belge de crédit industriel et commercial et de dépôts in Brussels.[2]: 68 In the 1890s and 1900s, it greatly expanded its branch network in the capital region, which in 1913 reached 42 inside Paris and 6 in the surroundings.[2]: 66
At the start of
In April–May 1941, the CIC took advantage of the Vichy anti-Jewish legislation to acquire control of Banque Transatlantique together with two subsidiaries, Banque de Tunisie and Banque Commerciale du Maroc (the latter merged into Attijariwafa Bank in the early 2000s).[2]: 90–93 After the Liberation of France, its larger rivals were nationalized, and as a consequence the CIC became France's largest private-sector bank in the postwar period.[2]: 95 In 1957, it merged the Crédit de l'Ouest and Crédit nantais to form the Crédit Industriel de l'Ouest (CIO).[2]: 104 In June 1967, it ceded its branches in Algiers and Oran to the Bank of Algeria.[2]: 107 The group's first logo was adopted in 1967.[2]: 108
Takeover by Suez and nationalization
From 1965 to 1971, the CIC was at the center of a major takeover battle. In reaction to the
Meanwhile, like many other European banks, from the late 1960s the CIC accelerated its international development. It opened an office in Frankfurt in 1969, followed by others in Latin America, Beirut, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Milan. In 1974, it opened a branch in New York, its second only after the one in London. By 1977, it had 21 representative offices abroad.[2]: 128 In 1979, the CIC acquired a 25% stake in the Banque Nagelmackers in Belgium.[2]: 129 Its network of regional banks was further strengthened by the respective mergers, of Société nancéienne and Banque Varin-Bernier to form Société Nancéienne Varin-Bernier (SNVB) in 1972, and of Banque Scalbert and Banque Dupont in Northern France to form Banque Scalbert-Dupont (BSD) in 1977.[2]: 120
In 1982, the CIC was nationalized under
Privatization and integration into the Crédit Mutuel Group
Following the election of a center-right government in 1993, the political pendulum shifted back towards privatization of the CIC and its parent the GAN insurance company, but this was made difficult by both entities' financial difficulties through the downturn of the early 1990s. A first attempt in August 1996, to sell a 67% stake in the CIC holding company, foundered in mid-November, triggering the resignations of the chairmen of both UE-CIC and GAN, in a context of internal opposition to the sale process from both the CIC staff and the more profitable regional banks, including CIAL, BSD, SNVB and CIO.[2]: 153–155
In 1998, a second attempt under a new center-left government was more successful and the competitive tender was won in mid-April, somewhat unexpectedly, by the Banque Fédérative du Crédit Mutuel, a Strasbourg-based entity of the Crédit Mutuel Group, led by Michel Lucas , with a bid for a 67% stake that valued the whole of UE-CIC at 20 billion French francs.[2]: 158–166
The new management from Crédit Mutuel further central control over the group's regional banks, and in 1999 the UE-CIC and CIC-Paris merged back into a single entity called CIC.[2]: 170 In September 2001, Crédit Mutuel completed its takeover of CIC by acquiring the GAN's residual 23% stake,[2]: 171 and CIC was eventually delisted in August 2017. In July 2001, CIC had acquired full ownership of the Banque Transatlantique through a delisting, and in 2002 acquired full ownership of Banque de Luxembourg, in which CIAL had been a major shareholder since 1969, by purchasing Deutsche Bank's 29% stake.[2]: 175
In the 2000s the CIC further streamlined its regional network and phased out its historic brands. In 2006, CIO and BRO merged to form CIC Banque CIO-BRO, renamed
Leadership
For most of its history since 1890, the CIC has had separate individuals holding the respective roles of chair (French: président) and chief executive (French: directeur or French: directeur-général). On several occasion, the chief executive later became chair. The two offices have been merged in 1978-1982 and again since 2011.[2]
Chairs
- Gaston d'Audiffret (1859-1878)
- Henri Durrieu (1878-1886)
- Joseph Gay (1886-1894)
- Albert Guillemin de Monplanet (1894-1927)
- Charles Georges-Picot (1927-1930)
- Henri Thélier (1930-1936)
- Joseph Deschamp (1936-1952)
- Edmond Lebée (1952-1968)
- Christian Chaix de Lavarène (1968-1978)
- Dominique Chatillon (1978-1982)
- Georges Dumas (1982-1986)
- Jean Dromer (1986-1987)
- Jean Saint-Geours (1987-1989)
- François Cariès (1989-1992)
- Jean-Pierre Aubert (1992-1996)
- Bernard Yoncourt (1996)
- Philippe Pontet (1996-1998)
- Étienne Pflimlin (1998-2010)
- Michel Lucas (2011-2014)
- Nicolas Théry (2014–present)
Chief executives
- Marcel de Saint-Quentin (1890-1894)
- Paul Desvaux (1894?-1907)
- Charles Georges-Picot (1907-1921)
- Joseph Deschamp (1921-1931)
- Edmond Lebée (1931-1936)
- Charles Roth le Gentil (1936-1940)
- Charles Dangelzer (1936-1960)
- Christian Chaix de Lavarène (1961-1968)
- Jean Roquerbe (1968-1972)
- Jean-Pierre Fourcade (1972-1974)
- Dominique Chatillon (1974-1982)
- Christian Giacomotto (1982-1988)
- Gilles Guitton (1988-1998)
- Michel Lucas (1998-2014)
- Nicolas Théry (2014–present)
Operations
This section needs to be updated.(May 2022) |
As of 2006, CIC had 1,890 branches and over 24,000 employees serving over 3.6 million customers.[5] As of 2011, the company offers savings accounts, mortgages, and loans; it also owns stakes in specialized entities involved in private banking, asset management, leasing, securities brokerage, and property/casualty insurance.[6]
Controversies
Check processing fees
In 2010 the French government's Autorité de la concurrence (the department in charge of regulating competition) fined eleven banks, including CIC, the sum of 384,900,000 Euros for colluding to charge unjustified fees on check processing, especially for extra fees charged during the transition from paper check transfer to "Exchanges Check-Image" electronic transfer.[7][8]
National Bank of Haiti
In 1881, CIC set up the National Bank of Haiti to serve central banking functions to the country, by concession from the Haiti government.[9] A subsidiary of CIC, the National Bank had effective control of the Treasury of Haiti, controlling all receipt of public revenues and giving advances to fund the government.[10] The National Bank, using practices sharply criticized e.g. by Haiti statesman Frédéric Marcelin,[11] paid the shareholders of CIC with dividends collected from incomes and taxes collected from ordinary Haitian people and goods like sugar and coffee produced by Haitian farmers,[10] with returns as high as 37% in 1888 and 20.3% in 1900.
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In 1896, the CIC also successfully managed to secure a second loan of 50,000,000 francs, at 6% interest.[12] Over three decades, French shareholders made profits of at least $136 million in today’s[when?] dollars from Haiti’s national bank — about an entire year’s worth of the country’s tax revenues at the time, the documents show.[4] By "effectively choking off the nation’s primary source of income", the CIC "left a crippling legacy of financial extraction and dashed hopes — even by the standards of a nation with a long history of both."[4] The French government sought to distance itself from the CIC because of the criticism of some of the methods used, and the whole scheme came to an end in 1910.[11]
References
- ^ "The World's Largest Public Companies". Forbes.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar Nicolas Stoskopf (2009), Histoire du Crédit industriel et commercial (1859-2009), Éditions La Branche
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Nicolas Stoskopf (2009), Dictionnaire historique des banques du groupe CIC (PDF), Éditions La Branche
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-05-22.
- ^ CIC > Profil du Groupe Archived 2006-11-23 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Crédit Industriel et Commercial Company Profile - Yahoo! Finance". biz.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on 28 June 2011. Retrieved 2 March 2011.
- ^ Collusion in the banking sector, Press Release of Autorité de la concurrence, République Française, 20 September 2010, retrv 2010 9 20
- ^ 3rd UPDATE: French Watchdog Fines 11 Banks For Fee Cartel [permanent dead link], Elena Bertson, Dow Jones News Wires / Wall Street Journal online, retr 2010 9 20
- ^ "Banque Nationale d'Haïti | Issuers | DFIH".
- ^ .
- ^ ISSN 0163-6545.
- ^ a b Stone, Guy (2012). "The establishment and eviction of the French bank in the Caribbean between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century". História e Economia Revista Interdisciplinar.
- ^ ""The Restoration" by Joseph Châtelain". islandluminous.fiu.edu. Retrieved 2022-05-22.
External links
- (in French) Official website
- (in English) English site for people moving to France