French police raided the offices of bank Natixis and parents Banques Populaires and Caisses d'Epargne early Tuesday as part of a probe begun last week following complaints by retail investors, a police source said. Mutual banks Banques Populaires and Caisses d'Epargne, who are in merger talks, and investment bank Natixis all declined to comment.
Last week, the Paris public prosecutor began investigating Natixis after retail shareholders filed a complaint, alleging the bank published false accounts and gave misleading information to the market.
Banques Populaires and Caisses d'Epargne together own over 70 percent of Natixis, which has required several capital injections from its parents and caused them to post historic losses for 2008 earlier this year. Natixis has been hit by asset writedowns resulting from the credit crisis.
Francois Perol, deputy chief of staff of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, was named head of the merging banks after Sarkozy deemed the situation at Natixis serious enough to intervene. The Adam retail shareholders' lobby group has said the lawsuit charged Natixis with putting out false information that has led to a sharp fall in the investment bank's shares. The dramatic slump in Natixis' shares over the last two years has affected many French retail investors.
The original share issue was marketed at branches of Banques Populaires and Caisses d'Epargne. "We have filed a suit because we had received 3,000 complaints from victims, people complaining that they were approached by Banques Populaires and Caisses d'Epargne to become shareholders of Natixis, and who lost everything," Adam head Colette Neuville told Reuters on Tuesday.
Neuville said the raids were "great news." A bill of law on the merger of Banques Populaires and Caisses D'Epargne will be put to vote on Wednesday at the parliament's lower house before being passed on to the French Senate in June. Natixis shares were up 1.6 percent at 1.4450 euros by 1110 GMT - well below the 19.55 euros level at which it made its stock market debut in December 2006.
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