Indosuez Wealth Management

In 1966, to prevent an outright takeover of military-industrial concern Schneider by Belgium's Empain group, the Banque de l'Indochine acquired 10 percent of Schneider's capital. As a consequence of that transaction, Empain took 11 percent of the bank's own capital. Its chairman François de Flers then attempted to counter Empain's influence in the bank (as the rest of the shareholder base was highly dispersed) by inviting the Compagnie Financière de Suez, with which the bank had several common business interests, to invest in it as well. In January 1967, Suez acquired 7 percent of the bank's capital, the same amount as held by Empain by then. De Flers subsequently invited La Paternelle, an insurer, to acquire a further 4 percent of the bank's capital, thus consolidating a group of friendly shareholders. In late 1969, the Assurances du groupe de Paris (AGP), a holding company that had been formed in the meantime and owned La Paternelle, owned 22 percent of the Banque de l'Indochine, and by 1972, 45 percent. AGP subsequently sold its stake to the Compagnie Financière de Suez. In 1975, the latter merged the Banque de l'Indochine with its subsidiary the Banque de Suez et de l'Union des Mines, to form Banque Indosuez.

Banque Indosuez was nationalized, together with its longstanding rival Paribas, by the government led by Pierre Mauroy under President François Mitterrand. It was then privatized in 1986 by the government led by Jacques Chirac. A decade later in 1996, it was purchased by Crédit Agricole and renamed Crédit Agricole Indosuez in 1997, incorporating Crédit Agricole's international and market activities.