Crédit Agricole is planning a €5.9bn ($9.1bn) rights issue after large writedowns at Calyon, its investment banking arm. In a statement ahead of Thursday’s earnings report, France’s third-largest bank by market cap confirmed a €1.2bn writedown at Calyon in the first three months of the year related to losses in the US subprime market. This followed a €3.3bn writedown in the previous quarter. The news came a day after the FT confirmed that the head of Calyon, Marc Litzler, would be replaced because of the bank’s losses linked to US subprime mortgages. Lex says that CA must be ruthless about reshaping Calyon into a core, fairly traditional investment banking business.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 5:38 and is filed under Capital markets, People. Edit this entry.