BRD, the domestic branch of Societe Generale remains unaffected by the problems of the parent bank, says Patrick Gelin, the bank's chairman, after the French announced in Paris losses worth 4.9 billion euros as a result of fraudulent financial operations.
The group also announced it had set aside reserves worth 2 billion euros, to cover potential losses caused by exposure to the US subprime market.
"BRD secures its cash from the domestic market. We have lines of credit from Societe Generale, too, but we get most of our financing locally," Gelin told a news conference yesterday. The bank is the second leading player in the system, in terms of assets.
Last September the bank reported funds attracted from clients worth 23.97 billion RON (7.1 billion euros). The total credits granted at the time stood at 22.67 billion RON (6.7 billion euros).
Therefore the credit/deposit ratio stood at 95% in BRD's case. As a comparison, BCR, the largest bank in the system in terms of assets, registered a 121% ratio in September, as the loans it had granted totalled 9.6 billion euros, 1.7 billion euros higher than the deposits attracted. BRD's top man explained that neither the results nor the development plan this year would be affected by the problems the group reported yesterday. "We are not concerned by these things under any circumstances."
Societe Generale announced yesterday that despite the record losses made from trading, it would still post a 600-800 million euro net profit.
The group operated a 5.5 billion euro capital increase, which was immediately underwritten by JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley. The SocGen Group owns 1,000 billion euros in assets worldwide.
BRD will publish its financial results for 2007 on February 21, at the same time as its parent bank.
Sorin Popa, BRD's deputy general manager says that the 2007 results are in
