socgen

If SocGen's share price today is underperforming its French banking peers, this seems to have little to do with Mr Kerviel and his legacy.

The SocGen team appeared to have dressed either for an outward-bound course or a company disco; its slidebook could fit into a back pocket.

Analysts, however, were skeptical that a bid for SocGen was imminent because the bank had not been mortally wounded.

A SocGen spokeswoman said the amount awarded showed clearly "the exceptional damage suffered by the bank and its employees. "

SocGen indicated it had put the turbulence caused by the fallout over Kerviel behind it.

In the Goldman world the forecast is for eternal sunshine; visitors to the SocGen world would need to carry an umbrella and a gas mask.

Such a radical step could have heavy consequences for SocGen profits.

SocGen has decided to "increase its back office controls substantially" , one director told the Financial Times.

Some people wonder if SocGen would have blown the whistle at all had the bets been profitable.

At SocGen the identity of the traders in question remains unclear and the probe appears to be at an earlier stage.

Bouton said SocGen was strong enough to stay independent.

SocGen said it was following market conditions closely, a statement that could pave the way for a cash call.

Two days later Daniel Bouton, SocGen's chairman and co-chief executive, survived a board meeting to consider his handling of the affair.

In this case, the SocGen trader, like Mr Leeson, probably knew from his earlier backroom role how to hide his positions.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said this week that he was determined that SocGen should remain a "great French bank" .

In common with other French banks, SocGen was also thought by many to take an overly mathematical approach to risk.

Embarrassingly, it also included trades with other parts of SocGen.

At the time SocGen was struggling to reassure investors and plug a hole in its balance sheet.

For the biggest gains from bear markets, however, consider SocGen's listed contracts for difference (CFDs).

The shortfalls in control resulted partly from SocGen's efforts on growing aggressively its investment banking unit.

Both SocGen and rival BNP Paribas, France's two largest investment banks, have promised to curtail payouts to employees.

Indeed, all four speakers at the SocGen event used a chart of the cyclically adjusted ratio.

Similarly, SocGen dealt perfunctorily with concerns raised by Eurex, Europe's leading derivatives exchange, according to the report.

He already faced a tough 2008 due to a forthcoming money-laundering trial involving SocGen and other banks.

Instead, his potential nemesis was on the SocGen payroll the whole time.

SocGen's news embarrassed Sarkozy's government in front of the global elite at Davos and clouded a presidential trip to India.

Both BNP and SocGen also detailed manageable exposures to Greek government debt.

However, SocGen postponed a planned samurai bond sale following the Moody's report, according to two people familiar with the deal.

French banking house SocGen, in particular, has become a haven for slight eccentrics.

For SocGen, the best outcome is that it looks supremely incompetent at monitoring its trader.

In north Africa, SocGen aims to double the number of clients and increase the number of branches by 60 per cent by 2015.

SocGen's case for buying sovereign bonds is controversial.

In 1999, SocGen escaped a takeover bid by BNP and there has been consistent market speculation ever since.

Such talk looks a trifle premature while the scale of the control problems at SocGen remains unclear.

SocGen points out that Spain's misery was even greater in the early 1990s.

Buttonwood is inclined to side with the SocGen team.

Mr Grant declined to comment on SocGen's involvement.

The year before, the SocGen chairman and chief executive had tried to buy Paribas, a French competitor.

In that document, the LIA's bet on SocGen's shares appears as "Soc Gen Europe Meduim [sic]" .

SocGen sacrificed its dividend for the first time to conserve capital.

So, I prefer SocGen's three-year and six-year Global Index Bear Accelerators: SN01 and SN03.

But SocGen denied that its covering operations precipitated the market fall because it kept them to about 10 per cent of trading volumes.

The SocGen case is that the outlook was fundamentally changed by the financial crisis of 2007-08.

SocGen has a presence in 15 African countries, where it employs 13, 000 people in 850 branches.

He is 29 years old and joined SocGen in March 2002, according to social network websites.