PARIS, March 28 (Reuters) – BNP Paribas and
Societe Generale are making strides in reducing their
balance sheets as they come to grips with more stringent capital
requirements and a dearth of dollar funding, the French banks
said on Wednesday.

BNP Chief Executive Jean-Laurent Bonnafe said the bank’s
planned asset disposals were ahead of schedule and that they
should be completed by the end of the year.

PARIS, March 20 (Reuters) – French banks have been warned:
avoid following your Spanish and Italian cohorts into a
full-blown war to attract savers’ deposits by offering higher
interest rates, or else.

In a first salvo, France’s chief bank regulator Christian
Noyer said in January that banks which offered rates on deposits
that were “disconnected from market rates” could “weigh on the
stability of the entire banking system.”

PARIS, March 11 (Reuters) – French airports operator
Aeroports de Paris has emerged victorious in a bidding
war for Turkish airports operator TAV Havalimanlari Holding
, agreeing to pay $874 million for a 38 percent stake
in the company, sources familiar with the transaction said.

The sources said that the other final bidder, French
construction company Vinci, made a significantly lower
offer about a week ago and declined to raise its bid further,
with governance being a sticking point.

PARIS, March 11 (Reuters) – French airports operator
Aeroports de Paris has emerged victorious in a bidding
war for Turkish airports operator TAV Havalimanlari Holding
, agreeing to pay $874 million for a 38 percent stake
in the company, sources familiar with the transaction said.

The sources said that the other final bidder, French
construction company Vinci, made a significantly lower
offer about a week ago and declined to raise its bid further,
with governance being a sticking point.

PARIS, Feb 29 (Reuters) – Two French companies have
become the final bidders for a stake in Turkish airport operator
TAV Havalimanlari Holding, an auction roiled by an
international spat over the mass killing of Armenians nearly a
century ago.

French construction group Vinci said on Wednesday
it would bid in coming days for the stake, which sources have
said would constitute up to 40 percent of TAV, as its two key
stakeholders sell down their holdings.

PARIS/FRANKFURT/NEW YORK, Feb 27 (Reuters) – General Motors
Co is in advanced discussions to buy a small stake in
French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroen as part of their
proposed strategic alliance in Europe and elsewhere, sources
familiar with the situation said on Monday.

Under the terms being discussed, GM would likely buy a stake
of less than 5 percent in Peugeot, the sources said.

PARIS/LONDON, Feb 23 (Reuters) – French investment
bank Natixis plans to “significantly reduce” its
commodities market activities, its chief executive said on
Monday, as it scales back exposure to less profitable
activities.

Natixis said in January in an internal presentation that it
had received and was studying expressions of interest for its
commodities unit, and the comments by Chief Executive Laurent
Mignon are a sign that it may still be in play.

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s wealthy are looking at joining the ranks of celebrities in tax exile including rocker Johnny Hallyday, model Laetitia Casta and restaurateur Alain Ducasse, fearing that Socialist Francois Hollande will soak the rich if he wins the presidency.

Advisers to the millionaires report a rise in inquiries from those considering an exit to Switzerland or Monaco – or even Belgium and Britain – before presidential elections this spring.

PARIS, Feb 10 (Reuters) – Bailed out bank Dexia
will sell control of its French municipal finance arm
to the French government and state banks for 380 million euros
($501 million) as part of a deal aimed at restoring the flow of
credit to the country’s towns and cities.

But Dexia said the sale will result in a 1 billion euro
loss, in the latest blow for the bank which France, Belgium and
Luxembourg were forced to rescue last October. The agreement,
which Dexia said would cut its liquidity requirement by 12
billion euros, is the latest step in the group’s dismantlement.

PARIS, Jan 10 (Reuters) – Societe Generale’s
freshly overhauled management team is promising more pain for
its investment bank unit this year, sounding a deeply
pessimistic note likely to be echoed by rivals in France and
elsewhere in Europe.

The news that France’s second-biggest lender is eyeing a
“significant” fall in investment banking revenue for 2012 and
has decided to exit or deeply cut several businesses is the
latest dollop of pain for investment banks worldwide after
businesses such as debt and equity capital markets were hammered
last year.