Who are Calyon Bank and Crédit Agricole?
Adrien Pharès: There has been a little confusion in the media about who s who. Crédit Agricole Group SA is a holding company incorporated in France. It is listed on various stock exchanges with a capital base of around 40 billion, which ranks it among the top five companies in the world in terms of capital. Crédit Agricole operates several lines of business, one of which is its fully owned corporate and investment bank, Calyon Bank. Crédit Agricole also offers the largest retail banking operations in France, and one of the largest in Europe. The group brought Calyon Bank to Egypt five years ago when it bought a small bank from Crédit Commercial de France (CCF). After we complete the merger of EAB and Calyon Bank-Egypt, the new entity will be known on the market as Crédit Agricole-Egypt.Where does the retail banking operation come in? We started a small-scale retail banking operation under Calyon Bank-Egypt, which is probably where all the confusion comes from. Although we could have co
