Credit Agricole announces 3bn euro Q4 loss

Published:  24 Feb at 12 PM

As reported by the BBC, Credit Agricole has announced a huge loss for the three months before New Year 2012, attributing the decline to its exposure to the Greek crisis. France's third-biggest bank lost 3.1 billion euros (£2.59bn; $4.1bn), rising 9.4% from the same period during 2010. It lost 1.1 billion euros total in 2011.

French rivals BNP Paribas and Societe Generale both reported their profits last week. Germany's Commerzbank also reported a 316 million euro net profit for the October - December period of 2011. The German bank is amongst the most vulnerable to Greek debt in Germany.

Credit Agricole shares were down by 2.3%, while investors were disappointed by reports that the bank decided not pay out any dividends to shareholders. The bank said it was cutting the funding it provides to its Greek retail bank chain, Emporiki.

Both Emporiki and Credit Agricole hold Greek government bonds; the group announced plans to write down 75% of these investments. Credit Agricole reported the total cost of its Greek investment as 2.3 billion euros. The bank did not release a formal outlook for this year in its report.

Commerzbank shares also dropped at Frankfurt's Dax exchange, seeing a loss of nearly 10% during early trading. Although the bank maintained in profit and continued paying its dividend, it declared plans to continue focusing on strengthening its reserves.