DERIVATIVE STRATEGY

摘要

When the barons of Credit Agricole were debating whether to bid for rival French bank Credit l.yonnais three years ago, one of the more vocal critics of the proposed deal was Edouard Esparbes. As head of Agricole's largest division, Parisbased Credit Agricole d'lle de France, parbes was the biggest of the barons, regional chiefs, and enjoyed tremendous independence under the cooperative bank's federal structure. He worried that a merger with the centralized Lyonnais, where investment bankers rather than regional bosses controlled relationships with key corporate clients, would threaten his autonomy, costing him customers and revenues. Esparbes failed to stop the ?16 billion ($18.6 billion) acquisition, but he has prevailed nonetheless. He won a hard-fought internal power struggle to become chief executive of the combined group's investment bank, named Calyon, and deputy CEO of Cre'dit Agricole to boot.