(Reuters) – A slowdown in economic growth in 2024 could create more opportunities for targeted acquisitions, BNP Paribas Chief Financial Officer Lars Machenil said on Thursday at a conference presenting the group’s financial results.
While several analysts asked him to detail how the leading French bank by market capitalization intended to use the 16 billion dollars (15.17 billion euros) resulting from the sale of its Californian subsidiary Bank of the West, Lars Machenil said a rapidly growing economy would tip the balance toward more investment.
“If the (economic) growth is a little more timid, which is probably what we will see next year, then the maintenance of additional growth – natural, organic – will be a little slower,” Lars Machenil said .
“But at the same time there will be more turbulence in the markets and therefore probably more… activities available to do business, so there could be a slight change,” he added.
Lars Machenil did not specify the nature of the additional acquisitions.
He recalled that, in addition to the 5 billion euros intended for the share buyback plan that BNP is about to complete, the group had committed to redeploying 7 billion euros of revenue on investments and acquisitions.
(Report by Mathieu Rosemain, by Augustin Turpin)
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