(Reuters) – The American investment fund Ripplewood has made a firm offer to take over Orange Bank, the online bank of the telecoms operator Orange, the newspaper Le Figaro reported on Thursday.
In June, Orange announced that it was in talks with the bank BNP Paribas to sell its customer portfolio to it. The general director of the leading French telecoms operator Christel Heydemann had decided to close down this loss-making unit following a “strategic review”, we learned from sources close to the matter.
On Wednesday, during an extraordinary CSE, the management of Orange Bank announced to staff representatives that it had received a firm buyout offer from Ripplewood, which also said it was ready to take over the bank’s 700 employees in line, reports Le Figaro.
According to the newspaper, the management of Orange Bank indicated that it was not in favor of this takeover project, while the elected representatives of CSE called for an “in-depth study” and “guarantees for the sustainability of the activity and jobs” before any decision.
(Written by Michal Aleksandrowicz in Gdansk, Tangi Salaün, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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