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Concept
Société Générale
Summary
Société Générale S.A. (sɔsjete ʒeneʁal), colloquially known in English speaking countries as SocGen (sɔk ʒɛn), is a French-based multinational financial services company founded in 1864, registered in downtown Paris and headquartered nearby in La Défense.
Société Générale is France's third largest bank by total assets after BNP Paribas and Crédit Agricole. It is also the sixth largest bank in Europe and the world's eighteenth. It is considered to be a systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board.
From 1966 to 2003 it was known as one of the Trois Vieilles ("Old Three") major French commercial banks, along with Banque Nationale de Paris (from 2000 BNP Paribas) and Crédit Lyonnais.
The bank was founded by a group of industrialists and financiers during the Second Empire on 4 May 1864. Its full name was Société Générale pour favoriser le développement du commerce et de l'industrie en France ("General Company to Support the Development of Commerce and Industry in France"). The bank's first chairman was the prominent industrialist Eugène Schneider, followed by Edward Charles Blount. By 1870, the bank had 47 branches throughout France, including 15 in Paris. It set up a permanent office in London in 1871.
At the beginning, the bank used its own resources almost entirely for both financial and banking operations. In 1871, Société Générale moved into the public French issues market with a national debenture loan launched to cover the war indemnity stipulated in the Treaty of Frankfurt.
The bank was financially involved with some of the businesses created by Paulin Talabot, the railway and canal engineer. Talabot came to have an influential role in the bank.
In 1886, Société Générale was part of the bank consortium (along with the Franco-Egyptian Bank and the Crédit Industriel et Commercial) that financed the construction of the Eiffel Tower.
From 1871 to 1893, France went through a period of economic gloom marked by the failure of several banking establishments. The company continued to grow at a more moderate pace.
Official source
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