14 January 2009 - Gide Loyrette Nouel Paris advises on the Société de Prise de Participations de l'Etat, the recapitalisation vehicle for French banks:

As part of its rescue package for French credit institutions, the French government has set up a recapitalisation company called Société de Prise de Participations de l'Etat^[1] (SPPE) in which the French State is the sole shareholder. Since November 2008, SPPE has been issuing debt instruments guaranteed by the State (for valuable consideration) and has been using the proceeds of these issues to purchase investments issued by credit institutions and qualifying as regulatory Tier one. This part of the rescue package, worth 21 billion euros, was approved by the European Commission on 8 December 2008 as authorised State aid. The first wave of the recapitalisation programme was completed on 11 December by the issue by Crédit Agricole SA, Société Générale, BNP Paribas, Caisse Nationale des Caisses d'Epargne, Banque Fédérale des Banques Populaires, Banque Fédérative du Crédit Mutuel and Compagnie Financière du Crédit Mutuel of deeply subordinated investments in a total amount of 10.5 billion euros which were subscribed by SPPE.
 
Jean-Emmanuel Skovron, partner, and Christine Miles advised the State on the governance aspects of setting up SPPE in October 2008. Hubert du Vignaux, partner, and Marc-Etienne Sébire advised on the SPPE bond issues.


^[1] State Equity Holdings Company.