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French bank talks collapse
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June 30, 1999: 8:22 a.m. ET
Bank of France fails in compromise talks; BNP to pursue SocGen, Paribas
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LONDON (CNNfn) - French central bank officials admitted Wednesday that their bid to broker a deal in the country's bitter three-way bank merger battle had broken down.
The collapse of overnight talks between Banque National de Paris, Société Generale and Paribas, leaves BNP free to pursue its hostile bid for both and break up a planned friendly merger between the two targets.
The Bank of France said the discussions "consisted of studying a number of options but did not lead to the consensual solution sought".
Bank of France governor Jean-Claude Trichet last called for the heads of the three banks to meet to broker an end to the five-month confrontation. Trichet and French Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn have made no secret of their desire to find an all-French solution to the bid battle which excludes overseas institutions gaining control of three of the country's largest institutions.
SocGen sweetened its stock-swap proposal with Paribas to 15.1 billion euros ($15.7 billion) earlier this month while BNP is offering a three-way merger valued at 35.6 billion euros. 
-- from staff and wire reports
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