Natixis, the French bank seeking to raise €3.7bn ($5.4bn) in a rights issue, said that it did not “see the logic” of proposals by US activist investors to scrap the rights issue in favour of reorganising the bank’s share capital.

David Einhorn, president of Greenlight Capital, has urged Natixis to raise capital by selling part of the 20 per cent stake it holds in its two parent companies instead of through the rights issue, which he said would be “enormously destructive” to the bank’s share value. He has been backed by New York-based Royal Capital Management.