Emerging from the depths of trading scandal hell, Société Générale has managed to buy itself some time with the completion of a €5.5bn rights issue. The issue was 1.8 times over-subscribed, a sufficient vote of confidence to allow chairman and chief executive officer Daniel Bouton to hold onto his job, and the French bank to stay independent, at least for the time being.

Now comes the hard part. SocGen has sold its rights issue on the basis of its ability to rebuild momentum rapidly. While it is easy to believe that its domestic retail banking operations will prove relatively immune to recent troubles, its targets for corporate and investment banking business look like more of a stretch. SocGen is aiming for average annual revenue growth in the CIB business of between 5 and 10 percent between 2006 (the last “good” year before the scandal) and 2010. That builds in a poor 2008, but implies that reduced risk-taking will have little impact in the medium term.