BNP Paribas, France’s biggest privately-owned bank, on Wednesday announced record full-year profits of €7.8bn ($11.5bn) for 2007, fuelling speculation that it has the firepower to launch a bid for stricken rival Société Générale.

In contrast to the billions of euros of losses suffered by other US and European banks from the US subprime mortgage crisis, BNP said it had taken €589m of writedowns to its credit portfolio and an additional €309m of bad loan provisions.