Italy has been pretty good to Crédit Agricole up to now. Among foreign banks, it has undoubtedly been the big winner of Italian banking consolidation, without really having to try very hard.

Back in 1989, the Italians called in the French farmers’ bank to help with the revival of the old scandal-ridden Banco Ambrosiano. It became a large shareholder in the new Banco Ambrosiano Veneto. It subsequently piggy-backed its expansion through a series of Italian banking mergers that turned the French “green” bank into the single largest shareholder of Intesa – the big Italian bank spawned by the combination of Milan’s Cariplo savings bank, Ambrosiano Veneto, and Banca Commerciale Italiana. Then, three years ago, Intesa combined with Turin’s San Paolo to create the even bigger Intesa-Sanpaolo group. While Spain’s Santander, a large San Paolo shareholder, decided to sell its stake, Agricole struck a deal whereby it would acquire from the merged group an attractive package of banks and branches in the country’s rich northern regions to establish its own independent Italian banking operations. After disposing of part of its stake in the merged bank, it still retained a 5.8 per cent holding in the new Intesa-Sanpaolo.