Market turmoil, subprime losses, a trading scandal – Société Générale has it all. Can it survive? Financially, yes. The French bank has launched a fully underwritten €5.5bn rights issue, which will boost its Tier 1 capital to 8 per cent, a full percentage point above its own minimum target. Even a €5bn trading fraud and a €2bn subprime writedown are not expected to eradicate its 2007 profits entirely.

Nevertheless, SocGen faces an uphill struggle to put these twin losses behind it. While its subprime hit is smaller than some, the impression that SocGen has been a little slow in coming clean with the scale of its exposure does not help its case.