Crédit Agricole

According to the Belgian newspaper L’Echo, ING, Crédit Agricole and Rabobank have expressed interest in acquiring a stake in State-owned Belgian bank Belfius as the Belgian government is planning to sell a 20% stake in the bank. Belfius has the 4th largest market share in Belgium (14%), behind Fortis (BNP, 20%), KBC (18%) and Euroclear Bank (16%) but above ING (11%).

Neither ING nor CASA have confirmed those rumors.

A stake acquisition by ING in Belfius would make strategic sense given that Benelux and Germany constitute the core of ING’s continental European retail banking empire. Such a move would allow ING to consolidate further its position in Belgium where it owns an 11% market share (as a percentage of banking assets) while giving it a strategic optionality should the Belgian government decide to exit further its stake in Belfius.

For CASA, taking a minority stake could allow the bank to replicate the Italian playbook, allowing the bank to establish partnerships in Belgium to leverage CASA’s bancassurance and asset gathering model. CASA already owns a 6% stake in Crelan (10% when combining with regional banks’ stakes in Crelan), a Belgian mutualist bank with a 3% market share in the country.

We see the news as positive for both ING and CASA, being strategically coherent with both banks’ objectives.

Expert Opinion:
The valuation for Belfus is c EUR11bn so a 20% stake would require spending EUR220m. The financing is slightly more tricky for CASA than for ING but we believe the French mutual group would find the financing through Caisses Regionales that are cash rich. 


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