A stronger banking industry, with greater lending capacity, would help strengthen the economy, make it easier for companies to raise capital, and distribute money to where it was needed around the Continent.
It’s nicely rah rah but there’s no particular logic to it.
The background is let’s have lots of mergers to create megabanks across Europe. Didn;t Fred the Shred already try that?
So when they crash, they bring everything down with them.
As a notion it has its merits…
Yes, Otto, where was Matthew Lynn in 2008?
From what recess about his person did Manu extract this? How about NatWest and Crédit Lyonnais?
There are plenty of stock markets across Europe through which you can raise capital. Then there is the private equity industry and in the case of small companies, crowd funding websites.
My reading of this is that this is about large scale infrastructure projects where the business case is a bit sketchy. For example, a super duper trans continental 500 MPH maglev train line. The sci-fi geek in me would love to see such a thing. However, the investor in me would not touch that project with a 10 foot pole.
Micron clearly thinks it’ll be big French banks doing the buying.
‘The sci-fi geek in me would love to see such a thing. However, the investor in me would not touch that project with a 10 foot pole.’
Same with me Saker, except I wouldn’t touch the damn thing with a 10 mile pole!!
The cross-border merger of leading banks has been tried before – e.g. RBS taking over ABN-AMRO, Midland taking over Crocker – not always a good idea