Crédit Agricole S.A. acquires 654 branch retail network in Italy

Crédit Agricole S.A., further to a board meeting held this morning, today announced it had come to an agreement with Banca Intesa to acquire control of Cassa di Risparmio di Parma e Piacenza (Cariparma) and Banca Popolare FriulAdria (FriulAdria) as well as 193 Banca Intesa Group branches, a dense network of 654 branches.

This whole perimeter has been valued at €5.96 billion. At the same time it said an evolution of Crédit Agricole S.A.'s asset management joint-venture with Banca Intesa in Italy should be decided before 31 January 2007. The consumer finance operation, Agos, will continue unchanged for a period of three years.

Crédit Agricole S.A. will remain a shareholder in the new bank resulting from the proposed merger, albeit reducing its stake to less than 5 per cent from 9.1 per cent pro forma, and will exit the Banca Intesa shareholder pact.