We thought the project was off to a good start, customers in good hands, and the future of Orange Bank online banking guaranteed, regardless of the price. Nothing will happen. Back to square one. This Sunday, the chances that the American fund Cerberus will take over Orange Bank have collapsed. Blame it on a fog, which arose from the rise in interest rates, which initially weakened the hopes of Cerberus’ other flagship file: its takeover of HSBC’s retail bank in France, and its network of agencies.
Without capital reinforcement from HSBC, the Cerberus fund does not see itself having the shoulders broad enough to be able to take over the file in this period of rising interest rates. Unlike a bank, Cerberus is a fund and precisely does not have enough equity to be able to satisfy such a portfolio of assets in such circumstances. Regulators, too, may require greater resources to give the green light to a definitive signature.
Cerberus quickly distanced itself from discussions with Orange by collateral effect, we learn from an article published by The echoes. Worse still, there would be no question of renegotiating the total amount of the envelope for the takeover, but of deviating from the file. At 1 billion euros, Orange was already feverish. One wonders how the operator could agree to revise its price upwards. In this billion euros, there are 503 million euros in equity and an additional 500 million euros in file recovery assistance.
2.6 million customers worldwide (1.7 million customers in France and Spain) will be disappointed. Just like 750 employees today at the online bank of the French telecom operator. This engendered delay will be costly: getting rid of Orange Bank is a race against time for the new management headed by Christel Heydemann. His activity has already made him burn a billion euros. Each year, it loses between 150 and 200 million euros as well as dozens of employees each month.
“It is indeed a transfer that is in progress. The group wants to get rid of it. The decision is made”recalled a trade unionist in Echos. Last week, we discussed the bank’s current move from an in-house platform to an infrastructure entirely managed by the partner and subcontractor Mambu, whose cloud technology is also used by N26OakNorth, ABN AMRO and the Spanish Santander. . This procedure was to contribute to accelerating the sale of Orange Bank, by alleviating the file with its purchaser.
Orange Bank sans solution
For employees, moving from a buyout by a foreign investment fund to a buyout by a French banking group would be excellent news for a payroll issue. An investment fund will inevitably be more severe on its measures once the file has been recovered. But again, nothing is said. If Cerberus retracts, this does not guarantee that Orange will find a solution with the French. Societe Generale (which owns Boursorama Banque) and BNP Paribas (Nickel, Hello bank!) and Crédit Agricole (BforBank) had already left the negotiating table.
We will therefore certainly have to wait for an evolution in the HSBC-Cerberus file, so that negotiations resume more clearly with Orange and its online bank. The telecom group preferring to indicate for the time being that “the process of finding a new partner is not yet complete”. Understand by this that Orange Bank did not already see itself in the arms of Cerberus, even if in reality, it was indeed what was preparing.
