PARIS (Reuters) -Frederic Oudea, the outgoing chief executive of French bank Societe Generale (OTC:SCGLY), said on Tuesday that crisis situations such as the ones being experienced at present were not the best environment for European banking sector mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals.
Oudea added that cross-border banking mergers were not for today or tomorrow, and that while SocGen could end up with "one or two transactions", any such deal would not be systemic.
The European banking sector has recently come under stress, given a slump in the shares of Credit Suisse while a drop in the value of the British pound, due to concerns over the UK government's economic policies, has also added to volatility.
On Monday, the shares of Credit Suisse dropped by as much as 11.5% and its bonds hit record lows before clawing back some of the losses amid concerns about the lender's ability to restructure its business without asking for more money.