Orange Bank is still in a very bad position. Potential buyers do not seem to be rushing. The online bank is now considering another option: the transfer of its clientele and the restructuring of its own subsidiary. A scheme that interests BNP Paribas and its subsidiary Hello bank according to Les Echos.
Orange Bank is having difficulty finding a buyer for 100% of its capital. Orange, its parent company, had indicated in April to the newspaper The world that the search for a partner was not over. For lack of anything better, online banking would now like transfer its clientele and restructure its own subsidiary with its 826 employeesaccording The echoes. An option that would interest BNP Paribas. Contacts by the daily, neither BNP Paribas nor Orange have confirmed the news.
The benefit for BNP Paribas is obvious: to strengthen its Hello bank online bank, which now has 750,000 customers. By adding the 2 million customers of Orange Bank… the subsidiary of BNP Paribas could better compete with Boursorama and its 4.9 million users, explain The echoes.
The process of finding a partner is not yet complete. The group has received several expressions of interest from investors which are currently being examined, Orange replied to Echoes.
In this context, it is likely that BNP Paribas’ competitors (Socit Gnrale, Crdit Agricole, Crdit Mutuel, etc.) are also interested in taking over the clientele of Orange Bank.
Online banking: who to buy Orange Bank?
Takeover offers that do not take
always according to The echoesa source told them that offers from multiple funds on 100% equity are neither strong nor acceptable. The American fund Cerberus was once tipped to take over Orange Bank. But this option no longer seems relevant since the announcement of the freezing of the process of taking over HSBC France by this same fund. Another fund, Ripplewood, has also made a much lower offer, according to information from the daily.
In 2022, Orange Bank lost another 200 million euroscarrying a billion euros in cumulative losses since its launch in 2017.
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