Lemierre to replace Prot as BNP Paribas chair

BNP Paribas has appointed Jean Lemierre to become the next chairman of France’s biggest bank by assets. The former head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development will replace Baudouin Prot in December.

The resignation of Mr Prot, who was BNP’s chief executive from 2003 until he stepped up to chairman in 2011, makes him the biggest victim of the $8.9bn fines the bank paid this summer to US regulators for sanctions violations.

Mr Lemierre, 64, has been a senior adviser to the French bank since he left the EBRD in 2008. A former head of the French treasury, he was also co-head of the bondholders’ committee that renegotiated €200bn of Greek sovereign bonds in 2012.

His appointment as chairman accelerates a recent overhaul of BNP’s top management in the wake of the US fines. Yann Gérardin was this week named as the new head of its corporate and investment bank, replacing Alain Papiasse, who will take responsibility for meeting US regulatory requirements.

Other senior executives who have said they will leave the bank since the US fine was announced in July include Georges Chodron de Courcel, chief operating officer and chairman of the bank’s Swiss unit that was behind many of the illegal transactions, and Jean Clamon, head of compliance since 2008.

In total, 13 employees have left the bank at the request of US regulators. These include Vivien Lévy-Garboua, senior adviser to the BNP executive committee and former head of compliance; Christopher Marks, head of debt capital markets; and Stephen Strombelline, head of ethics and compliance for North America.

An immediate challenge facing Mr Lemierre is to refresh the bank’s governance. Several board members joined more than a decade ago, including Denis Kessler, chairman of reinsurer Scor, and Jean-François Lepetit, a former Banque Indosuez executive.

Mr Lemierre is also likely to focus on bolstering its compliance operations and culture, which were found wanting by US regulators in their investigations into BNP’s sanctions breaches.

He must also grapple with an environment of weak economic growth and low interest rates in many of its main markets, as well as the growing challenge from fast-moving financial technology start-ups.

The BNP board said in statement it was “grateful to Baudouin Prot for his total commitment during the financial crisis of 2007-2011 when he faced on a daily basis, with his teams, situations which were unprecedented in the financial sector”. It added: “His performance at the helm of the bank has been excellent.”

Mr Prot said: “After dedicating myself fully to the success of the group for more than 30 years, I have made a personal decision to take a step back. I feel the time has come to pass the reins to a new chairman who will bring new energy to our bank at a time of post-crisis challenges.”

For much of the past decade, Mr Prot formed a potent duo with his mentor Michel Pébereau. Together they built BNP into one of the eurozone’s biggest banks with €1.8tn in assets and more than 185,000 employees in 75 countries.

But since he handed over the reins as chief executive to Jean-Laurent Bonnafé three years ago, the 63-year-old has found it tougher going.

In June, US regulators extracted a record fine and a guilty plea from BNP after finding that it had processed more than $30bn of transactions for groups in Sudan, Iran and Cuba between 2002 and 2012. The bank was also given a one-year ban on clearing some dollar transactions to start in January.

The stress of the talks with US regulators over the sanctions breaches – which were led by Mr Lemierre and Mr Bonnafé – added to the pressure of the eurozone crisis and forced Mr Prot to take a couple months off at the start of the year due to fatigue.