It’s the end of an era Societe Generale. Frédéric Oudéa, the bank’s managing director, announced to the group’s shareholders that he would not seek the renewal of his mandate in 2023.
In a year, therefore, whoever displays unparalleled longevity at the head of a French bank will give up his apron to take the presidency (non-executive) of the pharmaceutical group Sanofi. He was unanimously appointed on Friday September 2, the multinational announced on Monday September 5.
Frédéric Oudéa took over as general manager of the group in May 2008, in the wake of the Kerviel scandal. Appointed, for a time, CEO, before his functions were separated, the captain faced all the storms: financial crisis, euro zone crisis, Covid. And today the war in Ukraine, which forced the Societe Generale to draw a line under the costly Russian adventure launched by his predecessor.
After fourteen years of reign, his record at the head of Société Générale is more or less mixed, according to the Parisian economic press. The bank has regularly disappointed the objectives announced to investors. Having fallen into stock market purgatory in the fall of 2020 due to the pandemic, the stock made a spectacular recovery, before the end of the war in Ukraine. The few months of his mandate remaining at the head of Societe Generale will be an opportunity for Frédéric Oudéa to consolidate the refocusing of the investment bank on less risky activities and to complete the merger of the Societe Generale and Crédit du North.