Brussels, 24/03/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 24 March, the European Commission approved a new amendment to the French scheme to inject capital into credit institutions.
On 16 March the French authorities formally notified an amendment to the capital-injection scheme for certain credit institutions. The scheme had been approved by the Commission on 8 December 2008 and a first recapitalisation tranche had been released under it. It then underwent a first amendment to give the beneficiary banks the option, as part of a second tranche of operations, of either issuing subordinated debt securities on the same terms as for the first tranche or issuing preference shares.
The second amendment, which has just been approved, relates to the terms governing the remuneration and reimbursement of the preference shares - terms which act as a stronger incentive for the beneficiary banks to buy back the issued preference shares at the earliest opportunity by increasing the progressivity of the amount to be reimbursed as the years go by. All the other features of the capital-injection scheme, as approved in the decisions of 8 December 2008 and 28 January 2009, remain unchanged.
The Commission concluded that the amendment to the capital-injection scheme is an appropriate, necessary and proportionate means of restoring confidence to financial markets and enabling French banks to increase lending to the real economy. In particular, the Commission has concluded that the level of remuneration of the preference shares provides adequate remuneration for the State and will ensure that state involvement in the banks' capital will be as brief as possible given that the amount to be reimbursed will increase significantly over time. (O.L./transl.rh)