BNP Paribas has combined all of its insurance businesses into a holding company called BNP Paribas Assurance. The various brands – Cardif, Natio Vie and Natio Assurance – will continue to be used throughout the financial services group.
The aim of the new entity – which will be France’s fourth largest life-insurance group, and a provider of property and casualty insurance via a partnership with AXA – is to turn insurance into a growth engine for the bank, inside and outside France.
I France, Natio Vie and Natio Assurance sell their products and services throughout BNP Paribas’ commercial network, as well as through Cardif, which markets its products and services via its partnership network, insurance brokers, independent financial advisors, and by directsales to its customers.
Outside France, Cardif has a presence in 27 countries. It is also a major credit payment protection (CPP) company, Cardif distributes its products and services through contractual arrangements with banks, credit companies, and, in some European countries, through independent financial advisors. After signing partnership deals in 2001 and 2002 in India, Korea and Thailand, Cardif acquired a US company and signed a deal with the Russian Standard Bank Group.
In 2002, BNP Paribas’ insurance businesses posted Euros 8.2 billion in premiums. In the first nine months of 2003, revenues grew 9 per cent and pre-tax income was Euros 276 million, up 15 per cent compared to 2002.
The main purpose of the new organisation of the business is to speed up the expansion of the personal insurance business, which is of strategic importance to BNP Paribas. Paul Villemagne, 61, who as of 1999 headed the insurance business line, will become Chairman of the new company. Eric Lombard, 45, who until now was in charge of Financial Institutions and Corporate clients in BNP Paribas’ Corporate and Investment Banking arm, will assume the role of Managing Director.
Paul Villemagne, 61, is a graduate of France’s Ecole centrale des arts et manufactures, holds a PhD in mathematics, and is an alumnus of the Political Science Institute of Paris and of the French Actuaries Institute.
He began his career working at Neuflize, Schlumberger, Mallet Bank, before joining the Compagnie Bancaire in 1970. He joined Cardif in 1975 as Corporate and Board Secretary before being appointed Managing Director in 1982 and Chief Executive Officer in 1991. In 1999, he became head of BNP Paribas’s insurance subsidiaries and Chairman of BNP Paribas Assurance in 2004.
Eric Lombard, 45, is a graduate of France’s HEC Business School (class of 1981). He entered Paribas in 1981 and held various positions in the International Trade Department and in Financial Management until 1989. He then became Advisor to the spokesman for the French Government from 1989 to 1991, then Advisor to the Justice Minister from 1991 to 1992 and Advisor to the Economy and Finance Minister from 1992 to 1993.
He returned to Paribas in April 1993 when he became head of M&A in the banking and insurance industries, head of the Financial Institutions Group and was member of this department’s Executive Committee between 1997 and 1999.
He was appointed head of BNP Paribas’ Financial Institutions Group in September 1999 and member of Corporate and Investment Banking’s General Management Committee, then head of Corporates and Financial Institutions in September 2002.