Friday’s Headlines: Why the French’s Love for Big Business Schools Makes Sense

French business schools have been on an M&A spree in recent years, and the head of one such school, Frank Vidal, head of Advancia business school in Paris, argues in a Businessweek op-ed that bigger is in fact better:

More students allow for more flexibility in the classes offered, which in turn leads to the varied and more specific sort of student profiles that recruiters want. This reduces efforts in career placement, because alumni become an even better fit for companies. A larger student body leads to a bigger potential network for the school’s fundraising and to more merit grants from a school’s foundation, ultimately increasing diversity. And all this can be possible while still respecting compact class sizes.

Other benefits of huge b-schools include larger foundations that can provide the financial aid needed to diversify the student population. Also bigger schools can more easily fulfill atypical demands for courses or paths of study, which lowers the costs of career services and increases the chance that employers can fill their needs, Vidal argues. A pitfall for such agility is higher teaching and administration overhead.

Other News:

Q1 was the slowest quarter for M&A in more than seven years, but a pickup is expected. [Reuters]

ING plans to sell its stake in the TMB Bank of Thailand. [Reuters]

AIG may bid on Hartford units. [Bloomberg]

Credit Suisse cuts its CEO’s pay in half. [Financial Times]

SEC will investigate high-frequency trading. [WSJ]

Ex-Goldman employees in Japan founded a union to demand their jobs back. [NY Times]

Asian Banks go on a bargain-hunt. [WSJ]

Ninety-eight percent of Morgan Keegan employees who received retention letters plan to stay with Raymond James. [Investment News]

Steve Bartlett will step down as head of his lobbying group, Financial Services Roundtable. [DealBook]