BNP needs to do something about its M&A bankers
BNP Paribas released its Q2 results for 2025 today. While the bank’s traders (some of them) received their laurels, its investment bankers flew mostly flew under the radar. Some of them might be grateful for this.
Get Morning Coffee ☕ in your inbox. Sign up here.
BNP’s M&A professionals don't have their revenues broken out, and can feel thankful that this is so. Although it discusses its strong capital markets performance at length in today's release, BNP notes only that M&A made “gains on a less active market”.
Data from market intelligence provider LSEG (formerly Refinitiv) suggests things didn't go well. BNP fell from 8th in the EMEA M&A league table (by announced volume) to 19th, and its market share by that metric fell by nearly 70%. Aside from the usual rivals, it was also behind Big Four firms Deloitte and PwC. The situation was even worse in France itself, where BNP fell from 2nd in the table to 16th, losing more than 90% of its deal volume in the process.
Coincidentally, BNP also shook up the leadership of its CIB earlier this week. Yannick Jung, the unit’s head, was instead moved over to lead the bank’s commercial, personal banking and services division despite three decades within the CIB. BNP also likely suffered this quarter from the departure of Matthew Ponsonby, its UK-based head of global banking who left at the start of the quarter to head up Mizuho’s investment bank.
Outside of investment banking, BNP’s performance was equally mixed. Fixed income, currencies, and commodities (FICC) trading revenue rose by 27% in the second quarter, higher than any other major bank has posted so far this results season. Equities trading revenue, however, cratered – down by 15% in Q2, while American banks posted revenue increases of anywhere between 6% and 36%.
Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, WhatsApp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. Signal also available.
Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libelous (in which case it won’t.)
