Reconstruction and prosperity: "Les Trente Glorieuses"

1945 Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas

The Osterrieth house in Antwerp,
built in the 18th Century,
housed the offices of
Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas
in this city.

Jean Reyre,
Chief Officer from
1948 to 1966,
then President of Paribas
from 1967 to 1969

Movement toward a diversification of interests

In accordance with a law passed in France in 1945, the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas soon after adopted the status of a "banque d'affaires" (merchant bank) and thereby avoided nationalization.

This new legislation allowed the bank to work for corporations and thus play a role in the rebuilding of French industry in order to meet the challenge of international competition brought by emerging industries such as information technologies, (Bull), and electronics (with the merger of Thomson, Brandt and CSF).

Due to the inauguration of new types of medium-term export credits, Jean Reyre, Chief Executive from 1948 until 1966 and then Chairman until 1969, developed the business of export financing of capital goods around the world and especially to developing countries: e.g. in the iron and steel industries in Latin America (in companies such as Paz del Rio in Colombia and Cosipa in Brazil), in the production of electricity (as seen in the Cabora Bassa dam project in Mozambique) and in petrochemicals (notably in Scandinavia). This strategy was pursued from 1970 until the 1980's, and saw the development of major projects like the Caracas metro in Venezuela and the European aerospace industry.

Through its investments, the bank played a major role in the paper industry (La Rochette); in oil (Total, Aquitaine); in metallurgy and steel (Nord-Est and Usinor); and in tourism as it backed the entrepreneurs behind Club Méditerranée and Wagons Lits.

Outside of France, Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas bolstered its presence in the Far East, Central Europe, the Soviet Union and the Middle East. Paribas became a shareholder of the Iranian Banque de Téhéran in 1958, and opened an investment bank in New York in 1960, followed by new subsidiaries in London and Luxembourg (1964), leading up to a return to international capital markets in 1965.

In the 1960s the bank was affiliated with the South African firm Anglo American Corporation, then the world's biggest mining conglomerate.

At the end of the 1960s it took a controlling share in Crédit du Nord and in the Banque de l'Union Parisienne, both of which it then merged. National Westminster Bank and Bayerische Vereinsbank each acquired interests in the merged establishment.

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