Will BNP Paribas displace Goldman Sacks?
Goldman Sachs is currently one of the top three global prime brokers to hedge funds, after surpassing Barclays as the dominant European player after acquiring Deutsche Bank’s business last year. France’s largest investment bank swooped on the German lender’s global prime finance unit and electronic equities business last summer as Deutsche scaled back its ambitions.
According to Olivier Osty’s words (head of global markets at BNP): “Our combination could be the largest prime broker in Europe and be considered in the top four in the world. This has to be seen, but that is the objective and we will make it . -We would be trying to compete with Goldman for the third or fourth spot.”
BNP is one of the few European banks focusing on resources to prime finance, the lucrative but tech-heavy and risky business. When all client transfers from Deutsche are completed in early 2021, BNP’s prime brokerage business is expected to have more than $300bn of assets and revenue in the hundreds of millions a year.