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Crédit Lyonnais is a French bank. It used to be the largest French bank, and it was state-owned.
History
Founded in 1863 in Lyons by Henri Germain, Crédit Lyonnais was nationalised in 1945.
During the 1990s it has been the subject of financial scandals, and created a huge debt of about 150 billion French francs by exaggerate investing, but mostly through subsidiaries. Their motto of the time, Le pouvoir de dire oui, literally the ability to say 'yes which more or less meant we can lend you money so that you can say 'yes' to your desires has been put to the extreme.
Crédit Lyonnais notably owned the MGM movie studio for a few years. Giancarlo Parretti was the chief of the studio at the time. Crédit Lyonnais is also involved in the Executive Life insurance scandal.
The finances have been sanitized by moving the debt into a new state-owned organism, Consortium de Réalisation (CDR).
In 2003, the bank was bought by Crédit Agricole. In 2004, the investment banking business of the bank was spun off to an existing subsidiary of Crédit Agricole, Crédit Agricole Indosuez, which was renamed Calyon. Crédit Lyonnais continues to exist as a nationwide retail consumer bank.