French bank BNP Paribas’ (BNPP.PA) car financing business will grow by a third after the acquisition of Opel/Vauxhall’s financing arm for $953.5 million (£777.29 million) with PSA Group (PEUP.PA).
The acquisition was announced alongside PSA Group’s agreement to buy Opel from General Motors (GM.N) in a deal valuing the business at 2.2 billion euros.
Banque PSA Finance and BNP Paribas Personal Finance will each acquire 50 per cent of the share capital of the company which had 9.6 billion euros of outstanding car loans at the end of 2016 and had operations in 11 European countries. “This perfectly fits in our development plan for Europe, we have said already that we want to grow in Germany and Northern Europe,” said Thierry Varene, a member of the BNP Paribas executive committee responsible for large clients.