PARIS (Reuters) -Slawomir Krupa is set to become the new chief executive of Societe Generale, following his current position as head of investment banking, Le Figaro said on Friday, citing several sources.
A board meeting on the nomination will be held on Friday, the newspaper added.
The bank was not immediately available to respond to a Reuters request for comment. Le Figaro said the bank had declined to comment.
Several unidentified sources said Krupa was the “big favourite” to lead the country’s third-biggest bank, the paper said.
“His candidacy has been preferred to that of Sebastien Proto … by the nomination committee,” it added, referring to another internal candidate cited as being well placed for the job in the run-up to the nomination.
Krupa, who leads the bank’s Global Customers and Investor Solutions unit, was seen as one of the frontrunners for the job after the surprise announcement in May of the departure of Frederic Oudea, who led the bank for more than a decade.
Oudea was one of the longest-serving chief executives in European banking since the financial crisis, as rival institutions have gone through multiple leadership changes as the industry has struggled to restore profitability.
As with many other European banks, however, SocGen’s shares have more than halved since the 2008 crisis.
The bank, which had promised to find a replacement soon, has been interviewing for both internal and external candidates, but its leadership had preferred picking a replacement from within, sources had told Reuters.
Oudea will move on to be non-executive chairman of French pharma giant Sanofi.
(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel, Editing by Dominique Vidalon and Clarence Fernandez)
