Banque Transatlantique

Banque Transatlantique is headquartered in Paris and has subsidiaries in Brussels and Luxembourg (which was established in 2002), a branch in London, and representative offices in Geneva, Hong Kong, Montreal, New York, Singapore and Washington, DC.

Eugène Pereire, heir of much of the Péreire brothers' family business, founded Banque Transatlantique in 1881; it had 609 shareholders and total assets in excess of 50,000,000 francs.

Through the creation of energy transporting companies in Tunisia in 1884 and Morocco in 1911, the bank was able to finance the provision of gas and electricity to the capital and many surrounding regions in France.

The bank also encouraged foreign investment by financing many public works projects that are still visible today, most notably in Casablanca, and by organizing a parliamentary visit to Tunisia in 1883.

During the 1920s, Banque Transatlantique experienced a period of expansion with the creation of a real estate company in the Opera quarter and the acquisition of Union Financiere.

Though The Great Depression spared none, the bank's clients included, Banque Transatlantique managed to stay afloat and, furthermore, experience significant growth.

[citation needed] While the CIC was establishing branches in Paris and the surrounding regions, Banque Transatlantique was turning its attention abroad, striving to improve its services to diplomats and foreign nationals by: - expanding its clientele to include teachers, industry consultants, technicians, expatriated business executives, etc.

Banque Transatlantique's relationships with its clients evolved dramatically in the 1980s to better address their needs in an increasingly complicated and globalized financial system.

The crises resulting from the Yom Kippur War (1973) and the Iranian Revolution (1979) were beginning to abate as the organization of international monetary policy began to shift because of the dollar's decline as a concerted effort on the parts of central banks in the United States, Japan, Germany, France, and Great Britain in addition to the decline in the price of crude oil because oil producing countries ceased augmenting the price.

It was within this context that France decided it needed to address its relatively pitiful level of investment and encourage banks to shift towards providing services.

In response and to better meet the needs of a growing clientele, in 1986 Banque Transatlantique established a representative office in London, where a very large French community is present to this day.

Next, it created the Helder Immobilier company in 1989 so that its internationally mobile clients could manage, research, buy, and sell real estate across the world.

In addition, the bank further focused on expatriates by promoting its relationship with the Alliance française and supporting a host of cultural activities from seminars to the opening of an International French School in Philadelphia.

The bank worked with its clients to help them through this enormous and unprecedented transition by providing software to prevent credit risks imposed by both the currency switch and the millennium bug as well as by offering new information systems based in euros.

In the late 19th century it moved to 6, rue Auber, and later to a purpose-built headquarters nearby at 17, boulevard Haussmann, now the head office of Danone; and relocated in 2000 to its current location, an iconic art deco building designed by Joseph Marrast [fr] for the Banque Dupont (now also part of the CIC Group), with metalwork by Raymond Subes [fr].