Credit Agricole Posts 4Q Loss due to Writedowns (Bloomberg) (05-03-2008)

March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Credit Agricole SA has posted a fourth-quarter loss (its first quarterly loss since the company went public in 2001) of 857 million Euros ($1.3 billion), which missed analysts' estimates, compared with a profit of 1.1 billion Euros a year earlier. The company rose in French trading after saying it will increase its dividend 4.3 percent to 1.20 Euros a share.

Credit Agricole's 3.3 billion-euro markdown was more than the 2.5 billion Euros Chief Executive Georges Pauget forecast in December.

Because of this, the company today said it will boost risk management. The lender is the most affected of the French banks by declining values of debt securities and rating downgrades of bond insurers, which have led to more than $180 billion of charges at the world's biggest financial firms.

Source: Bloomberg