	france to sell stake in societe generale unit the french government is to sell to the public its pct direct holding in societe generale stgn pa s regional bank subsidiary societe generale alsacienne de banque sogenal from next monday sogenal officials said sogenal founded in and nationalised in is the leading french regional bank and has branches in austria belgium luxembourg east and west germany and switzerland chairman rene geronimus told a news conference the share offer price expected to be announced tomorrow by finance minister edouard balladur would be between and francs societe generale which will itself be privatised later this year will retain its pct majority holding in the bank chairman marc vienot said sogenal officials said they forecast consolidated group profit of around mln francs after an estimated mln this year and mln in sogenal s privatisation will be preceded by a capital increase to mln francs from mln earning about mln francs in new funds its shares will be divided by eight giving a capital of mln shares of francs nominal the bank will be listed on the nancy stock exchange in line with the finance ministry and government s aim of a regional operation geronimus said he said he was hoping for shareholders to total around to against the before nationalisation ten pct of the capital to be floated will be reserved for employees with the rest offered to the public there will not be a share reserved for foreign investors this is too small an operation and anyway they will be able to buy shares in france he said stockbroker sources said that a likely share offer price of francs would value sogenal at billion francs geronimus said the bank s future aim would be to reinforce its existing strong points with no major projects planned apart from the opening soon of a basle branch sogenal is the only french bank in austria it set up the first foreign exchange dealing room outside paris at its strasbourg headquarters in and is the only foreign banking subsidiary to be a broker on the zurich bourse the government s banking adviser for the operation was banque privee de gestion financiere bpgf owned by french financier pierre moussa s pallas group assisted by britain s hambros bank ltd reuter 
