Natexis Banques Populaires (NBP) has been accepted as a member of the London Stock Exchange, boosting NBP's securities brokerage ambitions.

This allows Natexis Bleichroeder, the equities division of the London branch of NBP, to trade as a principal or agent in securities listed on the LSE and Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

This development is a significant step for NBP's securities brokerage ambitions in London.  In early July, Natexis Bleichroeder United Kingdom (NBUK) was transferred to become part of the London Branch of NBP.  Previously NBUK had been a subsidiary of US-based Natexis Bleichroeder Inc.  The new structure enables Natexis Bleichroeder in London, which continues to work alongside Natexis Bleichroeder in Paris and the USA, to function as a stand-alone self-clearing brokerage operation.

"The LSE announcement completes the revamp of the equity offering at NBP," says Ernie Ferriday, Managing Director of Natexis Bleichroeder in London.  "We have been transferred out of our previous limited entity into the London branch, which enables us to offer clients a complete brokerage service."

A major step in the new structure for Natexis Bleichroeder in London is the capacity to underwrite securities issues.  The equities division took full advantage of this in the recent IPO of Rosneft - using NBP's balance sheet to underwrite $250 million of the issue as a Co-Lead Manager.  At $10.4 billion, Rosneft was the largest IPO of a Russian company and the fifth largest in the world to date.

"Rosneft is a statement of intent regarding our future ambition," says Ferriday.  "The transaction also fits well with the fact that a specialist focus for us going forward will be natural resources."

Natexis Bleichroeder London works in conjunction with NBP's award winning Natural Resources & Related Industries (NARRI) department, which provides structured finance and other forms of credit to commodities producers and traders.  NARRI has a leading position internationally in techniques such as reserve-based lending.  Accordingly, Natexis Bleichroeder is hiring a well-known senior oil and gas analyst, due to join the team in September, and a senior coal and mining analyst, Ian Synnott, has been transferred from New York.  Damien Mauvais is also transferring in August from NARRI's Oil & Gas department in Paris, where he headed the reserve based lending desk, to run Equity Capital Markets in London.

Natexis Bleichroeder has also hired a head of settlements, Jon Scarll, formerly employed by State Street Global Markets as middle office supervisor for foreign exchange and money markets; a senior dealer, Frederic Drai, formerly employed as trading manager at SG Securities Ltd. London; a secondary senior dealer and also a supervisory analyst.