Dexia

Dexia (, ) is a Belgian-French financial institution, also referred to as the Dexia Group, specializing in public finance. It was founded in 1996 through the merger of Crédit Communal de Belgique/Gemeentekrediet van België (founded 1860) and Crédit Local de France (founded 1987). The Dexia Group was founded as a dual-listed company, but in 1999 the Belgian entity took over the French entity to form one company. Dexia is a member of the BEL20, CAC 40, and LuxX indices. The company is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

The BIC code is GKCC BE BB, which mirrors the name of the old "Gemeentekrediet-Crédit Communal".

Bailout

On 30 September 2008 the Belgian, French and Luxembourg governments said they would put in €6.4bn ($9bn; £5bn) into keeping Dexia afloat. On the same day at 10:02am the BBC News Channel broke news which had come from the news provider AFP "Dexia Chairman and the Chief Executive resign after bailout". This was later confirmed live on the BBC News Channel from Brussels at 10:24am. Axel Miller and Pierre Richard were Chairman and Chief Executive respectively. The next day the rating agency Moody's downgraded Dexia's long term debt and deposits ratings from Aa1 to Aa3, and downgraded the individual banks' strengths to C- ("adequate intrinsic financial strength") with a negative outlook.

The problems at Dexia stem in part from a multi-billion loan to troubled German bank Depfa. The Dexia board stated on 5 October 2008 that the capital addition by the governments would put it in a position in which it could deal with detoriating market conditions, and that the credit risks associated with Hypo Real Estate and Depfa are only limited.