A trail of financial calamity and political intrigue is unlikely to prevent the French state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais from reporting a sizeable profit when it announces 1997 financial results on Thursday.
But the bank has long been living an uncomfortable triangular relationship with the government in Paris and the European Union regulatory authorities in Brussels, and it is sure to dismay as many people as it pleases, no matter how good the books look.
Credit Lyonnais has been snared in political quarrels since a breakneck expansion under Socialist patronage went seriously awry and plunged the bank life-threateningly into the red in the early 1990s.
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Former boss Jean-Yves Haberer, appointed by late Socialist president Francois Mitterrand in 1988, was formally placed under investigation last Wednesday.
He is suspected of complicity in voluntarily causing the bankruptcy of a company in a funding venture involving Lyonnais subsidiary Altus Finance.
The bank ran up more than 20 billion francs in losses between 1992 and 1994 after generous lending and ambitious acquisitions went sour, marking the end of an era in which Credit Lyonnais was briefly the worlds biggest bank outside of Japan.
Successive government rescue packages, which have yet to run their course, are estimated to have cost anywhere between 100 and 200 billion francs.
The packages need approval from the European Commission under Eurpean Union rules on state subsidy control.
As late as Friday, contacts between French finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn and European Commissioner Karel Van Miert failed to end a deadlock over the latters demands that the bank be slimmed down and sold off fast in return for approval of the state bail-outs.
Squeezed between Strauss-Kahn and Van Miert, Credit Lyonnais chairman Jean Peyrelevade is struggling to keep his bank intact, but Brussels is piling pressure on Paris to sell off big chunks in accordance with promises struck in the past.
Banking industry analysts believe Credit Lyonnais could turn in a net attributable profit of more than one billion francs in 1997.
The average forecast in a poll of 10 analysts by Reuters was 1.2 billion francs, with highs and lows of 1.5 billion and 900 million, respectively.
Paris-based consultancy Jacques Chahine said its survey of 26 brokerages produced an average prediction of a little more than one billion francs.
Credit Lyonnais reported a profit of 202 million francs in 1996.
While the figures should confirm that the bank is genuinely making money, the financial interest in Credit Lyonnais is not limited to the bottom line.
Strauss-Kahn, whose left-wing government took over last June, is widely expected to accept Brussels ultimatum and agree to privatise the bank.
Even the biggest banks in France are looking for ways to beef up their domestic base as a fresh wave of consolidation in the banking sector sweeps Europe ahead of the single currency.
Investment share in Credit Lyonnais which carry no voting rights but account for about 20 per cent of the banks capital have risen sharply in the past few months, largely due to speculation on privatisation.
The price of the certificates, traded like shares, closed at 510 francs on Friday. A year earlier it commanded less than 200 francs.