I've warned in the past of the persistent risk of Societe Generale (OTCPK:SCGLY) ("SocGen") becoming a "value trap", with the company's management unable to craft a business plan that would lead to meaningfully higher returns on equity and drive a higher valuation. The COVID-19 pandemic has only complicated that issue, and the steps that management is taking to manage through the crisis may well only exacerbate that problem.
Societe Generale hasn't produced an acceptable return on its equity since the Global Financial Crisis and I'm increasingly worried as to whether it ever will. SocGen is primarily a European retail bank in an environment where that's a decreasingly profitable line of business, and efforts to improve other operations like trading, investment banking, and service business (asset management, etc.) have had little-to-mixed success at best. With that, while SocGen screens very cheap on even very low near-term expectations (as well as long-term core earnings), I'm worried that this bank is effectively hamstrung on growth/margin expansion and will trade at a persistent discount.
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Societe Generale Looks Very Cheap - Hamstrung With Respect To Growth
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