Quiet man Oudea slips into SocGen top job

By Sudip Kar-Gupta

PARIS (Reuters) - Frederic Oudea, the quiet and unassuming finance head at Societe Generale, has silently brushed aside his rivals to move into pole position at the French bank hit by the world's worst trading scandal.

SocGen announced late on Thursday that Oudea, 44, would be promoted from deputy chief executive to become chief executive of France's second-biggest listed bank.

He will share control at first with Daniel Bouton, who gives up his post as chief executive while remaining chairman.

Bouton faced severe criticism over SocGen's 4.9 billion euro (3.9 billion pounds) trading loss, which the bank said was caused by rogue deals conducted by Jerome Kerviel, one of its junior traders. French President Nicolas Sarkozy had questioned Bouton's handling of the affair and urged him to resign.

Many analysts said Oudea could end up taking control of the bank's strategy.

"Step by step, Bouton will hand over his position to Oudea," said Agilis Gestion fund manager Frederic Hamm, adding that Agilis was continuing to steer clear of banking shares due to ongoing problems over credit market losses.

At news conferences, Oudea had always taken a secondary role behind Bouton and Jean-Pierre Mustier, the 47-year-old head of SocGen's investment banking division who had long been considered as a likely successor to Bouton.

Mustier had a far higher profile than Oudea but his career has been tarnished by the Kerviel affair. Both Mustier and Bouton offered to resign following the scandal, but the bank asked them to stay on.