FACTBOX - Shopping list for SocGen's loss

Fri Jan 25, 2008 3:09pm GMT
 
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(Reuters) - French bank Societe Generale (SocGen) said this week a rogue trader built up illicit trades that cost it 4.9 billion euros (3.6 billion pounds) to unwind.

But just how much is $7.2 billion (3.6 billion pounds)? Here is how the sum shapes up against other financial indicators. It is:

* Greater than the individual GDP of 63 countries, according to 2006 World Bank data, including Chad, Mauritius, Armenia, Brunei, Namibia, Macedonia, Burkina Faso, Mali, Malta, West Bank and Gaza, Barbados, the Seychelles and Nicaragua.

* More than the market capitalisation of French companies including advertising company Publicis, technology group Safran or the country's largest television broadcaster TF1.

With the money, SocGen could have bought:

* Four space shuttles, at NASA prices, with some cash left over for fuel.

* Two nuclear-powered aircraft carriers at French defence ministry budget listings or 10 of its high-tech FREMM frigates.

* 22 of the world's largest passenger airliner, the Airbus superjumbo A380, which has a list price of $320 million, or 25 Boeing 747s with a $286 million sticker.

* 106 high-tech French-made Rafale fighter planes.  Continued...

 
Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, participates in a panel discussion at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York September 23, 2009.   REUTERS/Chip East
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