Head of investment banking at SocGen killed in crash

Xavier Debonneuil, the head of investment and corporate banking at Société Générale, has died in a car crash in the Sologne region of central France.

His wife, Michele, was seriously injured. Their daughter, Anne Delecourt, 25, died a few hours after the accident in Romorantin hospital. Her two-year-old son escaped unhurt.

SocGen said M. Debonneuil, 54, died on Boxing Day afternoon. He had worked at Société Générale for 17 years, last year leading a campaign to revamp the business after its profits fell 43 per cent in 2001. He had made a name for himself at SocGen as a keen cost cutter, driving through 450 redundancies. M. Debonneuil joined SocGen from Banque de France, where he was head of research. He was appointed deputy head of capital markets at SocGen in 1995, before being made deputy chief executive of the international and finance division in 1998 and chief executive a year later.

His wife, also 54, is the head of the economic, financial and international department at the Commissariat Général du Plan, which helps formulate policy for the Prime Minister's Office.