BNP Paribas vs Broadcom: Founders, CEOs and History

Company facts

Founders

CEOs and their tenures

Timeline: BNP Paribas and Broadcom side by side

1. 1848BNP Paribas

   Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris founded

   Created by decree in March 1848 to restart commercial credit after the February Revolution, with capital from private subscribers, the City of Paris and the State. It is the oldest root of the BNP side of the group.

2. 1860BNP Paribas

   First overseas branches in Shanghai and Calcutta

   The Comptoir opened branches in Shanghai and Calcutta, becoming the first French bank to build a branch network abroad from scratch, later adding Hong Kong, London, San Francisco and Sydney.

3. 1872BNP Paribas

   Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas formed

   The Banque de Paris, founded in 1869, merged on 27 January 1872 with Louis-Raphaël Bischoffsheim's Amsterdam-based Nederlandsche Credit- en Deposito Bank to create the investment bank later known as Paribas.

4. 1889BNP Paribas

   Comptoir rescued after the copper crash

   Losses on industrialist Eugène Secrétan's attempt to corner the copper market forced the Comptoir d'escompte de Paris into liquidation, backed by a 100-million-franc Banque de France advance. It was refounded in June 1889 as a deposit bank.

5. 1966BNP Paribas

   Banque Nationale de Paris created

   Finance minister Michel Debré merged the state-owned CNEP and Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie (BNCI) to form Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP).

6. 1982BNP Paribas

   Paribas nationalised

   The Mauroy government nationalised Paribas, which adopted its telegraph address, Paribas, as its brand that year.

7. 1987BNP Paribas

   Paribas privatised

   The Chirac government returned Paribas to private ownership in January 1987.

8. 1991Broadcom

   Broadcom Corporation founded

   UCLA professor Henry Samueli and his former doctoral student Henry Nicholas III found Broadcom Corporation in Los Angeles to build broadband communications chips in CMOS, starting with chips for cable modems and digital set-top boxes.

9. 1993BNP Paribas

   BNP privatised

   BNP was privatised in October 1993 under chairman Michel Pébereau.

10. 1998Broadcom

    Broadcom Corporation IPO

    Broadcom Corporation lists on Nasdaq in April 1998 at $24 a share, as cable operators roll out DOCSIS cable modems built on its chips.

11. 1999BNP Paribas

    Three-way takeover battle

    Société Générale bid for Paribas, and BNP answered with offers for both banks. BNP won control of Paribas but failed to take Société Générale.

12. 2000BNP Paribas

    BNP Paribas created

    The merger of BNP and Paribas was completed in May 2000, combining BNP's retail network with Paribas's investment banking.

13. 2001BNP Paribas

    Full ownership of BancWest

    BNP Paribas agreed to buy the 55% of BancWest, parent of Bank of the West and First Hawaiian Bank, that it did not already own for about $2.45 billion. The Federal Reserve approved the deal on 4 December 2001.

14. 2005Broadcom

    Avago Technologies formed

    KKR and Silver Lake buy Agilent Technologies' semiconductor products group, whose roots go back to Hewlett-Packard's chip operations, for about $2.66 billion and name it Avago Technologies.

15. 2006BNP Paribas

    BNL acquired in Italy

    BNP Paribas bought Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, making Italy its second domestic retail market.

16. 2006Broadcom

    Hock Tan becomes CEO of Avago

    Hock Tan becomes president and CEO of Avago in March 2006 and begins pruning its portfolio to the businesses with defensible technology.

17. 2009BNP Paribas

    Fortis Bank acquired in Belgium

    In May 2009 BNP Paribas took control of Fortis Bank, now BNP Paribas Fortis, paying with new shares issued to the Belgian state and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. It also bought 25% of AG Insurance for ~$1.55 billion (€1.375 billion).

18. 2009Broadcom

    Avago lists on Nasdaq

    Avago Technologies goes public on Nasdaq in August 2009 at $15 a share, giving it stock to use in later acquisitions.

19. 2014BNP Paribas

    US sanctions guilty plea

    BNP Paribas pleaded guilty in New York and agreed to pay about $8.9 billion for processing dollar transactions for Sudan, Iran and Cuba in breach of US sanctions.

20. 2014Broadcom

    LSI Corporation acquired

    Avago completes its $6.6 billion purchase of LSI in May 2014, adding storage controllers and custom ASIC design teams.

21. 2016Broadcom

    Avago buys Broadcom Corporation

    Avago completes its $37 billion acquisition of Broadcom Corporation in February 2016, takes the Broadcom name and trades as AVGO.

22. 2017Broadcom

    Brocade acquired

    Broadcom completes its $5.9 billion purchase of Brocade Communications in November 2017, adding Fibre Channel storage networking switches.

23. 2018Broadcom

    Qualcomm bid blocked and move to the U.S.

    President Trump blocks Broadcom's unsolicited bid for Qualcomm on national security grounds in March 2018. Broadcom completes its redomicile from Singapore to the United States that April.

24. 2018Broadcom

    CA Technologies acquired

    Broadcom completes its $18.9 billion purchase of CA Technologies in November 2018, its first large software deal, creating the infrastructure software segment.

25. 2019Broadcom

    Symantec enterprise security acquired

    Broadcom buys Symantec's enterprise security business for $10.7 billion in November 2019, adding endpoint, web and data loss prevention software.

26. 2022Broadcom

    VMware deal announced

    Broadcom agrees in May 2022 to buy VMware in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about $61 billion at announcement.

27. 2023BNP Paribas

    Bank of the West sold to BMO

    BNP Paribas completed the $16.3 billion cash sale of Bank of the West to BMO Financial Group on 1 February 2023, leaving US retail banking.

28. 2023Broadcom

    VMware acquisition closes

    Broadcom completes the VMware acquisition on 22 November 2023 after clearances in the U.S., EU, UK and China, a deal valued at about $69 billion including assumed debt.

29. 2024Broadcom

    Stock split and $1 trillion market value

    Broadcom splits its stock 10-for-1 in July 2024, sells VMware's end-user computing unit to KKR for about $4 billion, reports fiscal 2024 revenue of $51.6 billion and passes $1 trillion in market value in December 2024.

30. 2025BNP Paribas

    AXA Investment Managers acquired

    BNP Paribas Cardif completed the ~$5.76 billion (€5.1 billion) purchase of AXA IM on 1 July 2025 and signed a long-term partnership to manage a large part of AXA's assets.

31. 2025BNP Paribas

    Sudan jury verdict

    A Manhattan federal jury found BNP Paribas liable to three Sudanese refugees in October 2025 and awarded $20.75 million. The bank is appealing.

32. 2025Broadcom

    OpenAI partnership and record fiscal 2025

    OpenAI and Broadcom agree in October 2025 to deploy 10 gigawatts of OpenAI-designed accelerators. Fiscal 2025 revenue rises 24% to $63.9 billion, with about $20 billion from AI chips.

33. 2026BNP Paribas

    Ageas partnership reset

    On 28 April 2026 BNP Paribas Fortis sold its 25% of AG Insurance to Ageas for ~$2.15 billion (€1.9 billion) and renewed their Belgian bancassurance partnership, while Cardif raised its Ageas stake to 22.5%.

34. 2026BNP Paribas

    Arval completes Athlon purchase

    Arval completed its purchase of Athlon from Mercedes-Benz Group on 31 July 2026, reaching a combined fleet of 2.3 million vehicles.

35. 2026Broadcom

    AI chips pass half of revenue

    Amie Thuener becomes CFO in June 2026. Third-quarter fiscal 2026 revenue rises 86% to $29.6 billion, and AI semiconductor revenue of $16.7 billion is 56% of the total.

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