BNP Paribas vs Cisco: Founders, CEOs and History

Company facts

Founders

CEOs and their tenures

Timeline: BNP Paribas and Cisco 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. 1984Cisco

   Company Founded at Stanford University

   Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner incorporate Cisco Systems in December 1984, commercializing multi-protocol router technology developed to connect Stanford's campus networks.

8. 1986Cisco

   First Commercial Router Shipped

   Cisco ships its first commercial multi-protocol router, the AGS (Advanced Gateway Server), generating $1.5 million in first-year revenue as the internet begins its transition from research network to commercial infrastructure.

9. 1987BNP Paribas

   Paribas privatised

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

10. 1990Cisco

    Initial Public Offering on NASDAQ

    Cisco goes public at a valuation of approximately $224 million, raising capital that would fuel its aggressive acquisition strategy. The IPO also precipitated the departure of both founders.

11. 1993BNP Paribas

    BNP privatised

    BNP was privatised in October 1993 under chairman Michel Pébereau.

12. 1995Cisco

    John Chambers Becomes CEO

    John Chambers takes over as CEO from John Morgridge, beginning a 20-year tenure that would see Cisco grow from $2 billion to over $47 billion in annual revenue through more than 180 acquisitions.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 2000Cisco

    Briefly Becomes World's Most Valuable Company

    Cisco's market capitalization exceeds $500 billion in March 2000, briefly surpassing Microsoft and GE as the world's most valuable company before the dot-com crash erased over $400 billion in shareholder value.

16. 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.

17. 2003Cisco

    Acquisition of Linksys

    Cisco acquires consumer networking company Linksys for $500 million, marking its entry into the home networking market and establishing a consumer brand that would later be divested to Belkin in 2013.

18. 2006BNP Paribas

    BNL acquired in Italy

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

19. 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).

20. 2012Cisco

    Meraki Acquisition Launches Cloud-Managed Networking

    Cisco acquires cloud-managed networking startup Meraki for $1.2 billion, gaining the platform that would become central to its small-and-medium business strategy and its broader shift toward subscription-based management.

21. 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.

22. 2015Cisco

    Chuck Robbins Appointed CEO

    Chuck Robbins succeeds John Chambers as CEO, inheriting a mandate to transform Cisco from a hardware company into a software-and-subscription platform business capable of competing in the cloud era.

23. 2017Cisco

    AppDynamics Acquisition for $3.7 Billion

    Cisco acquires application performance monitoring company AppDynamics for $3.7 billion just days before its planned IPO, signaling Cisco's strategic commitment to the observability and application intelligence market.

24. 2020Cisco

    Webex Usage Surges During COVID-19 Pandemic

    Webex usage explodes to over 600 million meeting participants per month during the pandemic, temporarily positioning Cisco's collaboration platform as a critical piece of global remote work infrastructure.

25. 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.

26. 2024Cisco

    $28 Billion Splunk Acquisition Completed

    Cisco completes its largest-ever acquisition, purchasing cybersecurity and observability company Splunk for $28 billion in cash, pushing subscription revenue past 51% of total sales and establishing Cisco as a major force in security operations.

27. 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.

28. 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.

29. 2025Cisco

    AI Infrastructure Orders Exceed $2 Billion

    Cisco's AI infrastructure orders from hyperscale customers surpass $2 billion in FY2025, more than doubling management's original target and validating the company's investment in Silicon One-based networking platforms for GPU cluster interconnection.

30. 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%.

31. 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.

Acquisitions

Questions about BNP Paribas vs Cisco