A French Bank Like No Other in Europe Seeks to Export Its Model

Bpifrance is a bank like no other in Europe.

The French lender has made more than €50 billion ($56 billion) in loans to small and mid-sized businesses and has €52 billion in stakes in almost 1,000 companies. It has backed everything from a startup wanting to take tourists to the edge of space in balloons and a chain of trendy Parisian nightspots to the automotive giant Stellantis NV. A force to reckon with on French deals for M&A advisers like Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., it has lured away bankers from firms like UBS Group AG and ...