Agricole piles the pressure on Lazard.

CREDIT Agricole, one of France's largest banks, is putting pressure on international investment bank Lazard to restructure once and for all the cascade of holding companies that own the private bank.

Agricole rode to Lazard's rescue last November when it agreed to buy a 31% stake in one of the bank's publicly-quoted holding companies from French corporate raider Vincent Bollore for nearly [pound]400m.

Bollore, along with Anglo-Swiss investment bank UBS Warburg, which still owns a little over 10% of another holding company, has been trying to force the Lazard