Crédit Agricole's first foray into the Spanish retail banking market is facing stiff resistance from the country's all-powerful banking family, the Botíns. And it looks as if it could turn personal.

A few weeks ago, the French "green" bank snapped up a 14.99 per cent stake in Bankinter, a mid-size Spanish retail bank, from an Indian financier based in the Canary Islands, adding it to a 5 per cent stake it picked up in the market. It then said it would seek regulatory permission to raise its stake to 29.99 per cent, just below the Spanish threshold obliging it to launch a full takeover bid.

The French have been insisting that their move is perfectly friendly and part of their strategy of rapidly expanding around the Mediterranean, after first moving into Italy and then Greece, where Crédit Agricole controls Emporiki Bank. But the Botíns do not see it that way.

The Botíns consider Bankinter part of their family fiefdom. The Spanish bank was originally founded as a joint venture between Santander, the banking giant headed by Emilio Botín, and Bank of America. It was later floated on the stock market, but the family maintained a close link through an investment firm, Cartival, whose controlling shareholder is Emilio's brother, Jaime.

Cartival has now also asked for permission from the regulator to increase its 16.2 per cent Bankinter stake to 29.99 per cent. It intends to block any eventual design by the French to take control of Spain's fifth-largest retail bank, one of the few remaining acquisition targets in the country's banking sector.

For the wealthy Botín family, the idea of their old French rival hunting on their own Spanish turf must be galling. The two have already crossed swords in Italy, where, in the end, the French came out on top. This was because Sanpaolo Imi, the Turin bank in which Santander held a historic core stake of about 8.4 per cent, and Intesa, the Milan bank in which Crédit Agricole was the single largest shareholder, decided to merge.

Sure, in their dreams the French hoped one day to own Intesa outright. But they received a handsome consolation prize for scaling down their Intesa stake by getting in return a bucketful of retail branches. The Spaniards, in contrast, had opposed the Sanpaolo-Intesa merger. For years they had high hopes of expanding in Italy. But ultimately they walked away - as indeed did their biggest domestic rival BBVA - with an overall gain of about €1.3bn ($1.9bn) on their Sanpaolo stake.

It has nonetheless left a somewhat sour taste and explains in part why Santander hurried so fast to sell the Antonveneta bank that recently came in its ABN Amro trousseau - a deal that booked it an even juicier gain of about €3.4bn.

Now the Botíns may be quite happy to leave Italy and all its complications to Crédit Agricole, or other French banks, such as BNP Paribas. But that certainly does not mean they will roll out the red carpet into Spain for their French foes.

A matter of theology

Remarks this week by Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman about whether private equity firms or public markets hold investments the longest have reopened a debate that is sometimes reminiscent of the theological dispute about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. But the success of the chosen ownership model depends not on which shelf it comes from but on how it is applied.

Public markets provide companies with the security of "permanent capital": in theory, the whole of a publicly listed company's issued shares could change hands in a day without affecting the company's strategy or management team.

Private equity and hedge funds have recognised the attractions of permanent capital themselves by seeking stock market listings, of which the initial public offering of Mr Schwarzman's Blackstone was the most striking. Meanwhile, some publicly listed companies are increasing leverage and incentives to staff in an effort to boost performance, just like private equity does.

Permanent capital can breed complacency in managers and staff, and changes in private equity ownership every three or five years can unnerve them. These are the extremes. But far from joining battle, the two sides should be seeking the best blend. After all, the same pension funds and institutions increasingly provide the finance for both private equity-owned companies and their publicly listed counterparts. They should know that neither ownership model is definitively on the side of the angels.

world.view@ft.com