Pragma Capital, the private equity joint venture between Crédit Agricole and Crédit Lyonnais, has strengthened its management team with two senior hires.

Michel Chabanal has joined as a senior investment partner from the Paris office of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) where he had headed debt-financing activities since May 2000. At RBS, Chabanal helped to finance a number of France's biggest leveraged buy-out transactions. These included the €5.1bn ($5.9bn) buy-out of Legrand, the electrical retailer, from Schneider Electric by Wendel Investissements and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.