Reaction to SocGen board backing Bouton as chairman

PARIS (Reuters) - The supervisory board of Societe Generale on Wednesday backed Daniel Bouton as chairman and chief executive after record losses that the bank blamed on a sole rogue trader.

It appointed a special committee of independent directors to probe what went wrong and to ensure measures are put in place to avoid a repetition.

Following are reactions from fund managers and analysts.

SIMON MAUGHAN, AN ANALYST AT MF GLOBAL SECURITIES:

"It would be bigger news if they'd changed their minds having previously offered their support ... It would be daft to go ahead with a big capital raising without a chief executive. And given that the most likely successor was Mustier, if Bouton goes presumably Mustier also has to go, so you are taking out the No. 1 and the potential replacement just before you do a big capital raising. It would be interesting, when the capital raising is completed, to see if he (Bouton) continues to have the faith of the board because at that point, depending on what this new committee finds out, the support may be withdrawn."

DIRK THIELS, HEAD OF GLOBAL EQUITY FUNDS AT KBC ASSET MANAGEMENT:

"I find this very extraordinary. What we have seen at U.S. banks is that all the top people resigned when there were bad investments ... What happened at SocGen is really fraud. If a shareholder can't trust senior management to take responsibility for controlling the actions within an organization, who has to be responsible?"

CHRISTINE DE FROMENT, FUND MANAGER AT MARIGNAN GESTION, WHO HOLDS SOCGEN SHARES:

"For now, this isn't a particularly big development. The bigger picture is a merger with another bank, which I think is inevitable."