Jean Peyrelevade, the former chairman of Crédit Lyonnais, could walk away from his job at Crédit Agricole with more than €5m ($5.5m) profit from his stock options when he steps down in the next few weeks.

Peyrelevade was awarded the largest proportion of the options last year. He received 180,000 options with an exercise price of €36.76, which could not be exercised until January 2005.