Societe Generale’s global markets business, which houses the equities and fixed income divisions, recorded its best set of quarterly revenues for more than two years, helped by a “buoyant environment” in part created by the European Central Bank's second Long Term Refinancing Operation auction.

The business, which along with financing and advisory makes up the French bank's corporate and investment bank, enjoyed an "excellent" first quarter of 2012, according to the bank, with revenues for the unit, at €1.6bn, the highest since the third quarter of 2009.