(Bloomberg) -- Ayvens SA, the French car-leasing business controlled by Societe Generale SA, is attracting takeover interest from investment firms including Blackstone Inc. after a slump in its shares, according to people familiar with the matter. 

Brookfield Asset Management and CVC Capital Partners Plc have also been studying a potential deal for the company, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. Ayvens may also attract interest from industry players such as Japan’s JA Mitsui Leasing Ltd., said the people.

Shares of Ayvens jumped as much as 8.7% in Paris trading Thursday, hitting the highest intraday level in more than five months. They were up 4.4% at 5:13 p.m. in Paris, giving the company a market value of €5.8 billion ($6.2 billion). Ayvens has fallen by nearly half from its recent peak in early 2023. 

Ayvens, formerly known as ALD SA, was considered a priority for Societe Generale under the bank’s previous chief executive officer Frederic Oudea. Since Slawomir Krupa took over leadership of Societe Generale last year, he’s been looking to simplify the lender and has offloaded some smaller non-core operations.

Societe Generale has about a 53% stake in Ayvens, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A suitor may seek to team up with the French lender to take the company private, some of the people said. Deliberations are ongoing, and there’s no certainty the potential bidders will decide to proceed with a deal. Representatives for Ayvens, Blackstone, Brookfield, CVC, JA Mitsui Leasing and Societe Generale declined to comment.  

Ayvens has been a drag on Societe Generale’s results recently. Last year, the leasing firm had to give up a key financial target largely because it was blindsided by cost overruns from an IT overhaul at Leaseplan, an Amsterdam-based competitor it had bought. Ayvens also took a hit on the mark-to-market value of its hedging portfolio on leasing contracts, and a weak second-hand market has hurt the residual value of the electric vehicles on its books. 

Paris-listed Ayvens provides full-service leasing for new vehicles to customers for a typical contract duration of three to four years. In July, it agreed to provide leasing services to BYD Co. that will help the Chinese electric-car maker expand in the European corporate market. The French company operates in 42 countries with a total fleet of 3.4 million vehicles, according to its website. 

--With assistance from Manuel Baigorri, Hideki Suzuki, Vinicy Chan, Jan-Henrik Förster and Swetha Gopinath.

(Updates with share movement in third paragraph, background on business from fourth paragraph.)

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