PARIS, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Natixis, known as the youngest bank in France, posted Thursday a 1.8 billion-euro first-quarter loss, triggered by its toxic assets.

    Natixis' performance in the first quarter is really frustrating, compared with a profit of 69 million euros a year earlier.

    Its two main shareholders, Banque Populaire and Caisse d'Epargne, will give a capital injection totaling 3.5 billion euros in order to maintain a solid capital structure.

    The so-called toxic assets are blamed for the heavy loss. Natixis' assets of the toxic portfolio amounted to 33.7 billion euros in the first quarter, which makes the bank suffer a loss of 1.9 billion euros.

    The figures are worse than the expectations of investors and markets. The shares of Natixis plunged Thursday in Paris trading with a fall of 13.58 percent.

    Francois Perol, head of the combined Banque Populaire-Caisse d'Epargne, said in an interview with French daily Les Echos, which was published on Thursday, that it was too early to see a reverse of asset writedowns. He added it depended on whether the situation in markets would continue to worsen, especially in those where Natixis has asset exposure.

    Natixis was created in 2006 when Banque Populaire and Caisse d'Epargne merged their investment-banking and asset-management businesses. It is heavily hit by the subprime crisis and financial crisis. With its net banking income for 2008 being a loss of 3.452billion euros, Natixis reported losses of 2.8 billion euros.

Special Report:  Global Financial Crisis