The Dutch bank has priced its initial public offering of shares as the lender begins to work on returning to private ownership.

ABN AMRO is looking to raise €3.3 billion ($3.6 billion) in an initial public offering, as the Netherlands government starts to recover some of the money it pumped into the bank at the time of the 2008 global financial crisis, the bank said today.

The price per depository receipt was set at €17.75, with the total number of offer depository receipts equivalent to a 20 per cent stake, and valuing the bank at €16.7 billion. Listing and trading of the depository receipts started on the Euronext Amsterdam bourse today, according to a statement from ABN AMRO.

The Netherlands-headquartered bank, which in 2007 had been taken over by a consortium of banks (Royal Bank of Scotland, Fortis and Santander), was bailed out by the Dutch government in 2008 as markets crashed. The bank has already announced it will make share sales to return to full private ownership in the next few months.

About 10 per cent of the share offer was allocated to retail investors, the bank said.