The purchasers of the private client business from Dutch bank ABN Amro last year are continuing to feel the pain of the purchase price as Dutch-Belgian banking group Fortis this week announced it was to scrap a dividend payout and raise fresh capital through a rights issue and other moves.

Fortis, which bought ABN Amro’s private banking business last year, said it will raise €8 billion by selling stocks and by selling “non-core” assets such as property. It also announced it would scrap a €1.3 billion ($2 billion) cash dividend. After the announcement, Fortis’ shares fell by almost a fifth on Thursday.

ABN Amro was bought for €71 billion last year by Fortis, Spanish bank Santander, and Royal Bank of Scotland, the UK bank that owns Coutts, the private bank. RBS has already tapped markets for £12 billion in additional capital via a rights issue, a move that has prompted calls by irate investors for its chief executive, Sir Fred Goodwin, to resign.

Fortis’ chief executive officer Jean-Paul Votron said in a statement that the fund-raising was “a prudent step to take in the current environment” and defended last year’s ABN Amro acquisition, saying it would add to Fortis’ long term growth potential.

The rating agency Standard & Poor's has put Fortis's debt rating on "credit watch with negative implications". It cited the bank's "increasing reliance on weaker forms of capital".

A number of European financial institutions have announced or carried out rights issues. This week, for example, shareholders of UK banking group HBOS approved a £4 billion rights issue. UK banking group Barclays, parent of Barclays Wealth, has said it will raise £4.5 billion in new capital from investors including sovereign wealth funds in China, Qatar and Singapore.