Belgian Court Clears Way For BNP Purchase of Fortis Assets

Tom Burroughes

19 November 2008

A Brussels court rejected demands of Fortis minority investors to block the sale of the financial-services firm's Belgian units to the French banking and wealth management group BNP Paribas.

Fortis has sold off a number of assets, including the private wealth management business it had bought from ABN Amro last year in what has been a dramatic U-turn. Last year, along with Spain’s Santander and UK’s Royal Bank of Scotland, Fortis purchased ABN Amro at what was the height of the merger and acquisition boom.

"The loss in value for Fortis investors is strictly pecuniary and can be repaired," Judge Francine De Tandt of the Brussels commercial court said in issuing her ruling today, according to media reports.

“Fortis Bank and Fortis Insurance Belgium welcome the clarity this ruling provides on their future, which now lies with BNP Paribas, a truly leading European financial services group,” Fortis said in a statement.

It continued: “As announced earlier, the transaction with BNP Paribas is expected to close in December 2008. Today, Fortis Bank is still 99.93 per cent owned by the Belgian State. After the closing, BNP Paribas will own up to 75 per cent of Fortis Bank and the Belgian State up to 25 per cent. Fortis Insurance Belgium will be owned 100 per cent by BNP Paribas."

In early October, BNP Paribas agreed to buy three quarters of Fortis Bank and all of Fortis's Belgian insurance operations for €14.5 billion in cash and stock after the Belgian government nationalized the main banking unit for €9.4 billion euros. Two days earlier, the Netherlands bought most of Fortis's Dutch assets as well as ABN Amro Holding for €16.8 billion.