The flotation of around 20% of the shares in ABN Amro generated €3.3bn for the treasury on Friday morning after finance ministry and bank officials set the price at €17.75 a share. The Dutch state, which spent nearly 22 billion euros to rescue the bank the following year, is recouping part of its investment in the first of a series of stake sales.
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“Naturally we want to see a small upwards movement, so there is no disappointment”.
“It has been properly handled”.
The actual shares are held by an independent foundation with the power to resist an unwanted takeover, as the Dutch government is determined to prevent a repeat of the mistakes that led to ABN’s nationalisation.
“The Dutch financials are punching above their weight again”, said Patrick Lemmens, who helps oversee about 10 billion euros in financial-services stocks at Orix’s Robeco Groep in Rotterdam.
Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and ABN Amro are managing the IPO, along with Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, ING Groep and Rabobank.
But the 71 billion-euro-deal, one of the largest in banking history, proved calamitous for the three buyers.
The Dutch state had to intervene in 2008 to rescue the Dutch operations of both ABN and Fortis to avoid a crippling bankruptcy.
The bank on November 9 reported third-quarter earnings of 509 million euros, up 13 percent from a year earlier, as bad loans fell.
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The IPO came as Europe’s main stock markets rose at the start of trading Friday, with London?s benchmark FTSE 100 index up 0.4 percent to 6,355.14 points (Other OTC: UBGXF – news).
