Dutch State Reduces ABN Amro Stake With $1.3 Billion Sale

(Bloomberg) -- The Dutch government sold shares worth about €1.17 billion ($1.3 billion) in ABN Amro Bank NV as it continues its long-running plan to fully to privatize the lender it acquired during the financial crisis.

The state lowered its stake to 40.5% from 49.5%, completing a divestment program announced last year, its investment vehicle NLFI said in a statement Wednesday. It added that the ending of the trading plan “does not preclude NLFI from establishing another trading plan in the future or conducting other sales of its holding in ABN Amro as it deems appropriate.”

The government has been gradually reducing its stake since taking ABN Amro public again in 2015. The state spent €22 billion to bail out the bank at the height of the financial crisis and then transformed it from a global bank to a consumer-focused lender for the Dutch market. 

The rescue has set the government back about €6.7 billion, the finance ministry estimated last year. As long as the state owns at least a third of ABN Amro, it has the right to weigh in on any investment or divestment amounting to more than 10% of the company’s equity. 

The announcement of the latest divestment comes just over two months since a new cabinet led by Geert Wilders’ far right Freedom Party took the helm of the Dutch state. Even under a new government, the state’s intention remains to fully privatize the bank, ABN Amro Chief Financial Officer Ferdinand Vaandrager said earlier this year.

Chief Executive Officer Robert Swaak was hired in 2020 to make the bank more focused on its core markets of Netherlands and northwestern Europe. In a shock announcement last month, Swaak said he will leave next year, without presenting a successor. That disclosure came about three months after he got reappointed for a new term.

The disclosure on ABN Amro comes on the heels of UniCredit SpA building a 9% stake in Commerzbank AG, raising the possibility of a takeover. The Italian bank acquired 4.5% stake from the German government, with the rest bought on the market. That made Unicredit the second-largest shareholder behind Germany, which has announced plans to exit its holding.

ABN Amro is one of several potential takeover candidates that Deutsche Bank AG has been studying internally as part of its strategic planning, while BNP Paribas SA was said to have shown interest in 2022, Bloomberg has reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The latest trading plan was managed by BofA Securities, with Rothschild & Co acting as financial adviser to NLFI.

(Updates with Unicredit purchase of Commerzbank stake in seventh paragraph)

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