News From The € Paradise
Oct. 7th, 2008 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fjGrowing up in the Netherlands, in the 80s and early 90s there were a number of Main Street / High Street / Hoofdstraat banks, of which two of the most ubiquitous were the ABN Bank and the AMRO Bank. When they merged, after the liberalization that ledt to a wave consolidation that ctreated ING and AEGON for example, ABN AMRO was supposed to become a global banking player.
Well, there's no such thing as being a minor global banking player. After not creating enough shareholder returns and high enough share valuation through mergers and acquisitions, 2006 saw, with much handwringing by the Dutch, ABN AMRO being taken over by a consortium of banks that came together to buy it up and split the pieces. Much was written in the Dutch press about how ABN AMRO could have been so mismanaged to become prey, what does it mean when foreign companies keep buying the biggest Dutch institutions, what is the country losing by no longer having local large financial institutions, will foreign bosses understand and honor the needs of the Dutch consumer?
Last week, one of the buying banks, a Belgian powerhouse named Fortis that had run off with ABN AMRO's consumer banking arm, fell over. It basically had to be nationalized by the Belgian goverment, or just die, and dieing would have been bad. In multi-lateral talks between the Dutch and Belgian goverment and Fortis, the Dutch goverment basically bought, for little, the ABN AMRO consumer banking back. All hand-wringing in 2007 was for naught: ABN AMRO is more Dutch now than it has been in a long long while.
Meanwhile, Iceland's banking industry basically ceased to exist as an independent entity today. The largest bank got a €500M loan, the second largest bank got nationalized, and the country wants Russia to loan it €4B. The second largets bank tried to enter the European banking market with an Internet direct bank called Icesave that was giving consumer the highest interests rates, and would lock those in. Icesaver has been suspended, and people now have to appeal their local deposit guarantors to get their money back, which they in every case will.
Well, there's no such thing as being a minor global banking player. After not creating enough shareholder returns and high enough share valuation through mergers and acquisitions, 2006 saw, with much handwringing by the Dutch, ABN AMRO being taken over by a consortium of banks that came together to buy it up and split the pieces. Much was written in the Dutch press about how ABN AMRO could have been so mismanaged to become prey, what does it mean when foreign companies keep buying the biggest Dutch institutions, what is the country losing by no longer having local large financial institutions, will foreign bosses understand and honor the needs of the Dutch consumer?
Last week, one of the buying banks, a Belgian powerhouse named Fortis that had run off with ABN AMRO's consumer banking arm, fell over. It basically had to be nationalized by the Belgian goverment, or just die, and dieing would have been bad. In multi-lateral talks between the Dutch and Belgian goverment and Fortis, the Dutch goverment basically bought, for little, the ABN AMRO consumer banking back. All hand-wringing in 2007 was for naught: ABN AMRO is more Dutch now than it has been in a long long while.
Meanwhile, Iceland's banking industry basically ceased to exist as an independent entity today. The largest bank got a €500M loan, the second largest bank got nationalized, and the country wants Russia to loan it €4B. The second largets bank tried to enter the European banking market with an Internet direct bank called Icesave that was giving consumer the highest interests rates, and would lock those in. Icesaver has been suspended, and people now have to appeal their local deposit guarantors to get their money back, which they in every case will.
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Date: 2008-10-07 06:03 pm (UTC)For some reason, I find this very comforting, even if the way in which it happened is not.
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Date: 2008-10-07 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-07 06:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-07 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-07 08:25 pm (UTC)I stayed on with them for a little over a year after they acquired my former employer. Local management style was so NOT like their corporate philosophy, I bailed with glee and never looked back.
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Date: 2008-10-07 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-07 09:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-08 01:29 am (UTC)This perspective is appreciated as I have been too lazy to go as in depth as I should.
Well, not "lazy" so much as "depressed".