Nationalised ABN Amro units in profit

The parts of ABN Amro bank owned by the Dutch state were profitable in 2008, the financial services group said in a statement on Friday.


ABN Amro Nederland booked net profit of €471m. Operating profit reached €306m, compared with €882m in 2007. The global private clients division, also owned by the Dutch state, saw operating profit fall from nearly €300m in 2007 to €165m.
However, ABN Amro Nederland’s CEO Gerrit Zalm told the Financieele Dagblad there is a ‘large chance’ that the Dutch assets will post a loss this year. It will be difficult to stay in the black, Zalm said.
Merger
Zalm is in charge of merging the nationalised parts of ABN Amro and Fortis Nederland into a single company. Several units still have to be sold off, on European Commission instructions.
The new bank will focus on the Netherlands and will not build up a huge international structure as ABN Amro did, Zalm said. The bank’s 30 odd foreign branches will focus on serving Dutch interests in the territories where they are based, the FD reported Zalm as saying.

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