The finance ministry and central bank should have refused to approve the break up of the ABN Amro banking empire following its takeover, former CEO Rijkman Groenink said on Wednesday.

Groenink, who was CEO at the time of the takeover in 2007, was answering questions from the De Wit commission which is investigating the cause of the economic crisis in the Netherlands.
ABN Amro, once one of the biggest banking groups in the world, was taken over by a consortium of Royal Bank of Scotland, Fortis and Santander for €71bn. Groenink had backed a takeover by Barclays.
Hostile
‘They should have told the leader of the consortium that their analysis showed the takeover would not be prudent,’ he told the commission. ‘Other central banks would not have backed such a hostile takeover,’ Nos tv quoted him as saying.
Fortis took over most of ABN Amro’s operations in the Netherlands and both banks have since been nationalised.
According to news agency ANP, Groenink said he did not feel that he had had sufficient support from the bank’s supervisory board in his fight against the break up.
In the Netherlands there is a sense developing that supervisory boards should be more on the side of shareholders, he said. ‘And they [shareholders] were well served by two bids [the consortium and Barclays]’.
€30bn
If the consortium had failed in its efforts, ABN Amro would probably have merged with Barclays and the government would not have had to bail it out with €30bn, he said.
According to news agency ANP, Groenink also told the commission he should perhaps have resigned when the consortium joined the takeover battle.
‘I regret the bank has gone. I regret the fact that all of us in the Netherlands were not able head it off and I regret the fact I was not able to convince the ministry, the central bank and the supervisory board not to do it,’ he said.