Most Dutch listed companies have been seriously affected by the economic crisis, with only a handful boosting their earnings last year compared with 2007 before the credit crunch hit, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Monday.

The paper bases its claims on an analysis of the results of 99 companies, including all the AEX and MidKap stocks.
The combined earnings of the 25 AEX firms last year was €15.9bn, of which more than half came from Anglo Dutch oil giant Shell. In 2007, AEX stocks booked combined earnings of €75.4bn.
Over the past two years, one in three listed companies made a loss. In 2007, just eight of the 99 firms studied ended up in the red and seven of those were listed on the local market.
Van Landschot Bankiers’ strategist Michel van der Stee told the paper the high profits of 2007 would not been seen again in the near future. ‘We will not see them back quickly,’ he said.
This is partly because of the banking crisis, the paper said. For example, fomer AEX heavyweights ABN Amro and Fortis have been nationalised and delisted, while ING is loss-making.