Insurance giant Aegon said on Wednesday it had completed repayment of the €3bn it received in state support during the financial crisis in 2008.

The remaining payment of €1.25m was made using the proceeds of the sale of the US arm of Transamerica Reinsurance earlier this year.
‘Aegon has turned a decisive corner and is today a significantly transformed company,’ CEO Alex Wynaendts said in a statement.
‘With the repayment to the Dutch State now completed, we have set our sights on capturing the substantial opportunities for our core business of life insurance, pension and retirement services and asset management,’
According to calculations by the Financieele Dagblad, Dutch taxpayers booked a 37% return on the loan to Aegon, which the paper says was one of the few insurance companies worldwide which required bailing out.