Bos denies Fortis withheld information

Finance minister Wouter Bos has denied that the troubled financial services group Fortis misinformed the Dutch government and the regulator about the company’s balance sheet, reports the Financieele Dagblad website on Thursday afternoon.

‘I have absolutely no reason to believe that Fortis gave incorrect or incomplete information about anything at all at any time,’ Bos is quoted as saying.
His remarks follow a report on the front page of Thursday’s Volksksrant claiming that the company kept quiet about an off-shore investment fund of €18bn pending its takeover of the Dutch operations of ABN Amro last year.
According to the Volkskrant, the investment fund Scaldis, which was set up in 1999 on the Channel Islands, appeared in the quarterly results of Fortis for the first time shortly after the takeover.
The paper says investors could not see what sort of risks the company was running with the Scaldis investment fund. Analysts from SNS and Bank De Groot believe Fortis faces a loss of €500m on Scaldis as a result of the credit crisis, the paper said.