Several hundred shareholders in what remains of the financial services group Fortis gathered in Utrecht on Monday to question the executive board about the collapse of the company’s share price and its consequent break-up.

Fortis got into financial difficulties after taking over part of ABN Amro’s operations and was then hit by the credit crisis. The company has since been dismantled and partially nationalised.
It now largely consists of a number of credit portfolios and an international insurance operation. Its share price has slumped to under €1.
Shareholders in the rump company are furious at events. What is left of Fortis is ‘a box with vague, poisonous credit,’ NOS quoted Jan Maarten Slagter, head of the shareholders’ lobby group VEB, as saying.
One shareholder accused the Dutch government of helping itself to the best bits of the company when it nationalised the Dutch banking operations.
‘You are guilty of allowing that. You should never have given your permission,’ one shareholder was quoted by the Financieele Dagblad as telling the board.