The merger between ABN Amro and Fortis Bank Nederland is expected to be completed by April 1, according to ABN Amro chief Gerrit Zalm, reports Trouw on Thursday.

The new ABN Amro, which will consist of the Dutch activities of ABN Amro and Fortis Bank Nederland (FBN), will only trade in shares and bonds on behalf of clients, reports the paper. This means that in principle the bank will no longer hold shares in companies, said Zalm during an informal press conference on Wednesday.
At present ABN Amro and Fortis have respectively 500 and 150 branches in the Netherlands. Of these 150 will disappear under the reorganisation. ‘In principle, where there are two [branches] close to each other, the biggest will remain open,’ Zalm is quoted as saying. He will announce which branches will be closed in January.
ABN Amro Nederland currently employs around 20,000 and Fortis Nederland has around 8,000 workers.
Zalm also said that he does not expect the state to give any more capital injections to the bank. In total the treasury, has pumped over €30bn into ABN Amro and Fortis. Any extra losses incurred from its sale of its HBU unit to Deutsche Bank will be covered by the bank itself says Zalm in Trouw.
Modest goals
According to BNR radio’s website, the commercial activities of the new ABN Amro will no longer focus on multinationals but on large Dutch companies. The bank will continue to operate abroad but its goals will be more modest, says BNR.
‘Internationally, we will expand where we are strong. But we don’t have the ambition to do everything all over the world,’ Zalm is quoted by BNR as saying.
ABN Amro was taken over by Royal Bank of Scotland, Fortis and Santander for €71bn in 2007 and then divided up. The sale, coupled with the credit crisis, brought Fortis into severe financial problems. Last year, the Dutch arm was nationalised.
The state intends to withdraw from the new bank in due course. Zalm told BNR that he expects this to happen in 2013 or 2014 but said he did not know whether the government will recoup its investment.