Preparations to float ABN Amro on the stock exchange will not begin until 2013 at the earliest, finance minister Jan Kees de Jager told MPs in a letter on Monday.

‘If the bank achieves its ambitions, concrete preparations for an exit can begin in 2013,’ De Jager said. The IPO itself ‘is not expected to happen until a year after that.’
De Jager also said he would strive to make sure that all state interests in the financial sector were ‘very substantially reduced’ within five years. Before this can happen, the financial sector has to be stable and the companies concerned ready for the move, he said.
During the financial crisis, the government put money into ING, SNS Reaal and Aegon as well as taking over ABN Amro in its entirety.