ABN Amro to return to the markets in IPO

ABN Amro, the nationalised Dutch lender, plans to sell shares in an initial public offering in Amsterdam as soon as the fourth quarter, seven years after the bank was bailed out at the height of the financial crisis.

The move "marks an important step towards our new future," chief executive officer Gerrit Zalm said in a statement Tuesday. With the IPO, the Dutch state is seeking to recover its €22 billion investment, a rescue that involved breaking the company up after competitors took it over in a record deal in 2007.

The government has said it aims to sell as much as 30 per cent of ABN Amro this year and indicated the bank may be worth about€15 billion.

ABN Amro is seeking to lure private investors after posting its most profitable quarter since it was reinvented in 2010. Underlying net income, which strips out one-time items, almost doubled to €600 million in the second quarter from €322 million a year earlier, the Amsterdam-based company said in August.

The fate of ABN Amro, a national icon, has held the attention of the Dutch for much of the past decade. It came to exist in its current form after the government acquired the Dutch banking and insurance units of Fortis Bank.

The Belgian lender had joined a €72 billion takeover of ABN Amro with Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Banco Santander SA in 2007. The largest financial-services takeover ever turned sour during the credit crunch a year later, leading to the loss of thousands of jobs. The bank was reorganised in July 2010, shrinking to a fraction of its former size and focusing on its home market. Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem had delayed the IPO decision in March when a €100,000 salary increase for six ABN Amro board members prompted the resignation of a supervisory board member.

Bloomberg