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Abstract
Risk's deal of the year could barely have occurred under more inauspicious circumstances. At Benelux bancassurer Fortis, the situation was worse than most. Worried about a possible failure of the firm, the governments of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg stepped in to rescue the group with a joint capital injection of E11.2 billion on September 29. As part of the deal, the governments would take 49% equity stakes in the Fortis banking businesses in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, in return for E4.7 billion, E4 billion and E2.5 billion, respectively. Suddenly, the Belgian government was taking on an international financial organization with a balance sheet double the size of the country's GDP, remarks Dominique Favillier, Paris-based senior banker for financial institutions at Societe Generale Corporate and Investment Banking (SG CIB).