Editing ABN AMRO (section)

===2008 financial crisis===
[[File:Gerrit Zalm 2006.jpg|thumb|Politician [[Gerrit Zalm]] led the restructuring of ABN AMRO from 2009 to 2017]]

Both RBS and Fortis were increasingly visibly overextended following the ABN AMRO acquisition. On 22 April 2008, RBS announced the largest rights issue in British corporate history, which aimed to raise £12billion in new capital to offset a writedown of £5.9billion resulting from the bad investments and to shore up its reserves following the purchase of ABN AMRO. On 11 July 2008, Fortis CEO Jean Votron stepped down after the ABN AMRO deal had depleted Fortis's capital.<ref name="economist">{{cite news| url=http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11751202| title=Mixed fortunes for the buyers of ABN AMRO| newspaper=[[The Economist]]| date=17 July 2008| publisher=economist.com| access-date=2013-02-19| archive-date=2008-09-10| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080910001534/http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11751202| url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="votron">{{cite news| url=https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aSgzfhmC0LSU&refer=europe| title=Fortis Ousts Chief Votron After ABN AMRO Deal Depletes Capital| author=Martijn van der Starre| work=[[Bloomberg Businessweek]]| date=11 July 2008| access-date=2013-02-19}}</ref> The total worth of Fortis, as reflected by its stock value, was at that time one-third of what it had been before the acquisition, and just under the value it had paid for the Benelux activities of ABN AMRO.<ref name="earnings">{{cite news| title=Fortis earnings fall 50% in Q2| url=http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2008-08-04/news/28390957_1_fortis-nv-abn-amro-banking| work=[[The Economic Times]]| date=4 August 2008| publisher=economictimes.com| access-date=2013-02-19| archive-date=2013-06-03| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130603102616/http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2008-08-04/news/28390957_1_fortis-nv-abn-amro-banking| url-status=dead}}</ref>

On 3 October 2008, Fortis was nationalised. The Dutch government bought a number of Fortis divisions plus Fortis's share in ABN AMRO for EUR 16.8 billion. It subsequently announced that the parts of ABN AMRO it had acquired would be integrated with Fortis Bank Nederland (FBN) to create a new ABN AMRO. On 13 October 2008, British Prime Minister [[Gordon Brown]] announced a UK government bailout of the financial system. The Treasury would infuse £37 billion ($64 billion, €47 billion) of new capital into Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Lloyds TSB and HBOS Plc, to avert financial sector collapse. This resulted in a total government ownership in RBS of 58%.  As a consequence of this rescue, the chief executive of the group [[Fred Goodwin]] offered his resignation, which was duly accepted. Later in October, Fortis announced that it would sell its stake in RFS Holdings, which included all activities that had not been transferred yet to Fortis (i.e. everything except [[asset management]]).<ref name="rfs">{{cite news| title=RBS Says Fortis Rescue Won't Hurt Its ABN Amro Assets| url=https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aH_ji3qnDehk| author=Ben Livesey| work=Bloomberg Businessweek| date=11 July 2008| publisher=bloomberg.com| access-date=2013-02-19| archive-date=2015-04-03| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150403130915/http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aH_ji3qnDehk| url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="trouble">{{cite news|url=http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2008/06/fortis_abn_amro_selloff_in_tro.php |title=Fortis ABN AMRO sell-off in trouble |date=16 June 2008 |publisher=DutchNews.nl |access-date=2013-02-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130416051200/http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2008/06/fortis_abn_amro_selloff_in_tro.php |archive-date=16 April 2013 }}</ref>