The Netherlands took control of SNS Reaal NV (SR) after real estate losses brought the fourth- largest Dutch lender to the brink of collapse, the country’s second banking nationalization since 2008.
The move, aimed “at stabilizing the SNS Reaal group,” will cost taxpayers 3.7 billion euros ($5 billion), the Dutch Finance Ministry said in a statement today. SNS’s property- finance unit will be separated from the company.
“I scrutinized all alternative solutions involving market parties,” Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said. “Yesterday night I found myself compelled to conclude no acceptable total solution was offered. I therefore had to use the instrument of last resort, which is nationalization.”
The lender, which acquired ABN Amro Holding NV’s property- finance unit in 2006, has been hurt by losses on real estate loans that have left it struggling to repay a government bailout before next year’s deadline and bolster capital buffers. The nationalization includes all issued shares, core tier 1 capital securities and subordinated bonds, the ministry said.
SNS shares were suspended in Amsterdam. They last traded yesterday at 84 cents, valuing the company at 242 million euros, and have declined 57 percent in the past year.
Fortis, ABN
The nationalization comes less than five years after the Netherlands bought Fortis’s Dutch banking and insurance units and its stake in ABN Amro Holding NV for 16.8 billion euros when the company ran out of short-term funding, customers withdrew deposits and investors lost confidence. The Dutch government also provided aid to ING Groep NV (INGA), the biggest Dutch financial- services company, and Aegon NV at the time.
The state will inject 2.2 billion euros of capital into SNS Reaal, write down 800 million euros on its earlier aid package and use 700 million euros to put the real estate portfolio at arm’s length.
“Nationalization would safeguard financial stability and prevent serious damage to the economy,” Dijsselbloem said. “I want the private sector to contribute as much as possible.”
SNS Reaal is the smallest of four Dutch banks designated as “systemically important,” or too big to fail, by the Dutch central bank. It had 32.5 billion euros in savings at the end of the third quarter, according to a Nov. 15 presentation. ING, Rabobank Groep and ABN Amro are its three largest competitors.
Funding Costs
Following the financial crisis that led the government to nationalize the Dutch parts of Fortis and ABN Amro and the bankruptcy of DSB Bank NV, the Netherlands adopted legislation allowing it to transfer banks’ assets, liabilities or stock.
The Netherlands will impose a 1 billion-euro one-time levy on Dutch banks in 2014 to share the costs of nationalization. Each lender’s contribution will be proportionate to its share of deposits guaranteed under a plan as of Feb. 1.
The move will “have temporarily negative effect on funding costs for Dutch banks,” Albert Ploegh, an Amsterdam-based analyst at ING Groep NV, said in a note to investors. Ploegh has a sell recommendation on SNS.
SNS Chief Executive Officer Ronald Latenstein, Chief Financial Officer Ference Lamp and supervisory board Chairman Rob Zwartendijk stepped down, Utrecht, Netherlands-based SNS said in a separate statement today. The “reason for this decision is that they don’t want to and can’t take responsibility for the nationalization scenario,” SNS said.
Achmea BV CFO Gerard van Olphen will succeed Latenstein today, the Dutch insurer said.
SNS’s core Tier 1 capital ratio, a measure of financial strength, fell to 7.67 percent at the end of the year, below the European Banking Authority’s 9 percent minimum, as risk-weighted assets and loan losses in the property-finance unit increased.
To contact the reporters on this story: Maud van Gaal in Amsterdam at
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To contact the editors responsible for this story: Frank Connelly at
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