Certificates in the initial public offering (IPO) of ABN Amro have been valued at 17.75 euros each, the bank said on Friday, and the Dutch state will raise at least 3.3 billion euros ($3.54 billion) in the largest European bank listing since the 2008 financial crisis.
At the IPO price, ABN is valued at around 16.7 billion euros. The Dutch state is selling 20 per cent in the privatization, or 23 per cent including an over-allotment option, and intends to sell the rest in tranches.
ABN certificates - each representing one share - will begin trading later on Friday.
The actual shares are held by an independent foundation with the power to resist an unwanted takeover, as the Dutch government is determined to prevent a repeat of the mistakes that led to ABN's nationalization.
ABN was a much larger bank in 2007, when it was carved up in a 71 billion euro ($76 bln) hostile acquisition by Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and the now defunct Fortis that was nominally the largest ever in the banking industry.
The state had to intervene in 2008 to rescue the Dutch operations of both ABN and would-be acquirer Fortis to avoid a crippling bankruptcy. The affair cost taxpayers around 24 billion euros. Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem has acknowledged that ABN's listing will only recoup part of that.
ABN's and Fortis' operations have been combined and restructured under Chief Executive Gerrit Zalm, who has promoted the new ABN Amro as a conservative investment with limited growth potential but healthy returns. Over the past year it has made around 1.9 billion euros in underlying profit, and at the IPO price its dividend yield for 2015 should be more than 5 per cent.
ABN now makes 80 per cent of its profit in the Netherlands, where it competes with ING and Rabobank.
On Nov. 9, the bank reported third-quarter earnings of 509 million euros, up 13 per cent from a year earlier, as bad loans fell. ($1 = 0.9328 euros)
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