Fortis's breakup and nationalization

Fortis, a financial conglomerate straddling Belgium and the Netherlands, had weakened itself in 2007 by joining a consortium that bought Dutch bank ABN AMRO at the top of the market, just as its own exposure to US subprime-linked assets was starting to sour. As depositors pulled money and the share price collapsed in September 2008, the governments of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, together with the European Central Bank, announced a combined €11.2 billion capital injection on September 29 aimed at keeping the group intact across all three countries. The rescue unraveled within days once Dutch authorities failed to find a buyer for the group's share of ABN AMRO: on October 3, the Netherlands fully nationalized Fortis's Dutch banking and insurance operations, including those ABN AMRO assets, at a cost of €16.8 billion. That move split the conglomerate for good — Belgium subsequently took full control of Fortis Bank Belgium before selling most of it to France's BNP Paribas — turning what began as a joint rescue into a case study in how quickly cross-border bank cooperation can break down under pressure.