ABN Amro IPO back on Dutch government's agenda

The Dutch government will renew its attempts to float nationalised bank ABN Amro "as soon as possible" after its plans to launch an initial public offering were blown off course by a political scandal over pay at the lender.

Finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem postponed the mooted €15bn IPO of state-owned ABN at the end of last month, after a spate of negative headlines surrounding a proposed €100,000 pay rise for the bank's directors.

On Thursday, Mr Dijsselbloem emphasised in the Dutch parliament that the IPO "is not cancelled". The hearing came after senior managers of ABN gave up the proposed pay rise last week. People close to the situation said that the listing could still take place by the end of 2015.

ABN had to be saved by Dutch taxpayers following a €72bn three-way takeover by Royal Bank of Scotland, Banco Santander and fellow Dutch bank Fortis on the eve of the financial crisis.

The bank, which was nationalised in 2008, was dealt a further blow after the Dutch central bank criticised the lender for inadequate anti-corruption controls, in a letter leaked at the end of the month. The bank says that the problems dated from a study in 2013 and that they had now been fixed.

Mr Dijsselbloem, who has also been leading negotiations with Greece over its bailout terms on behalf of eurozone finance ministers, admitted that he had "underestimated" the backlash during a hearing on Thursday.

While the amounts in question were - by the standards of banker pay in other countries - small, the political fallout has been significant.

The Netherlands has some of the strictest rules on banker bonuses in Europe, capping any bonuses at 20 per cent of someone's salary - well below the level set by EU rules.

Banker pay is a particularly controversial subject in the Netherlands, after the state had to bail out ABN and its peers ING and Fortis during the financial crisis.

Since then, ING has returned to health, paying back the remainder of its €10bn bailout last year, completing a series of EU-mandated disposals and even launching "an early Valentine's day present" in the form of its first dividend in six years in February.

By contrast, ABN has endured a more difficult time and the government is unlikely to recoup all of the €30bn it spent to save the bank.

Performance at the bank improved last year. Underlying profits for 2014 hit €1.6bn, thanks in part to a growing Dutch economy and smaller provisions on its loan book.

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