Fortis bank announces USD 37 billion loss
Fortis announced on Tuesday that the Belgian-Dutch had made a net loss of 37 billion (28 billion euros) last year. This is 22.5 billion euros greater than the bank’s earlier forecast in mid March.
According to the bank’s official statement, the loss in 2008 was largely due to “the 27.4 billion euro negative result of abandoned operations, caused by the loss on sale of the banking activities.”
Fortis made a huge net profit of four billion euros in the financial year 2007.
The bank suffered major losses due to the global financial crisis triggered by the failure of Lehman Brothers in September last year. The Dutch state took over the Dutch banking assets and Belgium took the Belgian assets with plans to sell the toxic assets to French bank BNP Paribas.
Karel De Boeck, the Chief executive stated, “The operational results of our insurance companies were satisfactory taking into consideration the market turbulence and the uncertainty surrounding Fortis. Total gross inflows were 14.6 billion euros despite challenging market conditions.
