By Elena Vardon
Blackstone reached an agreement to sell Dutch lender NIBC Bank to ABN Amro for around 960 million euros ($1.11 billion), a move that adds to a revival of dealmaking activity among European banks.
The sale comes nearly five years after the Wall Street giant took NIBC private in a deal that was originally struck before most of the world went into lockdown at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and was later revised to lower the price to just over 1 billion euros.
Blackstone's exit is expected to generate total proceeds upward of 2 billion euros for investors, which includes 1.1 billion euros in realized dividends, a spokesman said Wednesday.
Founded in the Netherlands after the end of World War II, NIBC sought to streamline its operations and strengthen its balance sheet under Blackstone's ownership. The bank, based in The Hague, sold its shipping franchise, its equipment-leasing specialist Beequip and auto-financing platform yesqar over the past year to focus on its core sectors: infrastructure, real estate, mortgages, and savings.
For Dutch bank ABN Amro, the acquisition of its smaller rival aims to bolster retail-banking activities in its home market, it said. This marks the group's first deal since Marguerite Berard became chief executive in April. Berard, a former BNP Paribas executive, has been working on a new plan to boost profitability and cut costs that is due to be presented later this month.
Dealmaking in the European banking sector has been heating up over the past year after a period of high interest rates resulted in higher profitability and bumper investor payouts.
As European banking stocks rallied, governments with holdings in banks they bailed out during the financial crisis have moved to sell down or exit their stakes. ABN Amro's largest shareholder is still the Dutch state, which has been working on shrinking its stake to 20% in batches and by participating in the group's share buybacks in the past few years.
ABN Amro said the NIBC deal, which is expected to close in the second half of 2026 subject to approvals, should enhance its profitability while increasing its scale in the Dutch, German and Belgian savings markets. The bank recently completed an acquisition of Frankfurt-based private bank Hauck Aufhaeuser Lampe from Chinese conglomerate Fosun.
Shares in ABN Amro rose more than 3% in morning exchanges, hitting levels last seen in early 2018 after rising roughly 88% since the start of the year, more than most European peers.
ABN Amro separately reported an 11% on-year decline in net profit for the third quarter to 617 million euros, beating a 589 million-euro estimate taken from a company-complied consensus given low impairment releases.
The group's operating income--its top-line metric--slipped 4% to 2.17 billion euros, missing estimates of 2.24 billion euros. The bulk of this came from net interest income--the difference between what it makes on loans and pays out on customer deposits--which edged down due to declining interest rates. It was somewhat offset by higher income from fees and commissions, partly due to the inclusion of Hauck Aufhaeuser Lampe.
Write to Elena Vardon at elena.vardon@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
11-12-25 1229ET
