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| Name of issuer: Fortis Size of issue: €13.4 billion Date of issue: October 2007 Bookrunner: Merrill Lynch |
Gilbert Mittler: told a compelling story
The stakes were high for Fortis when it turned to the equity market to raise more money than any institution had ever dared ask for before. On the line lay not just the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Fortis to pluck what it wanted from one of its greatest rivals but the future of the Netherlands’ flagship bank; the hopes of Barclays, the rival suitor for it; and the success of Fortis’s other consortium partners, whose own ambitions for parts of ABN Amro also rested on the bank’s ability to come up with its share of the cash. But while ABN Amro, Barclays and their advisors, which included almost every bank on the street, clung to the hope that October’s rocky market conditions would derail Fortis’s record fund-raising plans, in truth it was wishful thinking.