Fortis Bank was close to bankruptcy in 2008 after a combination of risky initiatives and the financial crisis depleted the company’s assets. One of these initiatives was the failed merger with a Dutch banking giant, ABN Amro, says Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, head of transversal portfolio management at BNP Paribas Fortis in Belgium.
Mr Nieto-Rodriguez was head of post-merger integration with the Fortis portfolio management team leading the consortium takeover of the bank in 2007. At the height of the merger, valued at US$1.8bn (€1.2bn), he oversaw a portfolio of 1,000 projects grouped into 130 different programmes, implemented by more than 6,000 people. “Everything in the merger was moving very fast. We had put together our best people to work in the integration, and honestly no one was expecting such an abrupt end,” he says.
