| Source : | | https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generale_Maatschappij_van_Belgi%C3%AB (nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generale_Maatschappij_van_Belgi%C3%AB) | |
| General info : | | Generale Bankmaatschappij (French: Société Générale de Belgique) was the Dutch business name of a major Belgian holding and investment company.
The Generale Maatschappij was founded with state guarantee in December 1822 by King William I under the United Kingdom of the Netherlands as the Algemeene Nederlandsche Maatschappij ter Bevooring van de Volksvlijt.
After the revolution of 1830, the company became Belgian (Societé Générale de Belgique). From then until the establishment of the National Bank of Belgium in 1850, the Generale Maatschappij also functioned as a national bank.
In the early days, the Generale Maatschappij (GM) invested heavily in (rail) roads and canals. Following the stock market crash of 1929, the banking activities were split off in 1934 into the Generale Bank (now: BNP Paribas Fortis ). The GM remained the most important shareholder of the Generale Bank.
At the height of its power, around the Second World War , GM controlled some 800 of the largest companies in Belgium and Congo. This was equivalent to about 40% of the Belgian industrial heritage.
One of Belgium's great economic stories came to an end in 1988. Italian businessman Carlo de Benedetti had quietly bought 17% of the shares in the Generale Maatschappij van België (GM) and he wanted to make an offer for all of GM's shares. Maurice Lippens, then chairman of the board of directors of the Generale Bank (GB), one of the subsidiaries of GM, had set up a construction to make De Benedetti's plans fail. The board of directors of GM would announce a capital increase of 100%, in order to dilute De Benedetti's interest (a poison pill). In the meantime, the Prime Minister was busy looking for another buyer, which he found at Compagnie de Suez . Suez was then still a relatively small French company. Thanks to the support of a number of financial institutions, Suez succeeded in taking over GM on 14 April 1988, and De Benedetti had to leave.
Suez acquired a majority stake of almost 60% in GM in 1988. In 1998, the French group, by then renamed Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, made a voluntary exchange offer for the remaining 40% of the shares. Suez Lyonnaise thus acquired almost all the shares and GM's share was delisted.
In December 1999, it made a mandatory buyout offer for the 0.6% of GM shares it did not yet own. Suez-Lyonnaise succeeded in this and with all the shares in its possession, Suez Lyonnaise no longer had to organize public shareholders' meetings for GM. Générale had in fact become a useless link between Suez and the 'interesting' companies Tractebel and Electrabel. In 1999 Suez became the 100% owner of Tractebel and finally on 31 October 2003 Tractebel merged with the Generale Maatschappij to form Suez-Tractebel NV.
That Friday was the legal death date of the Generale Maatschappij van België. | |
| Contact info | | | |
| Websites | | () | |
| Relations : | | : | |
| Copied Wikipedia parts under license : | | Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) | |
| Relations : | | Renamed to : BNP Paribas Fortis2009 - | |
| Relations : | | Renamed to : Fortis Bank2000 - 2009 | |
| Relations : | | Renamed to : Generale Bank1985 - 2000 | |
| Source : | | https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generale_Bank (nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generale_Bank) | |
| General info : | Generale Bankmaatschappij (French: Société Générale de Belgique) was the Dutch business name of a major Belgian holding and investment company.
The Generale Maatschappij was founded with state guarantee in December 1822 by King William I under the United Kingdom of the Netherlands as the Algemeene Nederlandsche Maatschappij ter Bevooring van de Volksvlijt.
After the revolution of 1830, the company became Belgian (Societé Générale de Belgique). From then until the establishment of the National Bank of Belgium in 1850, the Generale Maatschappij also functioned as a national bank.
In the early days, the Generale Maatschappij (GM) invested heavily in (rail) roads and canals. Following the stock market crash of 1929, the banking activities were split off in 1934 into the Generale Bank (now: BNP Paribas Fortis ). The GM remained the most important shareholder of the Generale Bank.
At the height of its power, around the Second World War , GM controlled some 800 of the largest companies in Belgium and Congo. This was equivalent to about 40% of the Belgian industrial heritage.
One of Belgium's great economic stories came to an end in 1988. Italian businessman Carlo de Benedetti had quietly bought 17% of the shares in the Generale Maatschappij van België (GM) and he wanted to make an offer for all of GM's shares. Maurice Lippens, then chairman of the board of directors of the Generale Bank (GB), one of the subsidiaries of GM, had set up a construction to make De Benedetti's plans fail. The board of directors of GM would announce a capital increase of 100%, in order to dilute De Benedetti's interest (a poison pill). In the meantime, the Prime Minister was busy looking for another buyer, which he found at Compagnie de Suez . Suez was then still a relatively small French company. Thanks to the support of a number of financial institutions, Suez succeeded in taking over GM on 14 April 1988, and De Benedetti had to leave.
Suez acquired a majority stake of almost 60% in GM in 1988. In 1998, the French group, by then renamed Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, made a voluntary exchange offer for the remaining 40% of the shares. Suez Lyonnaise thus acquired almost all the shares and GM's share was delisted.
In December 1999, it made a mandatory buyout offer for the 0.6% of GM shares it did not yet own. Suez-Lyonnaise succeeded in this and with all the shares in its possession, Suez Lyonnaise no longer had to organize public shareholders' meetings for GM. Générale had in fact become a useless link between Suez and the 'interesting' companies Tractebel and Electrabel. In 1999 Suez became the 100% owner of Tractebel and finally on 31 October 2003 Tractebel merged with the Generale Maatschappij to form Suez-Tractebel NV.
That Friday was the legal death date of the Generale Maatschappij van België. | "Generale Bankmaatschappij" was the Dutch business name of "Generale Bankmaatschappij NV / Société Générale De Banque SA".
The bank was a merger of "Bank van de Generale Maatschappij van België", "Bank van Antwerpen" and "Belgische Bankmaatschappij" formed in 1965.
It was renamed "Generale Bank NV" in 1985.
The predecessor was founded in 1934 by the Société Générale de Belgique, which wanted to transfer its banking activities to a separate public limited company, the Banque De La Société Générale De Belgique.
In May 1987, Generale Bank was approached by AMRO Bank.
In January 1988, Carlo de Benedetti made a hostile bid for the Generale Maatschappij, the parent company of Generale Bank NV. Strong pressure on the merger partners led to preliminary plans being released on 12 February 1988. A cooperation agreement was signed whereby Generale Bank and AMRO Bank aimed at a banking combination within three years. The first step was the creation of a joint holding company under the name Tuba Holding International.
In the summer of 1989, after a year and a half of talks, AMRO Bank lost confidence in a good outcome and in September 1989, the alliance was terminated at a press conference.
In 1998, the bank's major shareholder, Generale Maatschappij Van België, which had come into the hands of Compagnie de Suez in 1998 , indicated that it wanted to sell its controlling interest of 30% in the bank. Maurice Lippens of Fortis had good ties with the CEO of Suez, Gérard Mestrallet, and quickly reached an agreement. In May 1998, after months of difficult negotiations and against the wishes of the bank's board of directors, Fortis made an offer of 22 billion guilders in shares. ABN AMRO made a counteroffer of 24 billion shortly afterwards. ABN AMRO had previously spoken extensively with the board of directors of Generale Bank and the latter would manage the European banks of the combination. The management would be in the hands of Rijkman Groenink (ABN AMRO) and Fred Chaffart of Generale Bank would become vice-chairman. However, the management committee had a minority on the board of directors, comparable to the board of directors and the supervisory board in the Netherlands. After Fortis had increased its bid to around 28 billion guilders, the majority of the board of directors of Generale Bank voted in favour of Fortis' bid. The purchase was completed in 1998. On 23 June 1999, all Fortis banking companies merged, but the merger was not visible on the street until 21 March 2000, when the name Fortis Bank was used from then on.
In 1999, Fortis Bank was created from the merger of Generale Bank and ASLK in Belgium, and of Generale Bank Nederland, VSB Bank and MeesPierson in the Netherlands.
During the credit crisis, the parent company Fortis got into serious financial trouble by overdoing its takeover of ABN AMRO Bank NV, which ultimately resulted in a nationalisation of itself and the newly acquired parts of the ABN AMRO estate.
The group's banking activities were split into a Belgian and a Dutch part. The Belgian activities initially came into the hands of the Belgian state.
Since 2009, it has been part of the French bank BNP Paribas and continues under the name BNP Paribas Fortis in Belgium. | |
| Relations : | : | Brand name used by : Generale Bankmaatschappij NV1965 - 1985 | |
| Image | | Generale_Bank_logo.png | |