TIMELINE: Fortis - from riches to rags

(Reuters) - The Dutch government agreed on Friday to nationalize the banking and insurance activities of Fortis (FOR.BR)(FOR.AS) in the Netherlands -- the second state rescue for the Belgian-Dutch financial services group in a week.

Following are events that led the once-powerful group to its current woes:

2007

April 3 - Fortis, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) and Spain's Santander (SAN.MC) say they have approached ABN AMRO, inviting the Dutch bank to takeover talks.

August - A crisis erupts in the U.S. subprime mortgage sector, leading to a global credit crunch.

Oct 10 - The consortium wins a bidding war against Barclays (BARC.L) for ABN AMRO with a 70 billion euro ($99.3 billion) offer, making it the biggest ever banking takeover.

Barclays had offered 63 billion euros.

The amount to be paid by Fortis is 24.2 billion.

2008

April 2 - Ping An Insurance (2318.HK) agrees to buy a 50 percent stake in Fortis Investments, the global asset management arm of Fortis, for 2.15 billion euros.

June 26 - Fortis announces a solvency package involving a new share issue and the scrapping of a dividend to shore up its finances by more than 8 billion euros. Its shares fall.

July 2 - Fortis agrees to sell about 10 percent of ABN AMRO's Dutch operations to Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) for 709 million euros.

July 11 - Fortis CEO Jean-Paul Votron, architect of the ABN deal, steps down amid investor anger at the capital increase forced by the costly purchase. Herman Verwilst, a long-serving Fortis executive, takes over as temporary CEO.

Aug 4 - Fortis announces net profit of 830 million euros ($1.3 billion) for the second quarter and 1.64 billion for the first half, compared with a year-earlier quarterly profit of 1.6 billion and 2.8 billion in the first half.

Writedowns related to credit market turmoil total 362 million euros.

Sept 26 - Fortis nominates Filip Dierckx as new CEO after the bank's shares fall for a fifth straight day, reaching a 15-year low, on liquidity concern.