NEWSMAKER-Fortis banking chief steps up as stand-in CEO exits
BRUSSELS, Sept 27 (Reuters) - With the former chief executive, the deputy and the financial chief ousted, Fortis (FOR.BR) has turned to their head of banking in a bid to restore confidence after its shares crashed to a 15-year low.
Belgian Filip Dierckx, 52, is the man Fortis (FOR.AS) hopes will succeed where interim incumbent Herman Verwilst failed -- convincing investors of the Belgian-Dutch financial services group's health.
The trained lawyer with a masters from Harvard Law School, who joined Fortis in 1998, is the insider some observers had tipped for the top as questions increased over previous CEO Jean-Paul Votron's position in June and July. [ID:nL10239109]
Dierckx, head of merchant banking for much of his time at Fortis, has been responsible since the start of the year for its key internal challenge -- the integration of the Dutch businesses of ABN AMRO.
He now takes on the financial group's vital external issues -- finding buyers to pay for up to 10 billion euros ($14.63 billion) of non-core assets that Fortis is looking to divest and convincing investors and customers that the bank is healthy.
"He has a wide experience in both international and domestic banking and is, in the opinion of the board and based on an internal and external executive search, the best person to lead Fortis through the challenging times facing the entire financial industry," Fortis said in a statement.
Dierckx had been the man investors and analysts turned to at Fortis' presentations, when he would be surrounded by a crowd seeking detailed answers on the banking operations.
A senior source within Fortis described him as a workaholic who takes two carloads of files to his holiday home in Knokke, the chic Belgian North Sea resort, every weekend. The files are loaded onto five trolleys and wheeled by staff to his car.
LOST MESSAGE
Back in July, Fortis replaced Votron, the man who engineered Fortis's joint purchase of ABN AMRO, with his deputy Verwilst and said its board had begun to search within and outside the company for a long-term successor.
Votron paid the price for paying a top-of-the-market 24 billion euros for its part of ABN AMRO, which Fortis bought with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) and Spain's Santander (SAN.MC).
His end came after Fortis announced an 8 billion euro solvency package in June, including a 1.5 billion euro capital increase and the abandonment of an interim dividend.
Verwilst announced a new strategy of more open communication after heavy criticism of Votron from shareholder groups.
Chairman Maurice Lippens also pushed for more open communication and together with Verwilst, held three open information sessions -- though not formal shareholder meetings -- in August, when the finance chief had also been replaced.
Those were bungled, in part, after Europe's competition commission refuted claims by Lippens that an inflexible antitrust deadline had forced a hurried sale of parts of ABN's Dutch business to Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE), leading to a 300 million euro loss.
In the end, repeated assurances that the bank's finances were solid did not prevent Fortis shares touching 5.01 euros on Friday, 47.5 percent lower than when Verwilst took charge in mid-July.
Little more than two months on, the sense of urgency has increased, but Fortis believe the search -- and, they must hope, the panic -- is over. (Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop)
