CHRONOLOGY-Fortis: from riches to rags
Oct 3 (Reuters) - The Dutch government agreed on Friday to nationalise 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.
Sept 29 - After weekend crisis talks involving European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, the Belgian, Dutch and Luxembourg governments agree to inject 11.2 billion euros into Fortis, taking 49 percent stakes in the group's banks in their respective countries.
Fortis agrees to sell its parts of ABN AMRO. Veteran Fortis chairman Maurice Lippens resigns.
Oct 1 - Fortis scraps the Ping An deal and is blocked by regulators from selling ABN AMRO assets to Deutsche Bank.
Oct 3 - The Dutch government agrees to take over the banking and insurance activities of Fortis in the Netherlands for 16.8 billion euros, including Fortis' interest in ABN AMRO. (Writing by Marcin Grajewski, editing by Paul Taylor and Dale Hudson)
