The Perfect Prey

Jeroen Smit

Bindwijze	Paperback
Omvang	432 p.
ISBN	9789044612936
Prijs	€ 24.95
Eerste druk	05-05-2009
Fonds	Vertaalde fictie
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A year ago The Bank ceased to exist. Three large foreign banks paid the record price of 71 billion euro’s and tore ABN Amro to pieces. Shareholders and management became rich and the Netherlands lost the bank that had been at the heart of our economy for 183 years. A bank that took care of business community’s ambitions in the Netherlands and far beyond.

Why did the management lose abn Amro’s hold on the future? Why did the logical merger with ing fail? On the basis of more than 120 conversations with the most important individuals directly involved, Jeroen Smit (author of Het drama Ahold, awarded several times) reconstructs the downfall of the institute. A bank with a profit of billions every year, but at its core critically ill.
Ever since the merger of abn and Amro in 1990, abn Amro struggled with a surplus of ambition, arrogance and indecisiveness. An atmosphere of ‘divide and rule’ paralyzed the executives of the bank for years. Many of the main figures resigned themselves with frustration to their own interests. A weak, absent board of commissioners failed to intervene.
Plagued on all fronts by frustrated and mutinous managers the bank was then besieged by aggressive shareholders who sensed a quick stock exchange profit. The bank became a prey without future and couldn’t defend itself against this.