Dutch cenbank halts Fortis ABN Dutch assets sale

AMSTERDAM/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The Dutch central bank is withholding approval for Fortis NV's (FOR.BR) sale of 709 million euros (561 million pounds) worth of Dutch ABN AMRO assets to Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE) in order to meet European antitrust demands, Fortis said on Tuesday.

Fortis needed to sell the operations to comply with antitrust demands made by the European Commission after it bought ABN AMRO last year together with Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS.L) and Spain's Banco Santander SA (SAN.MC) for a total of 70 billion euros.

Two days ago, the governments of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg swooped in to rescue Fortis with a 11.2 billion euros capital injection because investors had lost confidence in the financial group as it tried to absorb ABN and raise money while the global credit crisis deepened and forced it to take write-downs.

"Fortis has been informed by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), the Dutch central bank, that the decision for approval of the sale of several ABN AMRO assets to Deutsche Bank will not be made until further notice, following further review," Fortis said in a statement.

As part of the Benelux government rescue package, Fortis is seeking a buyer for ABN AMRO, but is likely to end up selling the Dutch bank at a loss.

The DNB is taking into consideration the sale of all of ABN AMRO, Fortis said.

Fortis said the DNB made the decision because of "exceptional circumstances on international financial markets, the uncertainty with regard to the future shareholder in ABN AMRO Bank and the implications of this uncertainty for all parties involved."

If the sale of the Dutch units to Deutsche Bank are scrapped, then Fortis may get a capital boost.

The sale of two units servicing large corporate clients, 13 commercial advisory branches for medium-sized clients, parts of Hollandsche Bank Unie N.V. and factoring services company IFN Finance resulted in a loss of 300 million euros for Fortis.