Luxembourg and Belgium became shareholders of BNP Paribas in 2008-2009. This participation dates back to the rescue of Fortis during the 2008 financial crisis.

In September 2008, the Belgian and Luxembourg governments had to intervene to save the branches of Fortis operating on their territories, as the Dutch government had nationalised the group’s Dutch entities without consulting its Benelux partners in order to recreate ABN AMRO, forcing Belgium and the grand duchy to do the same.

The BNP Paribas group was then seen as the ‘white knight’ capable of ensuring the solvency and development of the Belgian and Luxembourg activities. The French bank bought back--at a good price--the assets that these two states had nationalised in exchange for a payment in cash and shares in the group. The total amount of the transaction was €14.5bn.

As a result, the Belgium and Luxembourg states became shareholders of BNP Paribas, with stakes of 11.6% and 1.1% respectively. Luxembourg also took a 33% minority stake in Fortis Banque Luxembourg, formerly BGL, which was to become BGL-BNP Paribas.

€809m in the state’s coffers

While Luxembourg never touched these holdings, Belgium has, over time, become somewhat disengaged.

In 2017, the Belgian state, via its financial arm SFPIM, reduced its stake from 10.3% to 7.8%, taking advantage of a rise in the banking group’s share price to around €70. On the strength of its 2022 results and its prospects, the bank’s share price is approaching these levels. It was quoted at €63,980 at opening on 1 March. Belgium intends to sell 33.3 million shares for a sale price of around €2.2bn. The country will thus lose its position as the group’s largest shareholder.

Who will buy these shares? BNP Paribas announced at the time of its results presentation that it wanted to spend around €5bn on a share buyback operation.

When contacted by Delano’s sister publication Paperjam, the ministry of finance stated that no such operation was under consideration.

The Luxembourg state currently holds 1.043% of the capital for a market value of €809.806m. Its stake has brought in €95.5m over the last two years.

This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.