Dutch govt to sell insurer

THE HAGUE: The Dutch government is planning to sell off state-owned insurance company ASR, Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said Friday, a week after a triumphant return to the stock market by ABN Amro.
One of the largest insurers in the Netherlands, ASR was created out of the break-up of the Belgian-Dutch Fortis group in the 2008 economic crisis and acquired for 3.65 billion euros by the Dutch state.
Now the government is eyeing an initial public offering for ASR on the Amsterdam stock exchange during the first half of 2016, Dijsselbloem told Dutch lawmakers in a letter.
"The state has long said that it would sell off financial institutions such as ASR if the conditions were right," a separate government statement said.
"That moment has now arrived."
Dijsselbloem said it had not yet been determined how large a stake in ASR would be sold off. That would be decided after consultations between ASR and the NFLI, a government body overseeing state-owned companies.
The Utrecht-based ASR had been preparing itself "in recent years for a sale, and has a strong position in the Dutch insurance market," the government added.
The Dutch government is trying to recover some of the huge investments made in propping up key financial institutions at the height of the global meltdown.