Ageas Raises EUR666 Million Net Cash In Buyback From BNP Paribas

Belgian insurance firm Ageas (AGS.BT) Tuesday said it raised EUR666 million in net cash from a bond buyback linked to its relationship with collapsed bank Fortis.

The buyback was carried out with French bank BNP Paribas (BNP.FR), which bought some of the Fortis assets from the Belgian government after its collapse.

The net impact of the transaction on Ageas' books for the first quarter of 2012 will be negative EUR147 million and the gross value of the exchange was EUR953 million.

"As a result of the EUR953 million redemption of the Tier 1 and the exchange of EUR1,8 million nominal amount of CASHES securities outstanding, the credit risk to Fortis Bank will be lowered by more than EUR2.8 billion," Ageas said in a statement.

Brussels-based Ageas is the legal successor to Fortis, the financial giant that collapsed in 2008 under the weight of buying a part of Dutch bank ABN Amro Holding. The company was broken up and nationalized by the Dutch and Belgian governments.

The break-up landed Ageas in a series of complex legacy issues, often centering around financial instruments that were issued by Fortis's banking operations in Belgium and the Netherlands. It left Ageas exposed to significant financial and legal risks and made it a somewhat confusing investment for shareholders.

-By Matina Stevis, Dow Jones Newswires; 00-32-2-7411483; [e-mail]; (Maarten Van Tartwijk in Amsterdam contributed to this article)