Swedish bank Nordea’s offer to acquire ABN Amro Bank has been rejected by the Dutch government, which owns ABN Amro. Nordea made the unsolicited approach in June, when it was told that it should discuss the offer with NLFI, the Dutch body that holds the majority stake in the bank on behalf of the government. The talks, however, ended in September when NLFI told the Swedish bank that its offer was unacceptable. ABN Amro has a €17.6 billion market value after the government sold a minority stake to investors in a privatization in 2015. Nordea became the biggest bank in the Nordic region with more than €700 billion of total assets at the end of 2015 after buying a number of rivals in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
