ABN Amro reports a loss after writing off Greek loans

Dutch bank ABN Amro has reported a loss due to exposure to Greek corporate loans. It made a net loss of 54m euros ($73m; £46m) in the three months to the end of September compared with a 341m euro profit in the same period last year. ABN Amro holds around 1.4bn euros of corporate loans guaranteed by the Greek government and wrote off 500m euros of that. It said it had "sufficient indications" the loans might not be repaid in full. The bank pointed out that the loans were to companies and not to the Greek government in the form of sovereign bonds, which have tumbled in value during the eurozone crisis. "Uncertainty as a result of the sovereign debt crisis and the impact thereof on the European economy, caused us to impair part of the 1.4bn euro Greek Government-Guaranteed Corporate Exposures," said the bank in a statement. The bank said its exposure to eurozone government bonds from countries including Italy, Portugal and Belgium made up 0.2% of its total balance sheet. The bank owns 26.4bn euros of sovereign debt from eurozone countries in total. More than half of that is from the Netherlands and Germany. State-owned bank ABN Amro was nationalised by the Dutch government in 2010 after it was unloaded by the Royal Bank of Scotland. RBS had paid 71bn euros for ABN Amro in 2007. It wrote off £16bn of bad debt in the same year mainly due to loans made by the Dutch bank. After nationalisation, the Dutch government split the bank into two divisions and appointed former Dutch finance minister Gerrit Zalm as chairman.