Dutch-Belgian financial services group Fortis, one of Europe's victims of the credit crunch, confirmed today that it has been in talks with the Belgian government and the French bank, BNP Paribas to renegotiate deals originally agreed last October to spin off parts of Fortis’ businesses.

In a brief statement, Fortis said it  was in talks with the two parties about recommendations that have been made to renegotiate agreements made in early October last year. It declined to elaborate on details.

In December last year, BNP Paribas said its acquisition of a stake in Fortis would not go ahead as planned following a Brussels Court of Appeal ruling on a case brought by some 2,200 dissident Fortis shareholders. The Brussels appeal court froze for 65 days decisions taken by the Fortis board at the start of October on the company’s carve-up, and ordered that Fortis shareholders be allowed a say by 12 February 2009.

Under the original terms of the deal, BNP Paribas was to buy Fortis’ assets for €14.5 billion. The fledgling Belgian government of Yves Leterme was to take a stake of 11.7 per cent in BNP, and BNP was to take 75 per cent of Fortis' Belgian arm. 

Separately, Fortis has agreed to sell off its ABN Amro private wealth management businesses that it had acquired only 12 months before in 2007. Fortis, along with the UK’s Royal Bank of Scotland and Spain’s Santander, bought ABN Amro at what was then the height of the merger and acquisition boom. Since then, Fortis has been bailed out by European governments, while RBS has been partly nationalised by the UK government.