ABN AMRO

The goal of ABN AMRO is to create value for its clients. The key to our relationship approach is a constant focus on the financial services needs of our chosen client segments. It is through the professionalism and motivation of our staff across the globe that we realize this value. By strict adherence to financial targets these efforts produce maximum economic value for our shareholders. The ABN AMRO Values and Business Principles provide the framework within which we carry out our operations. We operate in three principal customer segments, namely Consumer and Commercial Clients, Wholesale Clients, and Private Clients and Asset Management. The objective is to maximize the value of each of these businesses as well as the synergies between them. Excellence of service to our clients and leadership in our chosen markets are of paramount importance to our long-term success. Dutch King Willem I creates The Netherlands Trading Society (NTS), parent company of ABN. Rotterdamsche Bank (Robaver) is founded and lends funds to Dutch companies operating in Indonesia. NTS merges with 100-year-old Dutch agriculture Twentsche Bank forming Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN); and Amsterdamsche Bank and Robaver merge and form the Amsterdam-Rotterdam Bank (AMRO). ABN buys Dutch investment banking specialist Mees & Hope Bankiers; AMRO acquires Dutch investment bank Pierson, Heldring & Pierson. ABN acquires Chicago-based LaSalle Bank and gains strong foothold in the United States. ABN and AMRO, the two largest banks in the Netherlands, agree to merge and form ABN AMRO Bank. The merger of ABN and AMRO is completed, and the company acquires Talman Home Federal Savings and Loan Association, the largest savings and loan in Illinois. International Financing Review designates ABN AMRO as the 1995 Bank of the Year. ABN AMRO buys commercial bank holding company Michigan National Corporation; and Rijkaman Groenink becomes chairman and chief executive. ABN AMRO closes its U.S. investment bank and brokerage businesses; and U.K.-based ABN AMRO Asset Management and Artemis Investment Management merge operating under the Artemis name with ABN AMRO as majority owner. Rooted in 19th-century Dutch East Indies trade, ABN AMRO Holding, NV has grown into a major international bank with operations in more than 60 countries. The Amsterdam-based holding company is the top banking group in the Netherlands, where it has one-quarter of its 3,400 branches. With $600 billion in total assets, it stands as the seventh largest bank in Europe, and 13th largest in the world. ABN AMRO is the biggest foreign bank in the United States where it maintains a robust Midwest presence. American subsidiaries include Michigan's largest bank, Standard Federal, and LaSalle Bank NA, a leading bank in the Chicago area. The bank also has significant operations in Brazil. ABN AMRO reorganized at the start of 2001, dividing its operating divisions into a trio of strategic business units. At the same time it sold many non-core operations around the world and withdrew from investment banking in the United States. The company has about 111,000 employees worldwide. The 1991 marriage of the two largest banks in the Netherlands--Amsterdam-Rotterdam Bank (AMRO) and Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN)--gave rise to ABN AMRO. However, each bank arrived at the wedding as a product of previous banking mergers. ABN's original ancestor was The Netherlands Trading Society (Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschapijj), a company created in 1824 by decree of the Netherlands' King Willem I--Holland's Merchant Monarch. The King and company founders intended to revive the trading in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) that had flourished during the 17th and 18th centuries with the Dutch East Indies Company. The Netherlands Trading Society (NTS) managed its operations from the Dutch colony on Java, Indonesia's largest island and commercial hub. It financed the export of agricultural products which, between 1840 and 1880, broug