ABN Amro prepares for reprivatisation ABN Amro, the Dutch bank that emerged phoenix-like - and nationalised - from the ashes of the financial crisis, will be ready for reprivatisation by next summer, according to its chief executive. Gerrit Zalm, the former Dutch finance minister who was appointed as chief executive in 2009, told the Financial Times he wanted to be ready for the government to start selling its 100 per cent stake in the bank "within a year or so." ABN Amro ceased to exist in 2007 when the bank was taken over in an ambitious three-way acquisition by Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Fortis. But when Fortis collapsed a year later, the Dutch government was forced into a €30bn rescue of the country's third-biggest lender, comprising the original Fortis Netherlands plus the domestic rump of the former ABN. In a video interview Mr Zalm said: "We are preparing [for privatisation]. But it will be a matter of timing. How will the markets look? [Should] you wait a bit, because [after] two recession years in the Netherlands, [it] may not be optimal timing. Mr Zalm, who said the final decision on the sell-off rested with finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, separately criticised Mr Dijsselbloem's plan for a radical bankers" bonus cap, which he said would undermine Dutch banks" global operations. Under the proposal, bonuses would be limited to 20 per cent of salary - far more extreme than the 100-200 per cent envisaged by incoming EU-wide rules. "In the Dutch market, we can work with it," Mr Zalm said. [But] internationally that will be far more difficult. I hope [the cap] will be restricted to the Dutch market. ABN, which generates only 18 per cent of its business outside the Netherlands, aims to increase that proportion to as much as 25 per cent over the next three to four years, Mr Zalm said. The bank will build on its already broad presence in private banking, and expand its asset-based finance operations, he said. That will include the launch of leasing businesses in the UK and Germany early next year. In a wide-ranging interview, the politician-turned-banker applauded the direction of global regulation, in particular efforts to impose losses on bondholders in an effort to avoid future taxpayer bailouts. Bailing-in senior debt investors, not just junior bondholders, would be advisable, he said, and should "lead to a new dynamism" in funding markets. However, he cautioned that upcoming plans for a single European regulator, under the auspices of the European Central Bank, were a "complex hybrid" which risked creating "a lot of trouble" between the ECB, the European Commission and national regulators. Mr Zalm also criticised regulators" sharpened focus on simplistic leverage ratios, which measure capital as a proportion of overall assets, rather than assessing lending on a "risk-weighted" basis. Although regulators" interest in overall leverage was "understandable," it would "stimulate a move into more risky assets," he said. That's the danger around the corner.