France's BNP Paribas signalled Saturday that it could abandon its bid for collapsed Belgian bank Fortis if shareholders failed to agree a revised takeover deal next week.
"It is clear that if, at the end of the day, things do not unfreeze quickly, BNP Paribas will exit the scene," said BNP chief executive Baudouin Prot in an interview published Saturday.
"It now seems to us indispensable to move to a time of action and solutions," Prot told L'Echo, a Belgian business newspaper.
Shareholders in Fortis -- who meet Wednesday in Brussels -- are threatening to vote against the sale of the bank's Belgian assets to BNP and the nationalisation of Fortis's insurance business in the Netherlands.
If the no vote wins, Prot said, "we will take note of the decisions of the general meeting" of shareholders.
BNP has shown much "perseverance and pragmatism," he said, "but perseverance has its limits, and so do pragmatism and the possibility of making concessions."
If shareholders do vote against selling the Belgian part of Fortis to BNP, "we will act in a wholly responsible manner," added Prot, who went on to rule out any danger that BNP might stop extending credit to Fortis.
"We would not brutally pull out the ladder like that," he said.
On Friday, the Belgian government and BNP agreed to revise the sale in the face of shareholder protests, with the French bank abandoning plans to buy most of Fortis's insurance business.
According to a government statement, BNP would buy only 10 percent of the Belgium insurance operations for 550 million euros (709 million dollars), instead of 75 percent as planned in the previous agreement reached in October.
The share of so-called toxic assets held by Fortis Holding, the only entity listed on the stock exchange, would be reduced to one billion euros, with Belgium providing a five-billion-euro guarantee.
Meanwhile the Belgian government's investment would be reduced to 11.4 billion euros from the 14.9 billion foreseen under the original plan to salvage Fortis, once a jewel of Belgian industry and commerce.
Brussels hopes minority shareholders will now back the sale of most of the group's Belgian assets to BNP after the initial deal was suspended by a Brussels court in December because they had not been consulted.
The collapse of Fortis -- an episode in the wider global economic crisis -- caused considerable drama in Belgium and handed it the unenviable title of being the first country where a government fell due to the turmoil.
Fortis Bank warned last week that its 2008 accounts were expected to show a loss of as much as 19 billion euros.
"It is clear that if, at the end of the day, things do not unfreeze quickly, BNP Paribas will exit the scene," said BNP chief executive Baudouin Prot in an interview published Saturday.
"It now seems to us indispensable to move to a time of action and solutions," Prot told L'Echo, a Belgian business newspaper.
Shareholders in Fortis -- who meet Wednesday in Brussels -- are threatening to vote against the sale of the bank's Belgian assets to BNP and the nationalisation of Fortis's insurance business in the Netherlands.
If the no vote wins, Prot said, "we will take note of the decisions of the general meeting" of shareholders.
BNP has shown much "perseverance and pragmatism," he said, "but perseverance has its limits, and so do pragmatism and the possibility of making concessions."
If shareholders do vote against selling the Belgian part of Fortis to BNP, "we will act in a wholly responsible manner," added Prot, who went on to rule out any danger that BNP might stop extending credit to Fortis.
"We would not brutally pull out the ladder like that," he said.
On Friday, the Belgian government and BNP agreed to revise the sale in the face of shareholder protests, with the French bank abandoning plans to buy most of Fortis's insurance business.
According to a government statement, BNP would buy only 10 percent of the Belgium insurance operations for 550 million euros (709 million dollars), instead of 75 percent as planned in the previous agreement reached in October.
The share of so-called toxic assets held by Fortis Holding, the only entity listed on the stock exchange, would be reduced to one billion euros, with Belgium providing a five-billion-euro guarantee.
Meanwhile the Belgian government's investment would be reduced to 11.4 billion euros from the 14.9 billion foreseen under the original plan to salvage Fortis, once a jewel of Belgian industry and commerce.
Brussels hopes minority shareholders will now back the sale of most of the group's Belgian assets to BNP after the initial deal was suspended by a Brussels court in December because they had not been consulted.
The collapse of Fortis -- an episode in the wider global economic crisis -- caused considerable drama in Belgium and handed it the unenviable title of being the first country where a government fell due to the turmoil.
Fortis Bank warned last week that its 2008 accounts were expected to show a loss of as much as 19 billion euros.
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