Shareholders threaten legal action over Fortis bailout deal

Tuesday October 7, 2008, 5:08 am after French bank BNP Paribas agreed a deal with the Belgian and Luxembourg governments to carve up the troubled finance group. "It is an outrage that management, at a time where more than 80 percent of the value of have been consistently misinformed, is not willing to live up to its legal obligations to shareholders and is not willing to inform shareholders in a proper way," the Euroshareholders said in a statement. The umbrella group of European shareholders associations said the deal, under which BNP will take a majority stake in Fortis's Belgian and Luxembourg operations, "reduces the value of the Fortis share to around 3.5 euros per share." Trading in Fortis shares was suspended on Monday, with the holding company no longer in possession of any banking units as the financial firestorm... [read full story]