Friesland Bank NV

Friesland Bank N.V. was founded in 1913 as Cooperatieve Zuivelbank by a number of local Frisian co-operative dairy industries to regulate their cash positions and to provide them with short term credits. From the start, the bank was a member of the Raiffeisen-organisation at Utrecht (later transformed into Rabobank). The bank extended its operations to all agricultural businesses in Friesland organized in a co-operative structure, and to local authorities such as the water-boards. The bank undertook virtually no retail activities. Banking in the sixtiesIn its first fifty years, the bank operated exclusively from its offices at Leeuwarden. In the late 1950s, increased demand for credit and a lack of funds led to a strategic repositioning of the Zuivelbank. It broke up its ties with Raiffeissenbank and started a branch network of its own to attract savings and deposits from the retail sector. Business banking was extended to all types of industry. In 1970 its name was changed to Friesland Bank to reflect both its regional identity and its character as a general bank. The rapid concentration in the Dutch banking industry and the introduction of the all-finance concept led to a fundamental change of the bank’s strategy in 1992. It seemed probable that a continuation of its banking operations strictly in a provincial setting would in the foreseeable future lead to a forced merger or take-over due to lack of scale. Therefore, it was decided to develop the bank into a medium sized general bank operating in the Netherlands, to enter into strategic alliances with other Dutch institutions, and to modernize its legal structure. As a direct result in 1993 an office was opened in Groningen, the largest city in the North, followed by offices in Alkmaar (1995), Assen (1997), Zwolle (1999), Enschede (2002) and Amsterdam (2006). To improve efficiency, twenty smaller branches in the province of Friesland were closed in 1999 and in 2000/01 three further branches were closed. From 1994 onwards the legal and ownership structure of Friesland Bank was changed to make it more transparent to the financial markets and to open up the possibilities of attracting external tier-1 capital. The most important amendment was the transformation from a co-operative company to a Dutch public company with limited liability, effected in 1995. The share capital of the bank is held by Friesland Bank Holding NV, a holding company without a banking status. The main shareholder, Vereniging Friesland Bank, has the statutory obligation to maintain the integrity and autonomy of the bank, which implies that it cannot and may not sell its shareholding in Friesland Bank (Holding) otherwise than within the framework of a merger of Friesland Bank with another entity if such a merger would be in the best interest of Friesland Bank, and only if the shareholding in Friesland Bank would be exchanged for a shareholding in the new entity.

Address: Beursplein 1, 8911 BE Leeuwarden, Netherlands

Phone: +31 58 299 55 99
FAX: +31 58 299 45 91