Securities business.
Sustained growth.
New issues: growth in numbers.
Aided by a favourable climate in the stock
market, the upward trend was maintained. Both
in the Netherlands and abroad, earnings from
securities business rose by a substantial margin.
Viewed in conjunction with the rates of growth
achieved in the preceding years, the 1985 results
confirm the importance of this sector in the
context of the Bank's operations as a whole.
The general undertone on the stock market will
doubtless exert a major influence on the future
development also. In addition, account must be
taken of the effect on competition - and thus on
profits - of the de
regulation and inter
nationalization of the
capital market. Against
this background, it is a
source of satisfaction that
not only do our activities
in the securities sector
cover a wide field -
issues, stockbroking,
custody, management,
intermediacy and
consultancy but also
that virtually all of these
sectors contributed to the favourable result.
Thanks to a high degree of automation, no
difficulty was experienced in handling the vastly
increased volume of transactions. Moreover, we
anticipate that in the years ahead our efforts to
extend automation in this area - for example, in
options trading, the application of the Giro
system to portfolios and the extension of the
international network, referred to on page 24, to
enable the quoted prices of Dutch shares and
bonds on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange to be
circulated - will have a beneficial effect on the
quality of our service and on the level of costs.
Some activities are further gone into hereafter.
Our activities in this sector cover both the Dutch
and the international capital markets, our
position in the former, of course, being stronger.
Overall earnings from new issue business again
improved.
As in 1984, new issues effected via the
Amsterdam Stock Exchange were not only
numerous, but also highly diversified. Issues of
straight bonds, equity-linked bonds and shares
as well as stock exchange introductions were
very frequent.
Although the State made eight appearances
in the public sector of the market, the same
200 number as in the previous year, its aggregate
175 borrowings in this sector declined by about Fl. 3
billion to Fl. 22.1 billion. Bond issues to the
150 debit of foreign borrowers numbered 15,
125 compared with twenty in 1984; this was the first
fall since the public market was opened to this
75 group in 1975. On the other hand, Dutch
so commerce and industry, excluding the financial
25 sector, staged a revival with five straight bond
issues, added to which there were some ten
issues of equity-linked bonds, including a
convertible debenture loan of Fl. 400 million by
the ABN. In all, 31 underwritten issues of
straight bonds and equity-linked bonds were
effected in the public sector of the market in
1985, the Bank acting as lead-manager in
seventeen cases.
The increasing popularity of the European
Currency Unit in the domestic market is worth
mentioning. In January, the ABN became the
first Dutch debtor to issue an ECU loan. The
ECU 100 million bonds 1985 due 1992 attracted
considerable interest, especially on the part of
domestic investors. In May we issued ECU
"bankbrieven" on the Dutch market, an
example later followed by other banks.
In the official market, eight companies and
financial institutions made rights issues. The
successful one-for-ten issue by Nationale
Nederlanden yielded over Fl. 550 million and
was the largest in the history of the Amsterdam
Stock Exchange. Apart from nine investment
46
TURNOVER AMSTERDAM
STOCK EXCHANGE IN
BILLIONS OF GUILDERS
