Ageas was spun out of Fortis during the financial crisis after a consortium including Banco Santander and Royal Bank of Scotland launched a failed bid for ABN Amro. The takeover was badly timed and overly ambitious, and to fund it Fortis started selling noncore divisions while writing down collateralized debt. As Fortis’ capital began to decline, the company initiated a rights issue, and suspended the dividend. As Fortis’ share price began to decline and financial market conditions continued to deteriorate, with a series of leadership changes, customers began to withdraw deposits. Fortis was approached by the government and sold its domestic banking operations to the Belgian government. It also spun off its asset management and insurance units which later became Ageas.