ROYAL Bank of Scotland (RBS) has surrendered its interest in one of Europe’s biggest private art collections without getting a penny for the taxpayer.
When Sir Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of RBS, went on a buying spree of the world’s banks, his spoils included an interest in a famous art collection assembled by ABN Amro, the Dutch bank, which is worth tens of millions of pounds.
The artworks might have offered some consolation after Goodwin’s disastrous £61 billion takeover of ABN Amro in 2007. The collection has 16,000 pieces ranging from sculptures by Donald Judd to works by Marlene Dumas, the South African artist, one of whose paintings sold for £3.18m at Sotheby’s in London last year.
However, it has emerged that RBS’s acquisition of the ABN Amro collection was another of Goodwin’s dismal deals, because they were deftly hived off from ABN Amro before the takeover.
It meant RBS had day-to-day use of the collection but was not the legal owner and could never sell the works. RBS confirmed last week they were not included in the bank’s assets during the sale.
Instead, under legal terms drawn up by ABN Amro, Goodwin’s bank was lumbered with a chunk of the maintenance costs and staff bills.
In its drive to cut costs, RBS has passed its rights in the collection to the Dutch retail business of ABN Amro, now owned by the Dutch government. No money has changed hands.
The transfer will be seen as a minor coup for Rijkman Groenink, the canny former chief executive of ABN Amro.
While Groenink realised the RBS takeover was inevitable, he acted to prevent one of the oldest and best-known corporate art collections from falling into foreign hands.
In the weeks before the RBS deal went through, he transferred the artworks and legal ownership into a foundation that he headed.
Some artworks adorn the walls of the bank’s offices throughout the Netherlands, while others are kept in vaults in the Dutch town of Weesp.
The ABN Amro takeover was largely responsible for the near-collapse of RBS, which forced a bailout from public funds.
Last month the bank announced a £24.1 billion loss in 2008, the largest in British corporate history. The bulk of the loss was attributable to the ABN Amro deal.
An RBS spokeswoman said last week that the bank relinquished its interest in the ABN Amro collection after Goodwin’s departure.
She said RBS’s decision “was deemed the optimal outcome . . . given the costs and very complex ownership structure which the art foundation had in place”.
RBS still owns the NatWest art collection, which it acquired along with the bank in 2000. That collection, which includes works by Lowry and Damien Hirst, was once on public display in the City of London but is now confined to banking boardrooms and offices.