Rabo Bouwfonds chief quits

Dutch property group Rabo Bouwfonds will today announce the resignation of Tjalling Halbertsma as management board chairman due to problems surrounding the integration of Bouwfonds, Rabo Vastgoedontwikkeling and real estate financing arm FGH Bank into a single real estate division, inside sources said.

Since Rabobank took over parts of Bouwfonds in 2006, the combined company Rabo Bouwfonds has been struggling to achieve a uniform corporate identity. Halbertsma, 50, who was appointed director of a yet-to-be-created property division at Rabo Vastgoed in 2005, is said to be leaving the company due to internal clashes about the way the various real estate units within Rabobank should be integrated and the group's international policy. These clashes led earlier to the departure of Henk van Zandvoort, chairman of the property development division of Rabo Bouwfonds and Pieter Wetselaar of Rabo Vastgoed.

Halbertsma is also said to have been affected by the extensive corruption scandal uncovered in the Dutch property investment sector at end-2007 in which Rabo Bouwfonds is implicated. The Dutch authorities are currently investigating a number of transactions carried out in recent years by Rabo Bouwfonds in tandem with the real estate investment arm of Philips' pension fund.

Rabo Bouwfonds is one of the top-three commercial mortgage lenders in the Netherlands. The group had assets worth over EUR 5bn under management in 2007. FGH Bank was acquired by Rabobank in 2003 and incorporated into Rabo Bouwfonds at end-2006