French insurer Monceau, NewB’s largest investor, and other parties are not participating in the bank’s capital increase, report Thursday De Tijd and L’Echo. The cooperative bank must find 40 million euros by the end of September.
In addition to the needs of the bank, this increase in additional capital is a requirement of the National Bank. This had granted a license to NewB in 2020. It was then the first new bank in Belgium for more than half a century.
For its new fundraiser, NewB has chosen not to appeal to individual cooperators, who have already made a lot of effort the last time. This time, it is institutional investors who are targeted.
The ULB is considering “another type of cooperation”
Four of the nine institutions present in the capital, the “cooperators C“, indicate that they will not participate in this fundraising. Among them, Monceau which, with an injection of 10 million euros, is NewB’s largest investor and the partner for the sale of insurance products.
The Université Libre de Bruxelles is also studying another form of cooperation with the bank.
The Brussels and Walloon governments had also invested in the creation of NewB and their current intentions are not yet known.
In mid-May, the bank had 16,767 active customers (out of a total of 21,202), far from the target of 50,000, mentioned for the end of 2021.