The Asphales holding, now Fortales, was founded by Piet Van Waeyenberge in 1988.

History

In the wake of the attempted take-over of the

Société Générale de Belgique The ' ( nl, Generale Maatschappij van België; literally "General Company of Belgium") was a large Belgian bank and later holdings company which existed between 1822 and 2003. The ''Société générale'' was originally founded as an invest ...

Carlo De Benedetti Carlo De Benedetti (born 14 November 1934) ''"Sfide perse e vinte: Repubblica-Mondadori"'', ''Gazzetta di Mantova'', 10 March 1998, webpage is an Italian industrialist, engineer, and publisher. He is both an Italian and naturalized Swiss citiz ...

, Piet Van Waeyenberge wanted to create an investment instrument to provide for

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used fo ...

for Belgian companies in order to prevent hostile foreign

takeover In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to ...

s. Several Belgian businesspeople participated in the holding, such as Paul Janssen (

Janssen Pharmaceutica Janssen Pharmaceuticals is a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Beerse, Belgium, and wholly-owned by Johnson & Johnson. It was founded in 1953 by Paul Janssen. In 1961, Janssen Pharmaceuticals was purchased by New Jersey-based America ...

), the Santens family, the ''Holdifima group'' of the families Plouvier-Kreglinger. Later on the families Debaillie, Sabbe (ex-Prado), Moortgat ( Duvel Moortgat Brewery) and Versele ( Versele-Laga) joined the initiative. The holding bought shares of ', a large Belgian

insurer Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

, one of the predecessors of what would become

Fortis Fortis may refer to: Business * Fortis AG, a Swiss watch company * Fortis Films, an American film and television production company founded by actress and producer Sandra Bullock * Fortis Healthcare, a chain of hospitals in India * Fortis Inc ...

Sources

Dynasty IN België

Fortis & Cie : victoire... confortable
Financial services companies of Belgium {{Belgium-company-stub

History

See also

Sources