The acquisition of ABN Amro last year is shaping up as one of the most brilliant deals of modern times. Not for the purchasers, however. We have already seen one member of the buying consortium, Royal Bank of Scotland, forced into a humiliating £12 billion rights issue after damaging its balance sheet by paying too much.

Now another consortium member, Fortis, has been admitted into intensive care. The Belgian-Dutch financial services group has launched a string of emergency measures to raise and preserve capital, including a €1.5 billion share issue, an axed dividend and a property sale and leaseback. It is only a few months since Fortis swore it would not dilute shareholders any further, having already got into their ribs for €13 billion. Only Banco Santander, the third consortium member, comes out looking relatively undamaged, having flipped ABN’s Italian business Antonveneta for a spectacular instant profit while landing the greatest prize, ABN’s Brazilian arm Banco Real.

Rijkman Groenink, the ABN chief at the time of the bid battle, was berated for the seemingly haphazard and self-interested way in which he conducted negotiations. With hindsight, he appears to have been a deal genius, winkling out 93 per cent of the €71 billion purchase price in cash for a second-rate, second-division bank.

Times change. So do valuations. Today the cash proceeds alone would buy you all of Citigroup – which a couple of years ago was the biggest bank in the world.

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