The Dutch sustainable bank Triodos will not launch a buyback program to support duped certificate holders after all. The 45,000 investors who cannot manage their money, including thousands of Belgians, have to make do with an extraordinary dividend of 1 euro.
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Triodos is unable to iron out the folds with the thousands of investors who have invested heavily in certificates from the Dutch bank in recent years.
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The bank, which prides itself on its sustainable image, announced on Monday that it is going back on an earlier arrangement with which it partly wanted to put thousands of duped investors out of the loop. More than 45,000 people affected, including an estimated 7,500 Belgians, may forget their promised compensation.
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In the past, Triodos raised around 1.2 billion euros to finance its activities by selling depositary receipts. Those securities were entitled to a share of the profits and could only be sold through an internal trading system.
That went smoothly, until the trade in Triodos certificates collapsed when the corona crisis erupted.
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As a result, the Dutch bank decided about two and a half years ago to suspend trading in the certificates. In practice, this means that thousands of investors cannot access their money all that time.
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Painful stories
Dutch media brought painful stories of people who wanted to sell the certificates after an inheritance, but could not find a buyer. Or how they postpone renovations or other expenses, because the money is tied up in certificates that have fallen sharply in value in the meantime.
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