Dexia

Dexia N.V./S.A., or the Dexia Group, is a Franco-Belgian financial institution formed in 1996. At its peak in 2010, it had about 35,200 members of staff and a core shareholders' equity of €19.2 billion. In 2008, the bank entered severe financial difficulties and received taxpayer bailouts for €6 billion, and it became the first big casualty of the 2011 European sovereign debt crisis. Due to big losses, suffered among others from the debt haircut on Greek government bonds, its Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) capital ratio became negative during the second half of 2011, and an orderly resolution process began in October 2011. As part of the resolution, Dexia Bank Belgium was bought out from the Dexia group by the Belgian state and has continued to operate, since March 2012 under the new name Belfius. The French bank focused on local government lending was restructured as SFIL. The remaining part of the Dexia group was left in a "bad bank", still called Dexia, to be gradually wound down.