06/10/2009 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has extended the deadline granted for the selling off of some assets by Dutch company Fortis/ABN. Fortis' membership of the consortium that bought up ABN in 2007 was conditional upon the divestment of some of Fortis' assets in the Netherlands, namely a corporate banking services company, Hollandsche Bank Unie N.V. (HBU), two departments specialising in corporate clientele, 13 “advieskantoren” and ABN AMRO's Dutch factoring business. These obligations were accepted by the Dutch state when it bailed out the Dutch section of Fortis. The Commission has postponed the deadline until 19 October 2009. EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said that extending the deadline should help the negotiations currently under way to sell off HBU to bear fruit. (C.D./transl.fl)