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Even by the mega-buyout standards of 2007, the break-up and sale of ABN Amro was one of the year’s most prolonged and controversial auctions. The battle between Barclays and the victorious group of Royal Bank of Scotland, Fortis and Banco Santander dragged on for months, witnessing the hospitalisation of ABN Amro chief executive Rijkman Groenink and a rights issue by Fortis.

But there are crucial differences between the Fortis rights issue in September, which helped fund its acquisition of ABN Amro Asset Management, and the RBS rights issue announced in April. The RBS rights issue is not only the largest in British history, but it was also announced at a time when everyone had acknowledged the financial system had entered a crisis rather than a temporary blip.

Fortis Investments, the Fortis division that has been integrating ABN Amro Asset Management, has escaped any similarly bad publicity. This is not to say it has not had to make tough decisions about the merger. As head of UK mutual fund sales Keith Wilson explains, the overlapping remits of the two divisions have caused staff and funds to be rationalised.

“The manager selection stage happened late last year," he says. "Where there were similar capabilities on both sides, we went through a consultancy phase and made quite simple decisions about which teams would be retained within the business. That process is complete. Now we’re looking at fund mergers.”

Post-merger, investors now have access to double the number of investment teams at the rebranded Fortis Investments range. They also have 45 rather than 30 retail funds to choose from, although Fortis Investments has yet to announce which will survive the rationalisation. But for now, Fortis Investments will have more employees in the UK to answer investors’ queries about their investment capabilities.

“I joined Fortis three years ago, and at the time the footprint in the UK was very small," Mr Wilson recalls. "Principally, my background was mutual fund sales. We had a very small sales operation – myself and a colleague who looked after hedge funds. But that changed with the merger with ABN Amro. We have a much larger business in the UK as a result.”

Mr Wilson says although the investment teams have changed, their executive powers and research processes have not. “Investment teams focused on a particular asset class are entirely autonomous and accountable for their investment performance,” he observes. “Every team will have a nominated chief investment officer who is responsible for the way the team is managed and the products within that team. Globally, there is a chief investment officer of the entire business. The chief investment officers get together physically at least quarterly, with informal interactions on a more regular basis.”

Two of the strongest capabilities to survive rationalisation were Fortis and ABN Amro’s US and global equity teams. It is an important sign of these teams’ resilience and character that they were not merged into single units in single offices. The ABN Amro global teams boasted a prominent £50.9m Global High Dividend Equity proposition, for instance, while the £910.6m Equity World, £115.7m Equity Environmental Sustainability and £412.6m Equity World Emerging funds were top-performing products for Fortis over the last year.

The most eye-catching US equity funds have closer remits, but pursue them in a very different manner. The distinctive feature of Mark Stoeckle’s £115m Fortis Equity Best Selection USA fund is its high conviction stock picks, while Mr Wilson says François Mouté of the £419.1m US Opportunities fund, formerly with ABN Amro, uses some tactics that are more unusual in the retail space. “He can invest as little as 60 per cent in US equities," Mr Wilson says. "The balance can be in Treasury bills or cash. He can also use derivatives to short the benchmark."

In addition to these unambiguously mainstream funds, Fortis Investments also has a number of specialist sector and regional funds, particularly in the global range. Some of them are perhaps more susceptible to mergers than the US and global equity funds. Both the Fortis Investments and the former ABN Amro Asset Management ranges contain global financials, global utilities, China and Russia funds.

The regional Fortis funds outside Europe have mainly exhibited steady performance over the last year. On a cumulative basis since 22 May, the Japan funds have been weaving over and under their benchmark, for instance, while since 13 June the £96m Equity Emerging Europe fund has broadly kept pace with the index. According to Fortis Investments’ April factsheets, the sector specialist funds had, if anything, been performing better since 21 May, with the notable exception of the £70.6m Equity Biotechnology World fund.

Mr Wilson says the sector-specific global range is largely aimed at the discretionary manager community, the multi-manager community and the private banks. "We market them on an opportunistic basis," he says. "Clearly there will be certain needs at certain times.” But although the market seems to have gained a strong appetite for commodities, the Fortis Equity Resources World fund had only gathered £60.6m in assets despite outperforming its benchmark since 21 May, according to its April fact sheet.

The chief aspect of the UK-distributed range that needs work at the moment is Europe, from both a fund performance and a domicile perspective. According to Fortis Investments’ April factsheets, since 24 May the European bond funds had all underperformed their benchmarks, while the European equity range had chiefly finished below benchmark, with the exception of the Equity Euro fund.

Most of these developments will be of little interest to the mainstream UK retail investor, who does not usually allocate to pure European bond funds or pure euro-denominated equity products such as the ones that dominate Fortis Investments’ European equity range. But it would help if the Fortis Investments range, which is domiciled under a Luxembourg Sicav umbrella, were more easily accessible through fund supermarkets and statistical listings.

“It’s a handicap,” Mr Wilson admits. “However, the best way to approach this is through the platforms, where I don’t think we’ve done enough. I’d like to see some significant progress on that in the next year. It’s going to be an important driver of the business going forward.” But as Mr Wilson has only just settled into his newly merged London office, he says he will be keeping things simple for now.