GLOBAL - Dutch merchant bank NIBC's owner JC Flowers has awarded two more bookrunning mandates in the planned €650m flotation of the bank, to be undertaken this quarter.

The flotation will now be co-led by ABN Amro and Goldman Sachs, who have been awarded the mandates in addition to those already won by Credit Suisse and JP Morgan.

The move comes only 18 months after ABP and PGGM, the two largest Dutch pension funds, sold the bank to US investor JC Flowers, owned by former Goldman Sachs banker Christian Flowers, which now hopes to sell a quarter of its stake through the flotation.

According to media reports, NIBC (former NIB Capital) is now valued at €2.5bn, after ABP and PGGM sold the bank for €2.1bn in late 2005.

NIBC plans to hire a "significant number of people" to expand its real estate and investment management operations in Germany, Michael Enthoven, NIBC chairman, said in a statement.