Maurice Lippens (businessman)
Maurice Robert Josse Marie Ghislain, Count Lippens (born 9 May 1943 in Knokke, Belgium) is a Belgian businessman and banker. He is the grandson of Maurice Lippens (1875).
Education
He obtained a doctorate in law from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) (Brussels, Belgium) in 1967, and an MBA degree from the Harvard Business School (U.S.) in 1972.
Career
He started his professional career in South Africa to assist with reorganisation of the Maatschappij voor Zeevisserij where he stayed for five months, and then fulfilled his military service in the Belgian army. this was followed by traineeships at the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas (financial analysis) and then the Société Générale de Banque with a traineeship in financial management. After he graduated from Harvard Business School (MBA), he held management positions at Scienta S.A., the Société Européenne de Venture Capital, whose shareholders are the Agnelli Group, Rothschild Group, Société Générale de Belgique, Robert Bosch and Paribas (France). He then took over a company in Brussels on his own account, the main department of which was resold in 1979.
Maurice Lippens joined the AG Group in 1981, in 1983 becoming Managing Director and then Chairman / Managing Director in 1988. He has been the Chairman of Fortis since 1990, but was relieved of his position after a government bailout of the bank in September 2008. The bailout came after Fortis had been over ambitious and made Fortis take over ABN-AMRO, an acquisition Fortis could probably not afford and therefore Fortis was close to bankruptcy when the government took over.
Mr Lippens has been involved in numerous law suits and has been blamed by many for the downfall of Fortis due to his over ambitious merger plan with ABN Amro during the economic crisis.
Other positions
Director Total, Director GBL (Group Bruxelles Lambert), Director Belgacom, Director Suez-Tractebel, Chairman Companie Het Zoute, Director Iscal Sugar, Director Finasucre, Director Groupe Sucrier, Member Trilateral Commission, Member Harvard Business School European Advisory Council, Member Insead Belgium Council. He is a member of the Belgian businessclub Cercle de Lorraine.