Double Degree. A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Master’s Degree in Finance from NOVA – School of Business and Economics and a Masters Degree in Management from Louvain School of Management ; This thesis identifies two completely different ownership structures in Belgian banks: on one side, there is the concentrated ownership structure with a number of reference shareholders, while on the other side, the ownership is really dispersed and no shareholder has a significantly large stake and ability to influence management’s decisions. Dexia and KBC followed the first model, while Fortis has evolved towards the second one around the year 2000. The mitigating impact that reference shareholders could have had on the – in hindsight – wrong decisions of Belgian banks’ top-managers is found to be very limited. I therefore conclude that the dispersed ownership structure of Fortis was not an important factor in its collapse. Nevertheless, a concentrated ownership structure has been found out to help in case of financial distress, mainly because governments will be more inclined to participate to bailouts when a sound rescue strategy, elaborated with the help of a stable ownership structure, is present. ; NSBE - UNL