Flush with victory, Peter Paul de Vries, head of the Dutch Association of Shareholders (VEB), says it’s time to call it quits. De Vries, 40, will leave the VEB in October, after 12 years at the helm of the Netherlands’ biggest — and Europe’s most combative — small-shareholders association. Last month VEB successfully blocked ABN Amro’s attempt to sell U.S. banking subsidiary LaSalle to Bank of America and on the same day won a ruling in an appeals court ½nding Goldman Sachs and ABN Amro guilty of misleading investors in the 2000 IPO of Internet service provider World Online. Now de Vries is considering a switch to fund management: “I may apply for Warren Buffett’s job,” he says. “With Buffett about to retire as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, my timing couldn’t be better.”
