Under the terms of the rescue, Belgium will pay Dexia Group US$5.4 billion to buy Dexia Bank Belgium, the largely retail Belgian division, which has 6,000 staff and deposits totaling 80 billion euros from 4 million customers.

Dexia also secured state guarantees of up to 90 billion euros to secure borrowing over the next 10 years. Belgium would provide 60.5 percent of these guarantees, France 36.5 percent and Luxembourg 3 percent.

Under the rescue plan Dexia will be left with a portfolio of bonds in run-off, which totaled 95.3 billion euros at the end of June and including 7.7 billion euros of junk class and some 7.4 billion euros of mortgage-backed securities.

As part of the bank's break-up Dexia is also in talks to sell its Luxembourg unit. A Luxembourg government official said that members of Qatar's royal family were ready to buy the business with the state taking a minority stake.

The future of Dexia's other business units remained uncertain, including its stake in Turkish lender Denizbank and its RBC Dexia Investor Services global joint venture with Royal Bank of Canada.

Trading in Dexia's shares, which have been suspended since Thursday afternoon, was due to resume later on Monday.

Dexia's announcement of the overall rescue deal came after a board meeting that lasted some 14 hours from mid-afternoon on Sunday after France, Belgium and Luxembourg had agreed a rescue plan.

The extraordinary meetings at the end of the weekend had echoes of the dismantlement of financial group Fortis in October 2008 by the Netherlands, Belgium and BNP Paribas. Then, shareholders protested at the initial terms offered, and only agreed on improved terms six months later.

The governments rushed to support Dexia after it became the first bank to fall victim to the two-year-old euro zone debt crisis, as a credit crunch denied it access to wholesale funds and sent its shares down 42 percent last week.

"We found an agreement on the fair division of the costs related to the management of the 'rest bank'," Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme told a news conference in the early hours of Monday.