http://www.theherald.co.uk/business/news/display.var.1436706.0.0.php

ABN Amro chief executive Rijkman Groenink, who has criticised Royal Bank of Scotland’s break-up bid for the Dutch bank while calling a friendly deal with Barclays “fantastic”, does not figure in the committee formed to weigh the competing offers.

In line with the wishes of ABN shareholders sympathetic to the higher 71bn (£48bn) bid from Royal and its partners Santander and Fortis, ABN revealed yesterday that its chairman, Arthur Martinez, would chair a “transaction committee” created to consider the competing bids from this consortium and Barclays.

Groenink’s failure to figure on this committee is likely to have been the key feature noted by Royal in ABN’s response yesterday to the consortium bid tabled on Tuesday.

Check out this article from the Herald newspaper, its got some more information about the ABN deal, interestingly it mentions that the unions might favour the RBS Consortium, we’ll see the barrier to completion is the status regarding the LaSalle transaction, once that’s out the way we can be more binary in the decision/merge process hopefully.

I’m all for corporate social responsibility, the chairman should carry out a merger which works for the shareholders and the employees (ideally), but I can hear the harsh part of my brain saying it’s a business decision which should be made by the shareholders, a binary process, ‘we recommend the Barclays deal….’ or ‘we recommend the RBS deal..’ and hand it over, remove the emotional aspect, its a business transaction, move on.

Christopher Hohn, chief investment officer of UK hedge fund TCI, said in a letter to Martinez about a month ago that he should “immediately terminate” Groenink’s appointment as chairman of the Dutch bank’s managing board and take control of the sale process himself.

Hohn added: “We fear that Mr Groenink has no intention to negotiate in good faith with the RBS consortium. We believe that Mr Groenink no longer has any credibility as the chairman of the managing board, and has failed to act in the best interests of shareholders.” 

Netherlands shareholder group VEB said on May 3, after having the LaSalle sale frozen by the Dutch Commercial Court pending a vote on the deal by shareholders which ABN still hopes to avoid, that Groenink should go within 24 hours.

A great read, very interesting, check it out.