Bladewatch.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119028580226133730.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands — Dutch bank ABN Amro Holding NV Thursday maintained its preference for a tie-up with U.K. peer Barclays PLC, despite the presence of what it described as a “financially superior” competing offer from a consortium of banks led by the Royal Bank of Scotland PLC.

“The Barclays offer is too low. The gap is too large; we cannot ask of you, our shareholders, to pay (the difference) out of your own wallet,” ABN Amro Chief Executive Rijkman Groenink said at a shareholder meeting in Rotterdam.

However, Mr. Groenink added that the consortium’s bid would result in “a complete sellout of the bank, whereby nothing of ABN Amro remains intact,” making it impossible to recommend it to shareholders. Mr. Groenink also cited significant execution risks attached to a split-up of the Dutch bank by the consortium, which also includes Dutch-Belgian Fortis NV and Spanish Banco Santander SA.

The ABN Amro deal is set to continue, in the meantime I know it remains an area of interest, particularly in the UK where we’ve had some excitement with liquidity in the banking sector, whoever wins the transaction, it will be interesting to see how they approach the merger of the businesses and the IT infrastructure, not to mention how the market reacts, but then that’s possibly the economist part of me talking.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.