The faith of the Dutch ABN Amro will be decided by its shareholders. They will decide between the offers of Barclays Bank of the UK and a consortium of Royal Bank of Scotland, Fortis, and Banco Santander Central Hispano.
Thing got more interested with a Dutch court decision of the $21 billion sale of LaSalle, ABN's U.S. business, to Bank of America as part of the merger ABN-Barclays agreement. The consortium of Royal Bank of Scotland, Fortis, and Banco Santander Central Hispano insists that
LaSalle remains as a part of ABN.
The shareholders vote will also determine the future of ABN Amro's management. Under the Barclays deal, current ABN executives will retain their jobs. It isn't clear though that such provisions are in place with the offer from the consortium.
The consortium's offer includes more cash and a higher price, but more uncertainty. The shareholders will eventually decide what is going to happen. It would be definitely interesting to see the result of the world's biggest merger (acquisition). Meanwhile, The Dutch Authority of
Financial Markets (AFM) ordered today that all information concerning the ABN Amro takeover has to be made public.
