RBS consortium to go forward with bid for ABN Amro

Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE:RBS; NYSE: RBS PRM) and its consortium partners announced Tuesday that they will go ahead and make a bid for ABN Amro (Euronext: AAB; NYSE: ABN) despite the fact that ABN has already agreed to an offer from Barclays Bank (LSE: BARC; NYSE: BCS; TYO: 8642) and even though ABN has already rejected overtures from the consortium, which includes Spanish bank Santander (IBEX-35: SAN) and Fortis (Euronext AMS: FORA; Euronext BRU: FORB) of Belgium. The group said that while it would rather deal with ABN’s management, it will make its offer to the shareholders if that should be necessary.

The offer is worth €71.1 billion (£48.2 billion; $95.6 billion), but it is contingent on ABN shareholders not agreeing to the sale of ABN’s LaSalle unit in the United States. ABN had agreed to sell the US unit to Bank of America (NYSE: BAC; TYO: 8648), but a Dutch court said that the sale required shareholder agreement.

The Barclays bid that has already been accepted by ABN €63 billion is an all-share bid, while the RBS-led offer is around 80 percent cash, which the consortium says gives “greater certainty of value” to ABN’s shareholders. The consortium also claims that its plan for the bank will result in fewer job cuts than the Barclays plan, which will drop 12,800 positions and outsource 10,800 more.

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