A group of banks led by Royal Bank of Scotland has unveiled a €72-billion ($98 billion) bid proposal for ABN AMRO, seeking to trump an agreed takeover of the Dutch bank by Britain's Barclays.
The group, which includes Spain's Santander and Dutch-Belgian bank Fortis, said today they planned to offer €39 a share for ABN AMRO, made up of 70 per cent in cash and 30 per cent in RBS shares.
They said this was 13 per cent higher than the value of the Barclays all-share offer at Tuesday's close, and included ABN AMRO's final dividend for 2006 of €0.60 cents a share.
The RBS group said its proposal was contingent upon access to ABN AMRO's books and to Chicago-based LaSalle Bank remaining within the Dutch company.
ABN AMRO angered the RBS group and some of its own shareholders by announcing it would sell LaSalle to Bank of America for $21 billion, with a break-fee of $200 million.
They viewed this as an attempt to block a competing bid for ABN AMRO. Analysts expect the RBS group to break up ABN AMRO, with RBS taking LaSalle.
"The banks believe that the potential transaction will create stronger businesses with enhanced market positions and growth prospects in each of ABN AMRO's main markets," the RBS group said in a statement.
"The banks believe that execution risk would be lower than in a transaction with Barclays," they added.