Barclays rivals increase their offer for ABN Amro

The consortium of banks fighting to buy ABN Amro was last night due to hold talks with the Dutch bank after signalling it would pay €39 a share, or €72.2 billion ($98.5 billion) for the lender, trumping an agreed deal with Barclays of the UK.

However, the group, which is led by the Royal Bank of Scotland, said its higher offer was conditional on ABN abandoning its $21 billion sale of LaSalle, its US business, to Bank of America (BoA).

Rijkman Groenink, ABN's chief executive, said the bank was open to seeking further clarification of the proposals. However, he warned bidders seeking to trump Barclays that they would have to mount two bids - one for LaSalle, and one for the rest of the group. Were ABN to scrap its agreement to sell LaSalle, it would be obliged to pay BofA a break fee of $200 million.

The move is the latest twist in a battle for control of ABN, which had appeared to have been won by Barclays when its offer, then worth €66 billion, was accepted on Monday, ahead of a meeting with the banking consortium which also includes Santander of Spain and Fortis, the Belgian-Dutch bank, in Amsterdam planned for that afternoon.

The new offer also sets up a stormy ABN Amro annual meeting today where the management is expected to come under fire from TCI, the activist investment fund with more than a 3 per cent stake in the Dutch bank, over its attempts to seal a deal with Barclays.

The consortium said its indicative offer would be more straightforward for investors and regulators, reducing the execution risk in a deal. It proposed to denominate 70 per cent of the offer in cash and the remainder in RBS shares. In London, RBS closed down 15p at £19.98. Barclays rose 11½p to 724p on hopes its bid may not succeed. ABN Amro shares closed up 3.5 per cent at €36.21.

TCI, which has been one of the shareholders pressing the Dutch bank to institute changes, yesterday threw its weight behind the RBS-led deal.

It called on ABN to allow the consortium "full access to conduct due diligence immediately", adding that "the board of ABN Amro must recommend the RBS consortium offer, subject to the diligence condition being met, and terminate the LaSalle bank sale." - ( Financial Times service)