Royal Bank still in bidding for ABN Amro

A group led by Citizens Bank parent Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. has offered 71.1 billion euros (about $95.6 billion) for Dutch lender ABN Amro Holding NV, according toBloomberg News. RBS, Santander Central Hispano SA and Fortis today raised the cash portion of their bid to 79 percent from the previous 70 percent.
The RBS-led group also pledged to cut costs by 4.23 billion euros by the end of 2010, half again the savings Barclays has said it would achieve. To do so, it plans to carve up the 183-year-old lender, which has operations in 53 countries from Brazil to Italy to the United States.
“It’s going to be tough for Barclays to top this,” Dave Bradbury, who manages $13 billion in assets including RBS and Barclays shares, told Bloomberg today. The London-based bank’s all-stock offer is for 34.87 euros per share, 10 percent less than the RBS-led bid’s 38.40 euros per share.
But the RBS-led group today said at least 1.85 billion euros of its offer will hinge on the “resolution of the LaSalle situation,” according to Bloomberg News. ABN Amro had agreed to sell the Chicago-based bank to Bank of America Corp. for $21 billion on April 23 – the same day the parent company agreed to be acquired by Barclays – though an Amsterdam court later ruled that shareholders must approve the LaSalle Bank sale. “There is clearly a large dosage of conditionality” in the RBS-led offer, Amsterdam-based analyst Ryan Palecek of Kempen & Co. wrote in an investor note today.