RBS allies insist ABN bid carries no finance strings

Published on Monday 14 May 2007 12:05

RBS and its consortium allies trying to take over Dutch bank ABN Amro said today their proposals for any acquisition were "still under consideration" and insisted the offer was not conditional upon financing or disposals.

They insisted that their proposal - worth around 49 billion - remained "pre-conditional", on the US-based LaSalle unit remaining within the wider group.

Speculation had been touted over the weekend that RBS and its bid partners, Fortis and Banco Santander, were considering making their bid unconditional.

ABN has already agreed to be bought by Barclays for 43bn and has struck a side deal to sell LaSalle - which is RBS chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin's prized goal in any takeover - to Bank of America for 10.5bn.

The consortium confirmed today they had offered just under 12.4bn for LaSalle last week, an offer that, despite the higher value, was rejected by ABN as "inferior" to the BoA bid after a Dutch court upheld shareholder objections to the side sale and froze the deal.

The trio also said that following talks with Dutch regulators, they were publishing a number of private documents relating to the proposal on their websites.

Among the issues the documents deal with are execution, financing, regulatory approvals and the division of assets.

"Any offer would not be conditional on financing or disposals," a May 3 letter to ABN stated.

They added: "The banks will make a further statement regarding their position on or before May 27."