LaSalle of the century

27 April 2007

The Dutch bank has done its damnedest to lock the UK bank and their allies out. But a side door may be ajar. The key is for RBS to bid for LaSalle, and to make its bid conditional on a wider offer for the ABN group.

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Royal Bank of Scotland, Banco Santander and Fortis have notified ABN Amro that they may make an unsolicited bid for the Dutch bank. The banks have asked to meet ABN's board as soon as possible.

The RBSled consortium indicated earlier this week that it might be willing to pay E39 per share for ABN or E72bn. This would trump an earlier proposal from Barclays.

However the proposal was conditional on ABN dropping its planned sale of its LaSalle banking subsidiary in the US to Bank of America for a headline price of $21bn. This sale is not subject to shareholders' approval.

The consortium said it had notified ABN of its intention to make an offer to comply with conditions in the LaSalle contract, including a go shop clause which gives ABN until midnight on May 6 to seek higher bids for the bank.

Under Dutch law, a bank can either agree an offer or give seven days' notice of its intentions. A bidder cannot name a price without giving the target a chance to discuss the bid over that seven day period.

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