Barclays wil ABN-Amro overnemen.

Barclays in £80bn offer to ABN Amro

Grant Ringshaw
BARCLAYS has approached Dutch bank ABN Amro with an ambitious merger plan that would create a global banking powerhouse worth £80 billion.

The informal approach occurred after ABN Amro became embroiled in a bitter battle last month with activist hedge fund, The Children’s Investment Fund (TCI).

Contact between the two banks is at a preliminary stage and may not lead to a deal. However, Barclays has made it clear that it is keen to act as a white knight to save ABN from its current problems.

Barclays and ABN combined would create one of the world’s biggest banking groups.

Barclays is Britain’s third-largest bank — behind HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland. A takeover of ABN would push it into second place as a serious rival to the world’s two largest banks, HSBC and the American banking giant Citigroup.

A deal would also be the big-gest-ever cross-border banking transaction in Europe, creating a group with 47m customers and more than 220,000 staff. Barclays operates in 50 countries and ABN in 53.

TCI, which has a 1% stake in ABN Amro, is demanding the Dutch bank considers breaking itself up or an outright sale after years of underperformance.

Analysts believe that TCI’s attack could be the catalyst for a sale. Bankers say Barclays wants to position itself as ABN’s partner of choice.

The approach is not the first time that the two banks have had contact about a possible tie-up. Two years ago Barclays and ABN held serious talks about a merger.

Bankers say that ABN would make a good strategic fit for Barclays. John Varley, its chief executive, outlined plans last month to expand the bank’s overseas operations aggressively.

The two banks are of similar size, although Barclays has a higher market value at £45 billion, compared with ABN at £36 billion.

ABN Amro would give Barclays access to fast-growing markets such as Brazil, an American banking business based around Chicago, and Antonveneta, the Italian banking group that ABN bought for ¤8 billion after a controversial bidding war in 2005.

ABN also has substantial interests in Asia, a sizeable corporate and investment bank, and one of the world’s leading asset-management groups.

Varley’s ambition is to put Barclays into the top flight of world banking.

As part of that strategy, set out in 2004, the Barclays chief executive set a target of generating more than 50% of the bank’s profits from overseas operations by 2008.

Barclays beat the target last year when it made record profits of £7.1 billion.

So far, Varley has set his sights on markets to the east and is planning to become the first British high-street bank to set up a retail branch network in Russia.

The bank is also looking for growth in other areas, such as Africa, where it already has a presence through its 56% stake in South African bank Absa, southern Europe, where it owns banks in Spain and Portugal, and the Middle East.

Most of Barclays’ international expansion has been through Barclays Capital, its investment-banking arm, and Barclays Global Investors, its fund-management arm.

But Varley is aiming to rapidly expand the bank’s retail and commercial-banking operations internationally under Frits Seegers, the former Citigroup banker who was recruited last year. Varley has consistently played down the need for acquisitions, arguing that the bank’s preferred route is to grow organically.

However, analysts believe that the bank is increasingly likely to look at deals if it is to achieve its ambitious expansion plans.

TCI’s attack on ABN came after years of underperformance under Rijkman Groenink, chairman since May 2000.

TCI, run by hedge-fund manager Christopher Hohn, has presented a five-point plan that includes proposals for ABN to consider selling or demerging some of its assets and returning cash to shareholders as well as a ban on acquisitions.

TCI, which has gained the backing of a number of hedge funds and Dutch pension funds and shareholder groups, is demanding that the proposals are presented at ABN’s annual meeting on April 26.
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Bron: The Sunday Times.


Opzich is het natuurlijk leuk dat ze na een fusie tot de wereldwijde top drie zouden gaan horen. Ik vraag me echter toch af of ABN-Amro zich na een aanval van een hedgefund met een tamelijk klein belang in de bank werkelijk geen andere mogelijkheden heeft dan samen te gaan met Barclays.

Ok, voor de mensen die geen engels snappen

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Britse Barclays spreekt met ABN Amro over fusie

Uitgegeven: 18 maart 2007 11:08

AMSTERDAM - De Britse Barclays-bank heeft ABN-Amro benaderd voor een fusie. Dat schrijft de Britse krant The Sunday Times zondag. De gesprekken zouden zich in de beginfase bevinden.

Barclays zou als een 'reddende engel' willen zijn voor ABN Amro, schrijft de krant.

Barclays is de op twee na grootste bank in Groot-Brittannië. Bij een fusie zou een klantenkring van 47 miljoen mensen ontstaan met 220 duizend werknemers.

De twee samen zouden in de top drie van grootste banken ter wereld komen.

De Britse Bank zou de Nederlandse bank hebben benaderd op het moment dat investeringsfonds The Children's Investment Fund (TCI) op het toneel verscheen met het dringende verzoek aan ABN Amro zich te splitsen of over te gaan tot verkoop.

TCI heeft een aandeel van 1 procent in de Nederlandse bank.
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Bron: The Sunday Times

quote:

Op zondag 18 maart 2007 14:11 schreef HeyFreak het volgende:
Kan een club met een aandeel van 1% dan zoveel invloed hebben?

Nee, maar zodra ze meer aandeelhouders weten mee te krijgen in hu streven natuurlijk wel, de pesioenondsen willen kennelijk ook dat ABN0Amro zich opsplitst. Al je er op die manier naar kijkt kan een overname door een andere bank wel eens de beste oplossing zijn.