Page 24 - Articulate Files

Sir Fred put together a consortium, meeting clandestinely,

Jean-Paul Votron, of Belgian/Dutch bank Fortis and Emilio
Botin, of Spain’s Banco Santander, plus one of their main

investment banking advisers, Andrew Orcel, the head of

global originations at Merrill Lynch, at the Four Seasons

hotel in Geneva. Under the terms of its deal, RBS would get
LaSalle and ABN's wholesale banking and corporate finance

business, as well as Asian banking and any European

banking outside Italy and Holland. The acquisition would

consequently, reduce RBS’s dependency on the UK and
would strengthen its platform for growth outside the UK. On

the basis of 2006 results, and full transaction benefits, the

proportion of RBS’s operating profit coming from outside
the UK would increase from 42% to approximately 54%.

The consortiumm flew into Amsterdam for an arranged
meeting to discuss their intentions with Rijkman Groenink,

ABN's chief executive. However, unbeknown to them,

Groenink had flown to London for a joint press conference

with Barclays to announce a management –backed
agreement to be acquired by Barclays without cancelling the

meeting with the RBS consortium. The Barclays-ABN deal

looked unbreakable. Not only had Barclays unveiled a
recommended all-share merger with ABN, but after the RBS

Consortium announced its intention to bid for ABN it wrong-

footed everybody by announcing in April a side-deal to sell

ABN's Chicago-based US retail banking subsidiary, LaSalle
Bank Corp., to Bank of America for $21bn (£10.5). ABN's

decision to sell LaSalle was widely seen as a poison pill

measure to frustrate the RBS led consortium. What followed

was a corporate battle that woud see the consortiumm win.