Page 419 - The Case Lab Book

Corporate markets have been an increasingly important part of RBS. For the past two
years, it has outstripped the profits contribution of RBS's retail bank, and in 2006 the
division boosted earnings by 20 per cent to £5.5bn. Some analysts believe that RBS,
without the deal, could take three to five years to get to where ABN is in terms of its
banking licences in India and China.

Brands
“We have a very simple philosophy at RBS about
brands - they are meant to help you sell things. If
they don't help you sell things then it's not a brand.
I don't mind whether people sell things as NatWest
or RBS or Tesco Personal Finance or Coutts, let's
just get the brand to work for us. Many of the
businesses we are acquiring overseas are corporate
and wholesale businesses where we think the RBS
brand will play at least as well as the ABN AMRO
brand. There may be countries where ABN AMRO
will be a better brand and that will be a
conversation I know we can have with Jean-Paul
Votron about doing what's in the best business
interest.”

Sir Fred Goodwin, 10 Aug 2007; De Telegraaf and Betten Financial
News

As always, and as Northern Rock and the sub-prime crisis has shown so dramatically,
banking is a confidence business. The consortium will have to move fast to reassure
both ABN's long-standing customers and their own that it is business as usual.

Sir Fred was already under pressure before the ABN bid for being a "serial acquirer" of
rival banks. His time, it was thought, should be spent concentrating on driving through
cost efficiencies in his own bank than scouring the world looking for smaller rivals to
buy. A year earlier he was forced to back off and hand cash back to shareholders and
give assurances that acquisitions would be curbed. However, Sir Fred had made it clear