Ruling due in ABN Amro bid battle

The contest for ABN Amro will take a new twist on Friday when a vital court ruling is delivered on the sale of the Dutch bank’s US business LaSalle, it was announced today.

Barclays has agreed a recommended £45bn (€66.4bn) deal for ABN, although a Royal Bank of Scotland-led team is keen to muscle in with a higher proposed offer of £48.2bn (€71bn).

The Dutch bank agreed the sale of LaSalle to Bank of America in a move widely seen as an attempt to head off a RBS offer, but the £10.5bn (€15.5bn) deal was blocked by the country’s Enterprise Court in May after protests from ABN’s shareholders.

The Dutch Supreme Court has now said it will hand down its verdict on whether the sale should be allowed to go ahead in Amsterdam on Friday.

But Barclays will be confident after the Dutch advocate general, Vino Timmerman, said last month that the LaSalle sale did not have to be approved by ABN’s shareholders under Dutch company law.

Mr Timmerman’s view is the main and only advisory opinion that will be taken into account by the court, which can agree the sale, overturn it, or refer the decision back to the Enterprise Court.

If Barclays is successful in its takeover attempt, the British group will become the world’s fifth largest bank, although it has also faced opposition from some of its own shareholders over the deal.

It does not plan to break up the merged group and has said that, while the enlarged bank will be led from the UK, its headquarters would be moved to the Netherlands. The two companies have announced proposals to axe or relocate 23,600 of their staff if the deal goes ahead.

Meanwhile RBS, which has partnered with Spain’s Santander bank and Belgium-based Fortis for the bid, would break up ABN if it were to win the takeover tussle.

The RBS team has said that its current offer is dependent on the LaSalle sale being blocked but it reserves the right to make a new offer even if the deal went ahead.