 ABN shareholders will see RBS's cards on the table in July |
The battle to buy Dutch bank ABN is to ignite in earnest in July, after the consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland set out a timetable for a bid. The consortium said ABN shareholders would receive the formal offer papers by mid-July.
Their 71.1bn-euro (�48bn; $95bn) proposal outstrips the 64bn euros offered in April by UK bank Barclays.
The consortium says its plans will preserve jobs, but they depend on ABN cancelling a deal to sell its US unit.
The subsidiary, LaSalle, is at the heart of RBS's plans to split up ABN between itself and its two partners, Belgium's Fortis and Spain's Santander.
The sale is on hold following a Dutch court decision that shareholders need to be given a vote before it can go through.
All three banks in the consortium plan to hold extraordinary general meetings in early August, so their own shareholders can be updated on the offer's progress.
Meanwhile, worries about the job implications of Barclays' bid have led to meetings between union leaders and the bank's chief executive, John Varley.
Barclays' offer envisages 12,800 job losses with another 10,800 jobs moved to lower-cost locations, as the new, merged group seeks to cut costs.
Its move, if successful, would create one of the world's biggest banks, valued at �94bn, with its headquarters in the Netherlands.
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