 The 7% of the offer not in cash will be paid in RBS shares |
A group led by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has sweetened its bid for Dutch lender ABN Amro by boosting the proportion of cash it has offered. The cash component of its bid, worth 71bn euros (�48bn), has increased to 93% from 79%, RBS said.
RBS is trying to win over ABN shareholders and trump an agreed offer for the bank by the UK's Barclays.
A number of shareholders have criticised the sale of ABN to Barclays because of plans to sell key assets.
Offloading
On Friday, ABN was given clearance by the Dutch Supreme Court to sell its US division LaSalle to Bank of America.
Some shareholders had challenged the $21bn (�11.5bn) sale on the grounds that ABN had not sought their approval.
The Commercial Court backed the shareholders but the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the sale could go ahead.
Whichever bank ends up taking over ABN, it will now own the proceeds from the LaSalle sale instead of the US bank itself.
The new RBS offer is for ABN without its US unit LaSalle.
The other members of the RBS consortium are Fortis of Belgium and Spain's Banco Santander.
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