The Dutch shareholders' association VEB on August 02 asked an Amsterdam court to order a probe into possible mismanagement at ABN Amro in the bank's handling of a take-over battle raging over it.
Lawyers for VEB said ABN Amro had been negligent in supporting a take-over offer from British bank Barclays without properly investigating the possibilities of a rival bid from three European banks.
Barclays has issued a revised informal bid worth about 67.5 billion euros (93.3 billion dollars) while the consortium of Royal Bank of Scotland, Dutch-Belgian group Fortis and Banco Santander of Spain has formally offered 71.1 billion euros. ABN Amro management boards earlier this week withdraw their earlier recommendation of the Barclays bid.
But the VEB nonetheless argued in court that the bank continued give indirect support to Barclays by insisting it could not back the RBS proposal on grounds that a successful consortium bid could trigger a break-up of the bank.
"The negative attitude of ABN Amro towards the consortium bid can be construed as actual support for Barclays' bid," VEB lawyer Petra van Rijn argued. "The VEB believes there is enough evidence to doubt the correctness of ABN Amro's conduct and demands an inquiry," she said.
Observers say that even if the Amsterdam court ordered a probe it would not have any effect on the take-over battle. They said it would take up to two years for such an inquiry to be completed and for a judge to rule on the allegations of mismanagement.
Many shareholders prefer the consortium bid to the offer from Barclays because the trio of banks offers more money per share and because its offer is mainly in cash while Barclays proposal is mainly a share swap. Either take-over would represent the world's largest acquisition in the global banking sector.
Comments
Comments are closed.