Belgian-Dutch financial group Fortis won overwhelming shareholder approval on Monday to raise 13 billion euros ($18 billion) to finance its part of a three-bank bid for ABN Amro. Fortis, Royal Bank of Scotland and Spain's Santander have offered 71 billion euros, mostly in cash, for the Netherlands' largest bank in a bidding war for what will be the biggest ever bank take-over.
Approval by Fortis shareholders of its proposed purchase of ABN Amro's Dutch operations and the rights issue gives the RBS-led consortium a boost at a time when the rival Barclays bid is suffering from the decline of its share price.
Barclays formally launched its mostly share bid of 65 billion euros on Monday. Over 90 percent of votes at Fortis shareholder meetings in Brussels and the Dutch city of Utrecht backed both Fortis's proposed bid and the rights issue, one of Europe's largest ever.
ABN's management said it would hold a shareholder meeting on September 20 to discuss the competing offers. Its fate, however, will be determined by which bidder its shareholders choose before the offers expire in early October. Fortis needed 50 percent for the deal and 75 percent for its planned rights issue of the shares represented at both the Brussels and Utrecht meetings. It easily cleared these marks.
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