ABN Amro Rejects $24.5 billion LaSalle Bid

The largest bank takeover in history remains dicey, as one would expect with a deal involving banks from five countries, two separate bids, and more than $90 billion.

ABN Amro said Monday it was rejecting a $24.5 billion offer for its Chicago-based bank LaSalle, saying it wasn’t superior to an offer from Bank of America.  Bank of America has already agreed to buy the bank for $21 billion as a part of another takeover bid for ABN.  Another rival consortium led by the Royal Bank of Scotland bid the $24.5 billion for LaSalle in the hopes that they would be the winners of the entire package.  ABN rejected the offer because it carried a condition that the sale be part of a $99 billion bid for ABN.

This all started when ABN announced it would be sold to UK bank Barclays for $90 billion.  As a requirement of that deal, Bank of America was to take LaSalle.  The Bank of America deal was halted Friday by a Dutch court who said that ABN would need to consult shareholders on the deal.  ABN said they believed otherwise since LaSalle made up less than a third of the total value of the Dutch bank.  The Dutch court’s interference puts Barclay’s bid in jeopardy.

The second bid from the RBS group, which also involves Spain’s Banco Santander Central Hispano and Belgium-based Fortis, would have involved breaking up all of ABN’s business units along country lines, with each partner taking native banking interests.

As it stands right now, the Barclays bid is the one moving forward with ABN complying with the Dutch court and seeking legal advice before sending the deal to shareholders.