A consortium led by the Royal Bank of Scotland PLC (RBS) reportedly offered at least US$22 billion on Saturday to buy LaSalle Bank Corp, the US subsidiary of Dutch giant ABN Amro NV.
It would be the latest move in a transatlantic battle for control of the Netherlands' largest bank -- and would amount to the biggest bank takeover in history.
The US' second-largest bank, Bank of America Corp, also wants LaSalle. British heavyweight Barclays Bank PLC wants to buy ABN Amro's European operations only.
Negotiators from the RBS-led group and ABN Amro have spent the weekend discussing terms for LaSalle, including at a dinner of both sides' executives on Friday in Amsterdam. Bank of America has already offered US$21 billion for LaSalle, the No. 2 bank in Chicago.
Britain's Sunday Telegraph, cited the US$22 billion figure in its report on the RBS bid. A report posted late Saturday on the Wall Street Journal's Web site calculated the value of the takeover offer at US$24.5 billion.
Currently, ABN Amro is weighing competing takeover bids by Barclays, which is offering approximately 67 billion euros (US$91.2 billion) in cash, and the RBS-led consortium's less clearly defined offer of 72.2 billion euros.
Analysts say the winner in the battle for LaSalle should determine which side prevails in acquiring ABN Amro's European empire.
On Friday, seeking to deter an RBS-led bid for LaSalle, Bank of America filed a lawsuit in the New York federal court against ABN Amro demanding that its purchase offer be accepted.
ABN Amro's initial acceptance of the Bank of America bid for LaSalle stipulated yesterday as the deadline for rival bids. Bank of America has argued that, to qualify for consideration, any RBS-led bid must be all cash in nature and without conditions.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, the offer made on Saturday by RBS chief executive Fred Goodwin in a letter to ABN Amro directors "has not been formally tabled and is only an indicative offer." The report said Goodwin made any offer for LaSalle conditional on the ABN Amro board accepting RBS' overall takeover bid.
RBS' partners in the takeover battle are Spain's Banco Santander SA and Dutch-Belgian company Fortis NV.
On Thursday, a court ruled that ABN Amro chiefs had acted unlawfully by seeking to sell LaSalle without shareholder approval.
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