Barclays on Monday shrugged off what had appeared to be a fresh incidence of ‘foot in mouth‘ over the weekend to launch formally its bid for Dutch bank ABN Amro.
The offer, at the revised terms laid out in July when Barclays raised the cash portion of its offer on the back of investment from China Development Bank and Temasek, is pitched at 2.13 Barclays shares and €13.15 in cash for each ABN Amro share, worth around €34.50 as trading got underway on Monday.
The timetable, which starts today, gives Barclays until October 4 to win over shareholders to its offer. Crucial will be the performance of its own shares in boosting the value of its bid to match that of the RBS-led consortium, worth around €38.10 a share.
No help there on Monday, with Barclays shares opening almost 1.5 per cent down at 669p ahead of a vital shareholder vote at Fortis on a €13bn rights issue – approval for which is seen as central to the consortium’s chances of success in its offer. In a falling market, RBS also lost about 1.5 per cent.
Relations between the various parties in the ABN soap opera were strained over the weekend when Rijkman Groenink, ABN’s chief executive, was reported to have recommended Fortis shareholders vote against the rights issue.
“Shareholders would do well to vote against the takeover. If it goes ahead the Fortis share price will fall further,” he was quoted as saying in Het Financieele Dagblad.
Fortis called the remarks “totally inappropriate,” while Sir Fred Goodwin, chief exec of RBS, said he was “bemused.” Calm was restored on Sunday with a statement from the group saying that they had accepted the assurances of ABN that Mr Groenink had been misquoted and had not been offering advice to Fortis shareholders on their voting.
The Dutch paper at the centre of the suspected ‘foot in mouth’ outbreak on Monday was peddling a different line. Fortis, Het Financieele Dagblad reported (via Reuters), has other options for financing its part of the ABN takeover if its shareholders don’t back the planned share issue.