By DPA
Amsterdam/London : A European consortium led by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Tuesday unveiled its proposed counter-bid for the takeover of Dutch group ABN Amro, worth 71.1 billion euros ($95.6 billion).
The RBS, Spain's Banco Santander and Belgium's Fortis have so far been rebuffed by ABN Amro's management, but hope to succeed by topping a rival offer by Britain's Barclay's Bank of 63 billion euros.
The RBS-led consortium said it was prepared to pay 79 percent of the proposed offer, which equals 38.40 euros per share, in cash.
However, the bid was still dependent on the shareholders of the Dutch bank blocking the sale of its US operation LaSalle to the Bank of America.
The US offshoot of ABN Amro was sold to Bank of America, but a court case about the sale requesting the consultation of shareholders is still pending.
LaSalle is coveted by RBS and the sale of the business has been seen as a "poison pill" to prevent a rival bid to the Barclays offer.
Under the terms of the deal, RBS pays 27.2 billion euros ($35.36 billion) of the total. Fortis pays 24 billion euros ($31.2 billion), while Santander is responsible for the remaining 19.9 billion euros ($24.83 billion).
The part of each share paid in cash amounts to 30.40 euros per share. Each ABN Amro share equals 0.844 of a share of RBS.
The statement from the consortium said that its offer would lead to fewer employees losing their jobs than under the Barclays proposals, which envisages a cut of about 11,000 jobs if a merger should go ahead.
The three banks said their proposal would bring savings of 4.23 billion euros by the end of 2010, and add around 1.22 billion euros to aggregate profits.
The proposed deal will also be subject to approval from banking authorities but the consortium said Tuesday it "firmly believed" that it could satisfy regulatory requirements.
The consortium added it had "extensive knowledge" of ABN's key markets and a strong track record in large-scale integration.
It said the offer would strengthen RBS's businesses outside Britain and take advantage of growth opportunities in Asia.
Fortis would take ABN's retail banking business in the Benelux countries, while Santander would gain ABN's ItalianAntonveneta operation, as well as the Dutch bank's activities in Brazil.