Sunday, May 13, 2007

UBS second white knight with 5% ABN AMRO shares

Paper De Pers outlined yesterday that UBS now holds shares of more than 5 % in ABN AMRO.

If I am not misstaken, this means that they can block a hostile takeover of ABN AMRO, as bidding rules specify that a remainder of less than 5 % of unwilling shareholders could be forced to submit their shares for conversion in cases of hostile take-overs/biddings. But if more than 5 % of the shareholders is unwilling, the situation would be different.

Which would make UBS the second white knight in the game and which would reduce the RBS consortiums chances for the ABN AMRO takeover considerably.