BNR Nieuwsradio reports that today the Fortis shareholders agreed to a share emission and to the ABN AMRO take-over. So ABN AMRO then published a statement that as of tomorrow there will be two competing bids on the table. One from Barclays and the other from the consortium with Banco Santander, Royal Bank of Scotland and Fortis.
And ABN AMRO also announced that it intends to hold an informative Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders on 20 September 2007 at 10:30 in 'de Doelen' in Rotterdam to discuss the offer by Barclays and by the Consortium of RBS, Santander and Fortis. The agenda items for that meeting will include a background to the public offers on all outstanding shares of ABN AMRO by Barclays and the Consortium, and the reasoned opinions of the Managing Board and Supervisory Board on those offers and the alternatives considered.
Quite an interesting meeting that will be.....
PS. Meanwhile today, the European Commission also cleared the merger between Barclays and ABN AMRO. So would the consortium get them to clear their initiative as well?