ABN Amro asks that its shareholders opt not to follow The Children’s Institute’s (TCI) proposals to break up the bank when they are asked to vote on the company’s future direction.
Shareholders will be given the option to decide ABN Amro’s strategy on April 26th at a meeting when they will be asked to choose between an $80 billion merger offer from Barclays Bank and TCI’s proposals that the bank sells off some of its interests and a possible rival merger bid from Citigroup.
“We do not believe the interests of our shareholders would be best served by the mere short-term cash generation actions embodied in the proposals that TCI has put forward for consideration,” ABN says in a statement.
“The managing board and the supervisory board believe that a merger with Barclays may provide the opportunity to create additional value, and we are excited about the potential opportunities that a merger with Barclays could offer.”
Should the Barclays offer be accepted it would represent the largest-ever cross-border transaction and would create a company with 220,000 staff and 47 million customers worldwide.