14 May 2007
The embattled chief executive of ABN Amro, Rijkman Groenink, has bowed to shareholder pressure and scrapped plans to join the board of Royal Dutch Shell as a non-executive director.
In a terse statement today the oil giant said Groenink had ‘requested the withdrawal of his nomination at this time’ because he wants to ‘fully dedicate his attention to ABN Amro’.
The Dutch state pension fund ABP had threatened to vote against Groenink’s Shell appointment because of the way he has handled the rival takeover bids for ABN.
Groenink has agreed that the Dutch bank will be taken over by Barclays for €64bn (£45bn) while at the same rebuffing a higher bid from a consortium of banks led by Royal Bank of Scotland. He had also agreed the $21bn sale of US offshoot LaSalle to Bank of America without asking for shareholders’ approval – a move rejected by the Dutch courts.
The ABN chief today suffered further embarrassment when it was claimed banks advising him over the bids have at the same time offered financing to back the unwanted RBS bid. The revelation came as the Dutch regulator AFM ordered both the consortium and ABN to reveal details of their takeover talks two weeks ago.
A letter sent to Groenink at the start of this month, but previously kept secret, states: ‘Merrill Lynch and the banks have received numerous approaches from other major financial institutions, including some institutions currently advising you, wishing to participate in any fundraising we may do.’
ABN’s main advisers on the bid are Morgan Stanley and UBS, both of whom today denied approaching the consortium or Merrill Lynch with the offer of financing.
The Dutch bank said today that it is trying to shrink the timeframe for its appeal against the LaSalle ruling. It said once it has achieved this it will hold a shareholders’ meeting to allow full consideration of ‘all available alternatives at that time’.
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