Will giant UK private bank Barclays swallow-merge giant Dutch private bank ABN Amro?

A report by Peter Thal Larsen and Ian Bickerton appears today in MSNBC online: "ABN close to €70bn bid from Barclays" (Apr22,2k7). ABN Amro NV is a huge Dutch company, a holding company, a private bank and source of private equity. Barclays PLC is a similar British corporation. They are keys to market capitalization thru-out the world.

ABN Amro was on Sunday night close to agreeing a takeover bid from Barclays, the British bank, which values the Dutch lender at almost €70bn (£48bn). ...

A deal would mark the culmination of more than a month of talks between Barclays and ABN Amro. Their merger would create one of the world's largest banks by market capitalisation. ...

[ABN's CEO has been] the main target of a campaign by activist investors impatient with the bank's performance....

Meanwhile, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander (Spain) and Fortis (Belgo-Dutch) are also eyeing ABN.

ABN Amro's supervisory board, which has been threatened with legal action by Children's Investment Fund, the activist hedge fund, has taken extra care in recent days to make sure it is following the correct procedures.
Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved.

The story relates a huge corporate tale of merger and acquistion. It also has an important sidebar about shareholder activism, which pertains to the normative concept of corporate governance (I don't think Prof Bainbridge would be very happy about developments in this respect). Coupled with that is the important notion of a hedge fund.

More info:

Barclays could make formal bid for ABN tomorrow or Tuesday - sources (Forbes)