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So the deal between ABN AMRO and Barclay has finalized. €67 billion looks like a lot of money, and it is of course. But the price that is being paid for this ‘merger’ is way to high.
This is not a merger but a sell out. If you look at what ABN AMRO is getting out of this deal, that is nothing. The brand ABN AMRO will probably exists for a couple of years but the remainder of the company will be stripped. The new CEO is from Barclay but the headquarter will move to Amsterdam. That is most likely a move for one or two years because everybody knows that London is the financial place to be.
23.000 people are losing their job just to satisfy the short term needs of some ‘investors’. An economist in the Netherlands wrote; ‘hedge funds should be banned because their business has nothing do with running companies in a social and economical responsible manor’.
I agree.
I second you on this and repeat. It is a reflection of the current state of affairs, where The management of ABN secures both a record price for Lasalle in record time and structures a seemingly ideal sale to Barclays, keeping the soul of the bank intact, its people motivated and its future certain.
Yet, for TCI, this is not enough. They want absolute returns and no prisoners are taken; Kill, mame and yes bury if necessary; abusing the integrity of their shareholdership in the process, neglecting the sanctity of a corporate structure and revealing the true nature of the Hedgefund; defining the concept of the “activist shareholder” for lack of a better term (destructive shareholder perhaps). Or maybe even “fanatic shareholder” or even “extremist shareholder”.
Whatever it is, it smells of pure greed, uncontrolled and unhindered by morals and etiquette.
Yet, these same people donate to charity, not actively, but they…well, they make money for them. They are as such not “active
benefactors” and certainly not “fanatic” ones.
This is besides the point though, what is important is that all those usually “inactive shareholders” are suddenly jumping on the train to “fanaticity”. I was amazed at how popular it has become to become “active” in the times where the hedgefunds rules. The “fanatic shareholders” may not carry a gun, but he packs a mean blackberry, which can be a lethal weapon in the hand of the hedgefund manager.
Ofcourse my greatest worry is Fortis destructing ABN in the Netherlands, killing jobs, careers and the soul of the bank in the process. The jesuits in Belgium,
no doubt sipping their Martinis in Glamorous
Knokke?, are taking great pride in destructing the protestant foundations of ye olde holland. After their little machiavellian sneaky work in ’97 during the Generale bank “situation”, where sneaky was still popular (It still is in Belgium) they are now being aided by the not so sneaky and yes, the “fanatic” shareholders packing blackberrys.
Good on The management of ABN to care for the future, for their people and to their common legacy and screw the “activist shareholder”, They should all be banished to
New Yersey or Knokke