The takeover battle for ABN Amro heated up today with the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) consortium boosting the cash element of its €71.1 billion offer.
The offer is above a rival all-stock bid from Britain's Barclays that is worth about €64 billion, which has been recommended by ABN's board.
The revised bid pushed ABN shares higher, with the price up 3.5 per cent at €37.12 earlier.
The consortium, which also includes Spain's Santander and Belgian-Dutch group Fortis, kept its offer for ABN at €38.4 per share but raised the cash component of the offer to 93 per cent from 79 per cent before.
It said the remaining €5 billion of the offer will comprise new RBS shares. The increase in cash on offer follows a Dutch court ruling on Friday that allowed ABN to move ahead with the sale of its US bank LaSalle to Bank of America for $21 billion.
RBS had planned to buy LaSalle but will now receive the cash from the sale of the business. RBS shares were up 0.7 per cent at 644.50 pence, Fortis shares were down 1 per cent at €30.95 and Santander was up 0.07 per cent at €14.17.