|
ABN
Amro to merge with Barclays
Amsterdam: Barclays, Britain's third-largest bank,
will takeover ABN Amro Holding NV for €67 billion
($91 billion) in the world's biggest financial-services
acquisition so far.
Barclays
offered 3.225 new shares for each share of ABN Amro, amounting
to €36.25 a share when the Dutch bank's final dividend
is included. The bid is 33 per cent higher than ABN Amro's
share price on March 16, the last trading day before talks
were announced.
The
takeover will create a company with about 217,000 employees,
47 million customers and the second-highest market value
among European banks after HSBC Holdings.
Analysts
expect the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Santander Central
Hispano and Fortis now to make a rival offer for ABN Amro.
ABN
Amro shares fell 58 cents, or 1.6%, to €35.71 at
4:04 pm in Amsterdam, valuing the bank at €68.1 billion.
The Barclays stock fell 17 pence, or 2.3 per cent to 733
pence ($14.65) in London.
In a related deal, ABN Amro agreed to sell Chicago-based
LaSalle Bank to Bank of America.
Barclays
CEO John Varley will be CEO of the combined bank, and
55-year-old Robert Diamond, who runs Barclays's investment
bank, will be president. Arthur Martinez, 67, ABN Amro's
chairman, will remain at the helm in the merged company.
The
new bank's headquarters will be in Amsterdam.
Barclays
plans to cut about 12,800 jobs, or almost 6 per cent of
the combined workforce excluding LaSalle, to help reduce
costs by €2.8 billion. The bank would move an additional
10,800 positions to "low-cost locations."
ABN
Amro was the product of a 1991 merger of the two biggest
Dutch banks. The company made half its revenue last year
from interest income on loans, a quarter from commissions,
and most of the remainder from trading and investment
banking.
Barclays,
which traces its roots back 300 years to banker James
Barclay, is the UK's No 3 bank after HSBC and Royal Bank.
Back
to News Review index page
Google
is now world's top ranking brand
New York: Google Inc. has replaced Microsoft Corp.
as the world's top-ranked brand, according to findings
released on Monday.
The
rankings, compiled by market research firm Millward Brown,
also put Google ahead of well-established brands like
General Electric Co., No. 2; Coca-Cola Co., No. 4; Wal-Mart
Stores, No. 7; and IBM, No. 9.
The
top-ranked brand from a non-U.S.-based company was China
Mobile, which dropped a spot but still came in at No.
5.
The
rankings were based on publicly available financial data
along with primary research, including interviews with
a million consumers worldwide, Millward Brown said.
Google
ranked No. 7 a year ago and has very quickly jumped to
the top to become an everyday name. The company uses relatively
little advertising, instead relying on word-of-mouth promotion.
Microsoft's
slide down to third place from first comes even as the
software company has been rolling out its new Windows
Vista operating system with a massive global marketing
blitz.
Back
to News Review index page
Texas
Instruments profit falls less than expected
New York: Chipmaker Texas Instruments Inc. has shown
a lesser-than-expected fall in quarterly profit. The company,
which makes chips for calculators, televisions and mobile
phones, said it saw increased demand from third-generation
advanced phones by the end of the first quarter and that
demand for high-performance analog chips was at the high
end of its expectations.
The
company said it expected second-quarter earnings and revenue
to rise as orders improve, because it has largely worked
through an inventory correction that began last year.
The
company's first-quarter profit fell to $516 million, or
35 cents per diluted share, from $585 million, or 36 cents,
in the year-ago quarter.
Back
to News Review index page
|
