ABN AMRO has reportedly made an offer to buy the entire U.S. banking operations of ING Barings. The ING board met last week to weigh the ABN offer as well as another offer by Bank of Montreal for parts of the firm, a source familiar with the matter told Corporate Financing Week, an LMW sister publication. In addition, the source added that Warburg Pincus has expressed interest in parts of the bank as well but he did not know if it has made a formal offer. Rumors have swirled that ABN AMRO was interested in purchasing portions of ING but until now no formal offer had been made.
Calls to Ewald Kist, chairman of board at ING; Jan Kalff, chairman of the managing board at ABN AMRO; Lionel Pincus, ceo of Warburg Pincus; Anthony Comper, ceo of Bank of Montreal; David Baum, head of M&A for the Americas and Jack Levy, co-chair of global M&A at Goldman Sachs, were all referred to spokespeople, who either declined comment, didn't know anything or couldn't find anyone who did to comment by press time. Goldman is advising ING.
The ABN AMRO deal appears to be the better of the two offers, the source said, because ABN AMRO is interested in purchasing all of the units and that would garner a larger price tag. He added that the bankers at ING are already familiar with Dutch ownership and that the firm has a worldwide platform that offers better synergies than what Bank of Montreal could offer.
Another banker familiar with matter said a deal could be announced as early as a week or two and that the parties may be trying to hammer out a valuation on ING's loan portfolio, which will be transferred to any new owner.