BNP Paribas officials told the Dutch government that they are interested in buying state-owned lender ABN Amro. The first major cross-border deal with the combination of France’s biggest bank by market capitalisation and the third-largest bank of Netherland will be the long-anticipated consolidation drive across Europe’s banking sector.
People with the knowledge of the talk says, a meeting with them took place in recent months where French bank in beginning were pitching its service as a advisor on stakes of state assets, but during the meeting, the BNP officials suggested they would be interested in buying ABN themselves. Sigird Kaag, Dutch finance minster says “The government has said from the outset we are willing to consider a sale. But given the stock market-sensitive information and the privacy and confidentiality of the information that is associated with such a sale we will never comment.
BNP agreed last year to sell its San Francisco-based Bank of the West retail banking unit for $16.3bn, raising expectations that it would use the funds as a war chest and jump on opportunities for acquisitions in Europe.
The Paris-based lender has expanded through purchases in the past, including a €9bn swoop on Italy’s BNL in 2006, and a €14.5bn deal for Fortis’s businesses in Belgium and Luxembourg in 2009. It has sought to grow organically as a pan-European group too, beefing up in corporate and consumer lending and investment banking.
