ABN Amro chief Rijkman Groenink has written to staff pledging to judge both the Barclays and consortium bids for the bank in a fair, transparent manner.

‘Both offers have their strong sides and we are going to study them closely before we make any further announcements,’ Groenink said in the letter which was obtained by the Betten news agency and published by the Financieele Dagblad.
In addition, he said the bank was organising an EGM to outline the ‘various alternatives’ to shareholders.
On Monday Barclays upped its offer for ABN Amro to a share-cash deal worth €67.4bn. It wants to take over the group as a whole. The banking consortium, which wants to break up the ABN Amro empire, has offered €71bn, largely in cash.