Shareholders are quite within their rights to question the course a company is taking, Arthur Docters van Leeuwen, chairman of financial services watchdog AFM said on Wednesday.

Docters van Leeuwen was commenting on an attack on ABN Amro’s strategy made by hedge fund TCI last month. ‘We are looking for a clear and dynamic set-up,’ he said referring to the relationship between shareholders and management.
ABN Amro has since announced it is in exclusive talks on a merger with UK banking group Barclays. Docters van Leeuwen said he had talked to Barclays chairman John Varley but declined to give details. ABN Amro chairman Rijkman Groenink should also have been at the meeting but was delayed.
Earlier, Dutch central bank chairman Nout Wellink said TCI’s call for ABN Amro to be split up went too far.