The banking consortium hoping to take over ABN Amro followed the advice of the Dutch central bank DNB when mounting its bid, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Wednesday. The paper says Royal Bank of Scotland CEO Fred Goodwin told reporters at the presentation of the group’s plans in London that the chosen structure, with RBS in the leading role, was the DNB’s idea.

RBS, Fortis and Santander want to take over ABN Amro via a holding company RFS Holdings, in which RBS would have a 38.3% stake, Fortis 33.8% and Santander 27.9%.
Fortis CEO Jean-Paul Votron had a number of meetings with DNB president Nout Wellink and its supervisory head Arnold Schilder, the paper says. Goodwin was also at several of the meetings. Last month, the central bank warned of the dangers of a bid brought by a number of parties, but these fears now appear to have been soothed, the FD said.
The DNB ‘could not confirm’ Votron and Goodwin’s intepretation of events, the paper said, but added that it would follow developments ‘extremely carefully’.