The gap between the two rival bids for the takeover of ABN Amro bank is widening, reports the Financieele Dagblad on Wednesday.

The Barclays bid, which is largely in shares, fell to around €59bn in value yesterday following speculation about the British bank’s involvement in a credit crisis at the Sachsen Landesbank.
Barclays’ share price dropped 3% in response to a report in the Financial Times that the bank has several hundreds of millions of dollars outstanding in guarantees with a credit fund of the troubled Sachsen Landesbank.
The rival offer by the consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland remains more or less stable at €70.5bn as it is mainly based on cash.
The ABN Amro board is to present arguments for its position on both bids during the extraordinary shareholders meeting on September 20. This emerged on Wednesday morning with the publication of the meeting’s agenda.
The battle to takeover ABN Amro has been going on for months. Initially the Dutch bank had a preference for Barclays’offer as the rival bid would split up ABN Amro, but withdrew this official standpoint a few weeks ago.
The board is now officially neutral on both bids. A recent poll of employees indicated that a majority still prefers Barclays’ bid, as does ABN Amro chairman Rijkman Groenink.