Barclays: Bid for ABN may exceed RBS

Barclays Plc said its all-share offer to take over ABN Amro Holding NV won't necessarily be lower than a rival bid led by Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc.

``It is not a given that the value of our offer is going to be below the value of the consortium's,'' Naguib Kheraj, Barclays's former finance director, said in an interview on Wednesday. Kheraj is helping oversee the planned purchase of Amsterdam-based ABN Amro, the largest Dutch bank.

ABN Amro agreed to be bought by London-based Barclays, Britain's third-largest bank, on April 23 in a deal valued at about 65 billion euros ($86 billion). Royal Bank, Santander Central Hispano SA and Fortis trumped Barclays with a 71.2 billion-euro bid on May 29, contingent on the group buying ABN Amro's LaSalle unit.

``The value of our offer depends on the price of our shares at the time shareholders have to make a decision,'' Kheraj said. Barclays's bid would be higher than the Royal Bank-led bid in the event that Barclays shares return to their levels earlier this year, he said.

The shares, which reached a peak of 794 pence on Feb. 26, traded at 734.5 pence at 12:30 p.m. in London. That's down 7.5 percent from that high and values Barclays at 48.1 billion pounds.

The bank is considering ``all options'' on the ABN Amro takeover and has made no final decisions, Kheraj said.

Barclays is prepared to use a cash sweetener should it be forced into a takeover battle for the Dutch bank, the Financial Times reported earlier today, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.

``It is a long game, and we are not near the end of it,'' Kheraj said. ``Of course, we would consider all options, but we have not made any decisions.''