Asked about the likelihood that ABN Amro would be taken over by another bank in the coming five years, one Dutch investment banker says the probability is 100%. But that will be hard while a large chunk of state ownership remains in place, with all the constraints that will mean for the buyer in terms of pay and manoeuvrability.
At the moment, the list of candidates is short. Nordea’s chairman, Björn Wahlroos, advocated a reverse merger with ABN Amro in 2016, but that may have just been to make a point about Swedish regulatory costs – it is now simply moving its headquarters to Finland.
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