$112 billion bank merger Monday

Thanks to the web, over $100 billion worth of bank mergers were announced last night, but we can trumpet them this morning as they land with a thump on driveways worldwide.

The combined value of the bank mergers is $112.2 billion. The bigger of the two announced mergers: Barclays PLC ADS (NYSE: BCS) will acquire ABN Amro Holding NV ADR (NYSE: ABN) for $91.16 billion in the world's largest bank takeover, following a month of negotiations. As part of the deal, ABN Amro will sell its U.S. unit, LaSalle Bank, to Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) for $21 billion in cash.

This triumphant announcement is premature because ABN Amro is going to continue meeting with other suitors like Royal Bank of Scotland PLC (London: RBS), Spain's Banco Santander Central Hispano SA ADR (NYSE: STD) and Belgian-Dutch bank Fortis NPV (London: FORA), which invited ABN Amro to enter talks earlier this month.

If the Barclays/ABN Amro deal goes through, thousands of employees will pay the price. The group expects to see $4.8 billion in annual cost savings by 2010. 12,800 jobs will be cut from the combined work force of 217,000, and 10,800 others will move to cheaper offshore locations.

The stock market's reaction is mixed. BAC is up18 cents in pre-market trading and ABN rose 38 cents, BCS is down 1.8% in London, RBS fell 0.99% and STD is down 0.9%. Whatever the outcome, one thing is for sure: More bank mergers are on the way and many of them will probably be in Europe.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has an account at Bank of America and no financial interest in the securities mentioned in this post.