ABN Amro (NYSE: ABN) received a bid from a group lead by the Royal Bank of Scotland. The offer of $95.6 billion tops that of Barclays (NYSE: BCS).

The offer contemplates breaking the big bank into pieces. Banking companies Fortis and Santander are part of the purchase group and will sell shares to finance the deal.

The three banks would split ABN into several pieces with each of the purchasers taking the operations that best dovetail with their current businesses.

The dismembering of the Dutch bank may be the key to the higher bid. While Barclays would have kept most of ABN intact and perhaps sold off the US La Salle portion of the company, the three banks offering to buy ABN now believe that they can get economies of scale by matching pieces to their own operations. Their thinking is that this will allow them to take out more costs than if the bank was sold intact.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

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Now that ABN AMRO is "in a buyout limbo" between Barclays Plc. (NYSE:BCS) and a Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. (LON: RBS) bid consortium, this brings up a situation: What will become of LaSalle Bank?

As part of the Barclays offer for ABN AMRO Holdings NV (NYSE:ABN), Barclays was going to sell LaSalle Bank to Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC). That was going to finance $21 billion worth of the "record international bank merger" transaction. Since Royal Bank of Scotland (plus Santander and Fortis in the group) has joined in the bidding at a slightly higher price, the second offer is only "inclusive of LaSalle Bank."

The consortium may or may not keep LaSalle Bank in the long run, but it should at least consider the value. Under no circumstances should Bank of America be automatically assumed as the automatic winner, or at least not at the proposed price tag. The "for sale" sign is in the window at LaSalle Bank, so why not see who would be interested. A break-up fee of $200 million would be due to Bank of America if the deal changes. For such a large transaction that is not the end of the world. $200 million just isn't what it used to be.

So, who would step up to the plate outside of Bank of America? The two most obvious names inside the US are JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) and Wachovia Corp. (NYSE:WB). North of the border there is also Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE:RY), Bank of Nova Scotia (NYSE:BNS), and Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE:TD).

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