Mr. CORTEZ TROTTER (Chief Emergency Officer, Chicago): You remember the LaSalle Bank Building fire?
But there's a catch: the RBS bid depends on LaSalle Bank , the American subsidiary that's just been promised to Bank of America, staying within ABN Amro.
On Friday, the Dutch Supreme Court announced its long-awaited ruling on the sale of LaSalle Bank, the U.S. subsidiary of ABN Amro, to Bank of America, saying the transaction did not require shareholder approval and could go ahead.
The RBS consortium is in contrast planning to break ABN into three equal parts, giving RBS LaSalle Bank, the Asian operations and corporate banking, Santander the Brazilian and Italian units, and Fortis the operations in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
But there's a catch: the RBS bid depends on LaSalle Bank , the American subsidiary that's just been promised to Bank of America (nyse: BAC - news - people ), staying within ABN Amro (nyse: ABN - news - people ).
Under the Barclays merger plan, ABN had planned to sell LaSalle to Bank of America - but a Dutch court blocked that deal at the start of May.
The Amsterdam commercial court ruled that ABN's management could not go ahead with the sale of LaSalle to Bank of America without first putting the decision to a vote by shareholders.
That cap is 10% and the acquisition of LaSalle would bring Bank of America at or slightly over that.
Acquisitions like LaSalle are increasingly difficult for Bank of America to pull off because it faces a federal cap on deposits that any one bank can hold nationally.
That opens the door for other bidders to swoop in on LaSalle and scoop it away from Bank of America.
And while analysts think Bank of America would do well to tack on LaSalle and enter the Chicago market, there's still a chance other bidders for the lender could emerge.
Virtually every large U.S. bank is interested in expanding in the Chicago market, where LaSalle is second only to JPMorgan Chase in terms of deposit size.
In the fall, the failed investment bank tapped the New York-based investment sales team at Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.
Bank of America has now threatened ABN with legal action if it pulls out of that sale, but LaSalle is the jewel in the crown that RBS most covets.
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