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The Chief Officers' Network - your business advantage / Front / Front Page / M&A: Barclays' bid ends in a whimper

Incredibly, after all the hype, just 0.2% of shareholders in ABM AMRO voted to take up Barclays' offer. Barclays formally withdrew its bid.

Shareholders preferred the rival consortium bid, which is a breakup bid, from Royal Bank of Scotland / Fortis / Santander, it seems.

Barclays' bid was time limited and time ran out on Friday. The FT reported on Saturday that more than 65% of shareholders back the consortium bid and that the consortium might declare its offer unconditional this week. But that's rumour and it is quite possible that shareholders might decide they don't want to go with that bid, either.

Barclays may try to put a brave face on it but the rejection is a huge embarrassment. And it's cost millions of pounds and months of senior management time to get so far that a slap in the face with a wet fish would be less humiliating.

One news organisations reckons that the failure of the Barclays bid will cost its advisers as much as GBP800 million because they agreed to split their fees on a cost plus success fee basis. Even so, their work will not have come cheap.

But quite a few champagne corks will go unpopped in car dealerships and estate agents in London and a few other centres.

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