ABN to consolidate its acquired Asian assets

ABN to consolidate its acquired Asian assets

BANGKOK (Reuters): Dutch bank ABN AMRO said on Friday its
recent round of acquisitions of Asian financial and banking
assets put it in a strong position to exploit an economic
recovery emerging in the region.

Eric Bouwmeester, ABN AMRO's corporate executive vice
president, said although the bank retained an appetite for more
Asian assets, it would first settle down to consolidate Asian
business bought in the past year.

"We want to grow...and through these acquisitions, we have
built a platform which can help us achieve prominent growth
through these combinations," Bouwmeester told reporters.

ABN AMRO last year made an initial 7.5 billion baht ($200
million) payment for a 75 percent stake in Thailand's 117-branch
Bank of Asia Plc with the final purchase price to be set next
year.

Last month, the Dutch bank invested nearly $200 million in
Bank of America's consumer banking units in India, Singapore and
Taiwan.

ABN AMRO officials said the bank would also sign a deal in
July, valued around $20 million, to acquire the 25-branch Great
Pacific Savings Bank in the Philippines, a unit of House of
Investments Inc.

Bouwmeester said his bank agreed with most market analysts
that Asia had slowly recovered from its worst economic turmoil in
a generation.

"Our senior management team sees a bottoming of the crisis and
I think we are quite positioned in different countries in Asia to
benefit heavily from a recovery."