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."