LONDON - A EUROPEAN consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland on Wednesday declared victory in the takeover battle for Dutch group ABN Amro, sealing the biggest takeover in banking history.

The bid by the consortium, which also comprises Belgian-Dutch group Fortis and Spain's Banco Santander, valued the Dutch lender at about US$100 billion dollars (S$146 billion).

The consortium confirmed that shareholders representing about 86 per cent of ABN stock had accepted its bid and announced plans to buy the remainder.

The ABN shareholders holding the remaining 14 per cent will now have a further chance to accept the consortium's offer until the end of October, according to the statement.

The consortium requires 95-per cent support to force remaining minority shareholders to accept the offer.

RBS and its partners had effectively won the battle for control of ABN Amro last week when rival bidder Barclays pulled out.

The RBS-led grouping declared its offer as 'wholly unconditional' in a statement on Wednesday, meaning all of its takeover conditions had been met.

ABN Amro acknowledged the statement, but declined to comment any further.

British bank Barclays had abandoned its rival bid worth around 63 billion euros after securing less than 1.0 per cent of ABN Amro shares.

The ABN Amro takeover surpasses the previous record for an acquisition in the banking sector which was when US group Travelers bought CitiCorp for 72.56 billion dollars in 1998.

In recent weeks, analysts had predicted a crushing win for the RBS-led takeover bid because it was higher and mainly in cash, compared with the Barclays offer that was mostly in shares.

The consortium's victory will herald the break-up of ABN Amro, which dates back to 1824 and was once regarded as one of the jewels of the Dutch economy.

The consortium takeover is also expected to involve the loss of up to 19,000 jobs at ABN Amro.

Initially, ABN Amro management had backed the Barclays takeover bid, but withdrew its support in June after the RBS consortium put more cash on the table.

But last month ABN Amro chairman Rijkman Groenink still hit out at the consortium's plans to break up the Dutch bank, while criticising the Barclays offer as being too low.

Barclays, Britain's third-biggest bank, had seen its bid - originally valued at 67 billion euros - eroded in recent weeks as its share price value was hit by the global credit squeeze.

Barclays had wanted to merge ABN Amro's operations to create a vast global giant.

The RBS team has won despite the sale of ABN's US unit LaSalle to Bank of America in a move many analysts viewed as a 'poison pill' against the consortium's blockbuster bid.

The successful offer for the Dutch bank is pitched at 38.40 euros per ABN Amro share and is 93 percent in cash.

Under the deal, Santander will take over ABN's Italian and Brazilian operations, while Fortis will assume its retail banking division based in the Benelux countries.

RBS would take cash from the sale of LaSalle as well as the group's institutional banking business and Asian retail banking activities.

ABN finalised the sale of LaSalle to Bank of America last week for 21 billion dollars. -- AFP