Changing Perceptions

ABN deal exposed vulnerability of huge targets

January 21, 2008

The sale and breakup of ABN AMRO shattered conventional thinking about not only FIG deals, but also mammoth companies. “Historically, there was a view that when a company reached such a substantial size it became effectively immune from takeover,” says Colm Donlon, a managing director at Morgan Stanley who co-advised ABN. “This deal shows that no matter how large or diverse a company or how long and proud its history, if there is a group of like-minded suitors or aggressors willing to work together and take the inherent risk involved in such a complex breakup, no company has that immunity.”

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