The consortium stalking ABN Amro said yesterday that its bid had been supported by 86 per cent of the Dutch bank’s shareholders. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Santander and Fortis are likely to declare victory in the long-running takeover battle with Barclays tomorrow.

Shareholders tendered almost 1.6 billion shares under the terms of the €71.1 billion (£49 billion) offer. The consortium is thought to be holding off announcing its win until Fortis has closed its €13 billion rights offer this afternoon. The group of three has until Friday to declare its offer unconditional.

Shares in Barclays rose in mid-morning trading yesterday, before closing flat at 662p, after analysts gave a positive reaction to it losing the bid battle.

Analysts at Merrill Lynch gave the bank a “buy” rating because Barclays maintained its financial discipline by refusing to raise its €67.5 billion offer for ABN.

UBS yesterday reiterated its “buy” rating, because it believes that Barclays can achieve its targeted 10 per cent annual growth – albeit not by 2008 – regardless of losing out to the consortium. But Citigroup gave Barclays a “sell” rating and cut its price target to 575p from 660p.

Shares in RBS yesterday closed down more than 1.5 per cent at 560½p after analysts emphasised the difficulties the consortium faces in assimilating the pieces of ABN. Bear Stearns downgraded RBS to “underperform” from “outperform”.

Breaking up ABN will involve untangling 4,500 branches in 53 countries, as well as businesses such as cash management and wholesale banking.

The banks that advised the consortium have also emerged as winners, after their mergers and acquisitions (M&A) rankings leapt with the closure of the seven-month bid battle.

According to research by Thomson Financial, Merrill Lynch, the lead adviser to the consortium, jumped two places to rank 4th on the M&A league table.

Thomson calculates that Merrill Lynch is likely to receive about $40.5 million (£20 million) for its advisory role. This figure does not include the fees the bank will receive from handling the fundraising for all three consortium members.

Fortis, another consortium adviser, jumped one place to rank 18th on the table. NIB Capital rose one place to 19th and Fox-Pitt, Kelton also went up one place to 20th.

The deal is likely to be seen as a triumph for Merrill Lynch, which had been mocked for missing out when Barclays snapped up five of the City’s top banks to advise it on its attempted acquisition of ABN Amro.

But there is no guarantee that the bankers working on the world’s largest banking takeover will walk away with mammoth bonuses, after Merrill Lynch last week became the latest bank to report sub-prime related losses. The bank said that it would write down about $5 billion (£2.45 billion) in the third quarter.

Barclays’s advisers yesterday saw their rankings fall, with JPMorgan, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Lazard falling one place each. Credit Suisse held on to its 7th spot on the table.

Barclays Capital, which has advised its parent on the acquisition, fell from 18th place out of the top 25 because, other than this deal, its M&A work is minimal.

When a deal is open, all banks involved count the full value of their client’s bid as part of their M&A total, but once the offer closes, only the winner’s advisers are allowed to count the value of the deal. The target’s advisers count the winning bid as part of their total.

ABN’s advisers were Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, ABN, Rothschild, UBS and Lehman Brothers. Lehman jumped one place as a result of the deal, as did Rothschild.

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