An ABN Amro shareholder has warned it would be a "disaster" if the takeover battle for the Dutch bank is won by the Royal Bank of Scotland-led consortium. The warning came ahead of a court ruling this morning that boosted ABN's hopes of securing a tie-up with preferred partner Barclays.

Marc van der Maale, a fund manager at Delta Lloyd Asset Management in Amsterdam, which holds roughly 1% of ABN's shares, said of the proposed takeover and break-up by RBS and its partners: "It's going to be very hard to split up all of the clients. Which clients belong to whom? What will happen to a client of ABN who does business in Asia and Latin America? What is the possibility that the client will walk away?"