Consortium appears likely to buy ABN Amro

In the end, history’s largest banking takeover is coming down to -- what else? -- money.

A consortium of three banks led by Royal Bank of Scotland is all but certain to win the battle to buy ABN Amro Holding in a deal worth about $100 billion.

ABN Amro’s rival suitor, Barclays, bowed out Friday, acknowledging that only a tiny fraction of shareholders had tendered their shares to its offer, which was worth about 11% less.

That leaves the field to the RBS-led group, which plans to divide up ABN Amro under the oversight of RBS Chief Executive Fred Goodwin.

Fortis of Belgium wants the bank’s Dutch operations, Banco Santander Central Hispano of Spain wants its Brazilian and Italian arms, and RBS wants the rest, including ABN’s investment banking arm.

ABN Amro’s management had initially preferred Barclays’ offer, resisting what it saw as a “breakup scenario” that would mean the end of the 183-year-old institution. Paradoxically, CEO Rijkman Groenink sold the company’s U.S. arm along the way to achieve that goal.

His surprise sale of LaSalle Bank of Chicago to Bank of America Corp. for $21 billion was widely seen as a poison-pill measure to thwart RBS.

But the consortium persisted through months of legal wrangling over LaSalle and through the turmoil in credit markets.