A variation on this stat has been doing the rounds for a few weeks now, so forgive me if you've seen it before. I picked this up from the aptly-named
Doomsday Report blog.
In October last year, RBS paid $100 billion for ABN Amro (80% cash), and faced a fair amount of shareholder opposition to the valuation. If they were to use that money today, according to current market caps, they could buy the following:
- Morgan Stanley: $16.3 billion
- Goldman Sachs: $26.2 billion
- Merrill Lynch $19.3 billion
- Deutsche Bank: $17.4 billion
- Barclays: $12.9 billion
And still have enough spare to change to buy the entire auto industry!