May 30, 2007, 10:51 GMT
Amsterdam - Some 19,000 jobs would disappear if banking consortium Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Fortis and Santander take over Dutch ABN Amro bank.
In the Netherlands alone, 7,500 jobs would be lost, the consortium told Dutch unions during a meeting Tuesday evening.
On Tuesday, the banking trio made a 71.1-billion-euro (95.6- billion-dollar) bid for ABN AMRO. Royal Bank of Scotland, Belgian- Dutch Fortis NV and Spanish Santander want to split up the company.
Led by RBS, the consortium trumped a rival 63-billion-euro offer launched by Britain's Barclay's Bank plc.
The consortium had said earlier Tuesday that its offer would lead to fewer employees losing their jobs than under the Barclays proposal, which envisaged a cut of about 11,000 jobs if a merger should go ahead.
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