At the point of writing this essay the ABN AMRO bank finds itself in the middle of a grim take-over. After many years of underperforming stock, the shareholders lost confidence in the bank’s strategy and called for action. The bank that was so focussed on delivering shareholders value now finds itself victim of the same shareholders. How could this have happened?

This essay will analyse the strategies that ABN AMRO has followed and try to explain why these strategies have not made ABN AMRO a successful company but a prey for take-overs instead. It will conclude with a discussion on if ABN AMRO could have been successful at all and hence could have secured its future as a proud Dutch bank with great historical background.
History of strategies pursued by ABN AMRO
Since its beginning of its existence in 1824 ABN AMRO has gone through a lot of changes. To understand the position the bank is in now, I will start describing the history of strategy starting from the moment of the merger between the ABN bank and AMRO bank in 1991.

Era of expansion (1991-2000)
In the early days right after the merger of ABN and AMRO bank in 1991 the strategy of the bank was focussed on consolidation. When looking at the list of investments and divestments done since 1992 , one can see that all up to the year 2000 the ABN AMRO bank mainly done acquisitions. The acquisitions were targeted on acquiring new business in the investment banking activities and expanding international presence. This expansion was driven by the coming of the European market drive and the further liberalisation of the banking industry; it needed growth of assets by acquisitions in order to escape from foreign competitors.

Era of client segmentation and cost reduction (2001-2005)
Since 2000, when Rijkman Groenink became chairman of ABN AMRO and announced a new strategy, the number of divestments was