If so the 60-day timetable running on the BoS bid would be halted

If so, the 60-day timetable running on the BoS bid would be halted.”By posting the Merger Notice, RBS stays on the same timetable as BoS,” Tom Rayner, analyst at SG Securities, said. “It keeps the pressure up and keeps them in focus.”Last week, the Takeover Panel said RBS faced a 3 December deadline for the submission of a bid for NatWest. “Consistent with this and to keep a full range of options open, RBS is submitting a Merger Notice to the Office of Fair Trading, in respect of a merger in contemplation with NatWest.”Previous statements from RBS confined it to monitoring the situation at NatWest, which is facing a hostile pounds 22bn bid from BoS, RBS’s Scottish rival.The OFT has up to 35 days to consider BoS and RBS submissions and advise Stephen Byers, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, whether the proposed tie-ups raise competition issues that require referral to the Competition Commission. The disposal does not commit RBS to launching a strike for the clearing bank, but ensures that competition officials can consider the implications of Bank of Scotland’s actual bid, and RBS’s possible bid, at the same time.
“RBS has been considering the position of NatWest for some time and it is watching the situation as it develops,” RBS said yesterday.

ROYAL BANK of Scotland yesterday gave its first formal notice that it may bid for NatWest, the high street bank, posting a merger notice with regulators. Despite the legal challenges it is facing, Microsoft commands as much as 90 per cent of the global market for personal computer operating systems.Even if action taken against Microsoft falls short of a full break-up, state and federal anti-trust regulators could seek fundamental changes in the way Microsoft does business, making a settlement improbable and setting the stage for an appeals process that could drag on for years.. For some time to come, people will need to be compatible with what Microsoft is doing anyway,” said Mr Philips.Analysts say there is no way of knowing at present whether the continuing litigation will actually help competitors to eat into Microsoft’s market domination in the long run. “By that time, it may not matter in a lot of the areas covered.”A court-ordered break-up of the world’s leading software company, although seen as highly unlikely, became more conceivable after Judge Jackson’s 207-page opinion was issued on Friday, backing the US government’s anti- trust regulators on nearly every point.Even in the long-shot scenario of a break-up, companies might not be able to shift enough funding into research and development fast enough to take huge chunks of market share, Mr Philips said.”There is a limit to what some of these companies can spend on R&D,” he said, adding that companies that are in alliances with Microsoft are not moving at this point to hedge their bets.”Most companies hedge anyway, and they have seen these anti-trust actions lag on for years before in other cases. Oracle gained $3/4 to $597/16 and Sun Microsystems gained $23/16 to $1117/8 in heavy trading volumes.”It could be positive for companies rallying at this point, although the timeframe for injunctive relief could be years away,” said Morgan Stanley analyst Chuck Philips.

“But we don’t know how they will be affected until a final determination is made.” Other analysts also cautioned that there was no way to predict the final outcome of the landmark case. However, some are expecting that Microsoft will ultimately prevail on appeal.
Red Hat (the largest distributor of the Linux operating system, considered to be an alternative to Microsoft’s Windows), the database software maker, Oracle, and the computer workstation developer, Sun Microsystems, were all regarded as possible beneficiaries of US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson’s ruling that Microsoft is a monopoly that has bullied competitors and harmed consumers.Red Hat shares gained $181/16 to $104 on Nasdaq. But Microsoft held firm; its stock quickly fell $7 but recovered to close in New York at $8915/16, down only $15/8, with five times the usual daily volume changing hands. “The decision is certainly unsettling the competitive landscape, and there is an additional focus and spotlight on Microsoft’s competitors,” said Hambrecht & Quist analyst, Christopher Galvin. Gallaher is eager to break out of its reliance on the declining UK market, but it was excluded from a flurry of tobacco dealmaking this year.Gallaher closed down 0.8 per cent at 365p yesterday.. MICROSOFT’S rivals were the immediate winners following Friday’s court ruling against the software giant, as its competitors in niche software markets saw their stocks rise yesterday.

Seita said Mr Comolli repeated the company’s commitment to a merger with Spanish tobacco group Tabacalera to form a new company, Altadis.But Seita also said that Altadis would be willing to examine other alliances, a remark analysts said could open the door to a future deal.”The interesting thing will be to see if this has flushed out any other bidders,” said Andrew Darke, tobacco industry analyst at Williams de Broe.Reports that British American Tobacco might pursue Gallaher have resurfaced after the Seita overture. “Gallaher will no longer be pursuing the possibility of making an offer for Seita,’” spokesman Ian Birks said after talks between the companies’ chiefs. “At a meeting today between the chairman of Gallaher and the president- directeur general of Seita, it has been made clear to Gallaher that the board and management team of Seita are not prepared to co-operate with Gallaher in the formulation of a recommended offer for Seita.”
The announcement sparked a brief rally in European tobacco stocks on speculation of a renewed wave of mergers and acquisitions.In Paris, Seita confirmed that its president, Jean-Dominique Comolli, had met Gallaher chairman Peter Wilson. Although the arrangements leave about pounds 500m for further deals, the priority will be to drag down the post-transaction gearing, which stands above 90 per cent, RMC says.”They’ve said that UK supply arrangements will stand. There may be other deals in the sector, but this is not yet the end of the world,” one analyst said.. GALLAHER GROUP, the largest UK cigarette maker, said yesterday it was backing away from a possible buyout offer for French rival Seita.

After yesterday’s announcement, RMC waded into the UK stock market, bringing its holding in Rugby to 19.9 per cent, including shareholdings already pledged to back its offer.Bob Lambourne, RMC finance director, said further Rugby shares could be bought after the go-ahead from Australian authorities, whose regulations cap RMC’s holdings at this stage.To cover the deal, the company has lined up a new pounds 2bn loan facility with Warburg Dillon Read, alongside pounds 350m in existing financing. Before the deal, RMC’s income was skewed towards aggregates (25 per cent) and concrete (33 per cent). After it, cement, concrete and aggregates will each account for about a third of operating profits.For now, the fate of the deal rests with Rugby shareholders and, possibly, competition authorities. In all, a combined RMC Rugby company would have about 20 million tonnes of annual cement capacity, compared with Holderbank, the global leader, which has about 85 million tonnes.The acquisition will help to balance RMC’s income streams more evenly between product lines, and spread its presence more uniformly across the globe. Rugby, which has off-loaded a string of non-core assets in recent months to focus on its building-material operations, has extensive cement interests in Australia and Poland. These could be added to RMC’s existing cement operations which span California, Latvia, Germany, Croatia and Poland.