Voltron enters fight for Dutch bank

I was flipping through this morning's Financial Times, looking for an article about the risks of biofuels, only to find... actually, briefly on the topic of the biofuels article, it turned out the person whose perspective was being offered was the CEO of Exxon-Mobil. I'm sure he has a far deeper understanding of the energy industry than most people in the world today, and certainly better than my own, but when he's offering warnings against investing in bio-fuels, I have to ask... how the fuck is this news? Exxon recommends their gas over biofuel you buy from British Petroleum, up next, our exclusive interview with Colgate CEO Ruben Mark on why he says Aquafresh makes your mouth taste like bird poop. There was a bit of an interesting element to that Exxon story about how Exxon's business is built for $20/barrel oil and tight margins at refineries, and I would have been interested to know how that impacts the current gasoline situation, if Exxon is still operating for efficiency and maximizing marginal return rather than focusing on increasing capacity and gross revenue, and if that's a successful short term strategy for Exxon. Unfortunately questions like that took a back seat to Tillerson's opinions on how his hearse would be powered: gas or diesel. And seriously, when you can design a security system robust enough to keep guys in Tiger suits from dancing on your roof, that's when I'll start considering your advice on revamping a global energy infrastructure, E-M.

Back to my original point about Voltron, I was looking for that biofuels on the wrong page, so I was surprised to turn to page 16 and see a headline about Voltron's involvement in the three month long conflict over the future of ABN-AMRO between Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclay's, and ABN-AMRO itself. I've been following this with some interest due to the issues of shareholder rights in Europe, global consolidation and competitiveness, loss of national champions and issues of oligopoly and financial regulation, but you'll notice something missing from my list: giant fighting monsters. And it's not immediately clear how this would fall under Voltron's charter as "Defender of the Universe".

Just to bring anybody up to speed, Voltron was a name given to two giant fighting robot composed of smaller piloted vehicles, in one case from robotic lions (imaginatively referred to as the Lion Voltron), and in the other air, land, and sea vehicles (which could also helpfully fly in space) combined to form Vehicle Voltron. My first instinct was to assume that Lion Voltron was the one involved in the current banking crisis, because it seemed appropriate that Voltron would be scouring the Netherlands looking for an Orange Lion to add to his current Black, Green, Red, Blue, and Yellow Lions, but then I started wondering how it would fit in and for what purpose. Voltron's particular interest seems to be prising away ABN-AMRO's retail and private banking operations, so the Orange Lion would presumably serve as a retail banking services arm, to go with the red arm that held the energy sword, and the green one, which... well I don't want to speculate on what Voltron did with that hand. Or possibly Voltron have a third leg, which would do to evil monsters what my bank is doing to me with the $400 in fees they just charged me. Bend over for Wells F-- for Voltron, baby.

This of course was ridiculous speculation on my part, but consider this: there was a third, previously unrevealed Voltron, and I believe that is what we are seeing here today. This "Gladiator Voltron" was to be composed of three parts, the Black Gladiator representing Fortis, the Blue Gladiator representing the Royal Bank of Scotland, and the Red Gladiator representing Banco Santander. Together they seemed like an unlikely set of suitors for ABN-AMRO, bringing different strengths and needs, much like the helicopters, fighter jets, trucks, and submarines never seemed like they could be mashed together into Vehicle Voltron. And after the recent court ruling favoring Bank of America (who spirited away LaSalle Bank like that evil witch in Voltron), it seemed there was no hope they could overcome the bid by Barclay's. But then I read that they not only plan to reevaluate and submit a new bid to the shareholders, but they've combined their powers to form Voltron, whose main problem-solving tool was to take a monster (which started out small but was inflated by evil magic like ABN's voracious series of acquisitions in Europe) and slash it twice across the midsection, until four pieces fell away cleanly, like private banking and asset management, wholesale banking, retail banking, and the corporate offices. It's Voltron with a Scottish accent, and boy is he pissed off.