Fund urges Barclays to drop ABN AMRO bid - reports

AMSTERDAM, June 11 (Reuters) New York activist hedge fund Atticus Capital LP has acquired shares of British bank Barclays Plc and is pushing the bank to drop its 63 billion-euro (.6 billion) bid for Dutch bank ABN AMRO, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

Barclays rejected suggestions for it to drop its bid, saying that the fund's views were not representative of the views of its shareholders, the newspaper reported, without naming anyone.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that Atticus told Barclays officials that Barclays stock is undervalued and that if the bank dropped its bid, Barclays stock price would increase.

The newspaper had a similar response from Barclays.

Barclays declined to comment on Monday.

Barclays and ABN agreed to an all-share takeover of ABN in late April, but the deal has been complicated after a Dutch court froze ABN's side deal to sell its U.S. subsidiary LaSalle Bank to Bank of America Corp., and as a consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland said it was willing to pay 71 billion euros for ABN, mostly in cash.

The FT reported that several other Barclays shareholders warned the bank not to raise its bid for ABN.

In a letter to Barclays Chairman Marcus Agius, Atticus Capital Chairman Timothy Barakett and Vice-Chairman David Slager said that Barclays' all-stock deal to buy ABN was an offer to buy ''an inferior business at inflated prices'' and that they would seek to persuade other shareholders.

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