Chasing the phantom of a ‘global endgame’: the role of management consultancy in the narratives of pre-failure ABN AMRO

This chapter examines the effects of advanced producer services on ABN AMRO’s corporate strategy leading up to the bank’s failure in 2007. Our historical reconstruction reveals how consultancy-inspired narratives about globalization, consolidation and shareholder value structured the bank’s geographies of risk and opportunity. Located in Amsterdam, a second-tier global city, ABN AMRO acted upon interpretations of a worldwide merger and acquisition craze that was framed as ‘the global endgame’. This narrative legitimized shareholder-value-inspired reorganizations and valuation metrics that contributed to the bank’s eventual demise. The chapter shows how multinational corporations, facing shareholder pressure, utilize strategic management consultancy narratives to legitimize their decisions to stakeholders. Yet, the bank’s eventual failure also illustrates the limits to the agency of global city makers such as bankers and consultants as this agency is constrained by credibility in financial markets and wider positionality in a system of financial centres.