Goldman to pay $1.5 billion for ABN assets: report

(Reuters) - A consortium led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc has agreed to pay about $1.5 billion for a number of ABN AMRO's private equity assets, the Wall Street Journal said Wednesday.

On Monday, Belgian-Dutch financial services group Fortis said that together with Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Spain's Banco Santander, it had sold a number of ABN AMRO private equity assets to a Goldman Sachs-led consortium

At the time, a Fortis spokeswoman said the assets sold were in companies located in Scandinavia, Britain and the Netherlands, but declined to give any further details on the transaction.

The Journal said Goldman's investment comprised 32 European companies as well as roughly $450 million in capital to be invested in future deals.

The investments, which include the British arm of restaurant chain TGI Friday's and Netherlands clothing company Oilily, will be managed by the ABN private-equity spinoff called AAC Capital Partners, the paper said.

Neither Goldman nor Santander immediately returned calls seeking comment, while representatives at Fortis and RBS could not be reached.

Fortis, RBS, and Santander paid 70 billion euros for ABN last year, just as the credit crunch hit revenues and valuations across the industry.

(Reporting by Tenzin Pema in Bangalore; Editing by Victoria Bryan)