PARIS, Oct 9 (AFP): Big bank takeovers that sparked talk of bidding wars in Europe will not set European banking alight with restructuring because of obstruction from national governments and reticence in corporate boardrooms, experts say. Any further action is likely to be driven by small banks wanting to team up with rivals to ward off hostile bids by bigger predators, according to research by ratings agency Standard and Poor's. A few huge deals in the last 12 months had led many experts to forecast that a fundamental re-organisation of European banking was about to unroll. In the last year, Spanish bank Santander (BSCH) has swooped to buy Britain's Abbey National, Italy's UniCredit has bid for Germany's second-biggest bank, HypoVereinsbank (HVB), and Netherlands-based ABN Amro seized control of Italy's Antonveneta after a six-month takeover struggle. Deep restructuring has been long-awaited and is much desired by the European Commission, the EU executive responsible for upholding the rules of the EU single market, which sees consolidation as a means of creating greater competitive in national marklets for financial services.
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