GLOBAL - Barclays Global Investors is more than twice as profitable per employee as ABN Amro Asset Management, according to company figures.

BGI's 2,700 staff generated a pre-tax profit of £714m (€1bn) in 2006 - that's €370,000 per employee.

ABN Amro Asset Management's 1,563 staff, meanwhile, produced a profit last year of €235m - which works out at €150,000 per employee.

BGI had assets under management at the end of the year of $1.8trn (€1.3trn). The equivalent figure for ABN Amro AM was €193bn.

Parent companies Barclays and ABN Amro today announced the terms of the UK bank's takeover of its Dutch rival in a €67bn deal.

"The combined group will be the world's largest institutional asset manager," the two said in a joint statement.

"Barclays Global Investors' world leading index-based, exchange traded fund and quantitative active capabilities will be complemented by ABN Amro's active fundamental based capabilities," they said.

"There are expanded opportunities for retail distribution of the current product set including BGI's rapidly growing iShares exchange traded funds."

A spokeswoman was quoted saying there would not be any job cuts in the asset management side of the merged entity.

In a related deal, ABN Amro agreed to sell Chicago-based LaSalle Bank to Bank of America Corp.

Barclays plans to cut around 12,800 jobs, or almost 6% of the combined workforce excluding LaSalle

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