*** NAB - (sell) - Abey National full report attac

DJ Natl Australia Bank Declines Comment On Abbey Reports

National Australia Bank Ltd. (NAB) declined Monday to
comment on reports that merger talks with the U.K.'s Abbey National PLC (ANBA)
have broken down.
A report in London's Independent on Sunday newspaper has prompted speculation
Australia's largest bank may launch a hostile takeover for the U.K. company.
But an NAB spokesman told Dow Jones Newswires the Melbourne-based bank had
traditionally entered into transactions on a friendly basis.
"In a historical sense transactions that we've done such as MLC have been on
an agreed basis with full due diligence," he said.
The reported breakdown follows more than a month of discussions and came after
NAB insisted its executives would take all the senior posts in the merged
company and that its headquarters would be in Australia.
The straight merger would have seen NAB shareholders taking 60% of the new
company, which would have a market capitalization of about GBP30 billion, the
paper said.
A spokesman for Abbey National declined to comment.
Neither bank has ever confirmed they have been in talks.