ABN Amro has secured its first mergers and acquisitions advisory mandate from Reliant Resources, the US energy and power supplier, working on the $1.3bn (€1.2bn) disposal of its European business.

Reliant Resources will sell its European business to Nuon, a Dutch electricity distributor. ABN Amro has a long-standing lending relationship with Reliant Resources, but has never completed any M&A deals for the company. The deal is a boost for ABN Amro's US business as the bank closed its US domestic corporate finance team last year, retaining just a small group of bankers to work on crossborder deals.