The Numantine defense of Sabadell for the BBVA hostile OPA has opened a spite among medium banks in Spain. Pressing for the need for the government to raise the conditions of the OPA considerably, the Catalan entity begins to consider the possibility of undertaking a corporate operation in case the OPA fails, with Abanca and Unicaja in the focus. The objective is to create a bank that looks at you to you to the greats of the Spanish market, CaixaBank, Santander and BBVA, as well as establishing an shareholder nucleus in the Sabadell that brings it from new hostile walkways. All with the PLACET of the European Central Bank to create larger and stronger banks.
It was a rumor that had been taking months in Madrid and Barcelona for months. Sabadell’s dome-which Josep Oliu pilot as president and César González-Buenos as CEO-has led an aggressive campaign against the BBVA OPA, which has made the printing of the impression that if the attempt of a much larger bank cannot lie on the market, at least they have the capacity to put it very complicated. At the same time, analysts, investors and advisors gave them homework: “If the OPA fails, then what?”
It cannot be said that the pair formed by Oliu and González-Well does not have credentials to answer this question satisfactorily. In 2020, when Sabadell was in a much weaker situation than the current one, they already rejected a merger offer of the BBVA. Since then they have managed to turn the entity’s business and shoot their stock market value.
However, the market begins to see how the story is exhausted and, with the downward interest rates, they need new arguments to bet on the future of the bank in solo. In Sabadell they are aware of this and that is why they have already announced that they will present a new strategic plan before their shareholders must decide whether they accept the BBVA exchange equation, without specifying the specific date. González-Well himself, when he has been asked about other corporate operations, has left the door conveniently open, although he has always said that they would be “friendly and agreed.”
In parallel, several financial sources agree to indicate that in these months he has probed some of their competitors. Sabadell drags some problems for investors. It is in nobody’s land. He is the little one of the big banks and the great of the medium banks. It is the Bank of SMEs, but this can also make it more vulnerable to economic fluctuations. His business focuses on Spain (with the exception of its British subsidiary, TSB, which has not come to start, and a small business in Mexico) and fundamentally in Catalonia, Valencian Community and some parts of the northern part of Spain.
An alternative banking fusion proposed by BBVA can be the best antidote, since it would allow the bank to gain size, open to new geographical areas while maintaining its Spanish bank DNA and other business niches. For example, to join Abanca they would reach about 300,000 million in assets, some 2,000 offices and about 30,000 employees, in addition to entering the Portuguese market and strengthening themselves in the Galician, where the Galician bank and the Atlantic Bank have already acquired. With Unicaja, it would be 330,000 million active, 28,000 employees and 2,500 offices and alleviate the weakness of Sabadell in the southern zone, more specifically in Andalusia. An eventual Union to Tres would exceed in some of these parameters BBVA himself in regard to the Spanish market. More complicated it seems an operation with the other two entities of a similar size, Kutxabank (a bank with high solvency and closely linked to the Basque Country) and Ibercaja, which has been able to shake the pressure from the regulator to go out.
Financial sources indicate that the Sabadell and Abanca dome have filed contacts in recent months, although they are framed in the usual relationships between two Spanish banks. The Galicians have even probed possible advisors. The newspaper Expansion He published last Monday that they had initiated preliminary negotiations on the matter. On the other hand, Bloomberg reported by that had also approached some of Unicaja’s shareholders, to resume an operation that has already planned above the table more than a year ago.
Any of these two transactions involves difficulties and in the market are still welcomed with skepticism. Financial sources explain the opportunistic nature of the first Shareholder of Abanca, the Venezuelan tycoon Juan Carlos Escotet, who could reach a quarter of the capital of an entity that is quoted in the stock exchange. It has already demonstrated it in some of the operations that the amalgam of the old Galician boxes has starred in recent years, such as those of Targobank or the Portuguese Eurobic. “Escotet will do this operation if it allows you to take advantage of the situation, consolidate as the first shareholder of the Joint Bank and continue with command,” says a person familiar with the sector.
“It is very difficult to buy a bank with an owner,” summarizes another source. Not surprisingly, Abanca went out of information with a statement that had the language very measured. He did not deny the negotiations, but the operation was “interesting”, at least a priori. He also mentioned corporate governance as one of the standards to measure if an operation was convenient for them. That is, the so manido who commands that he has given the previous attempts to unite medium banks in Spain. Escotet can see the occasion to replace OLIU as president of the merged bank. Another thing is that the historic Catalan banker, 76, wants to retire now.
Apart question is the political issue in which the future of Sabadell has divered since the BBVA OPA has passed to the government. The Executive’s queen – which has opposed the union with the Basque Bank and can now harden the conditions imposed by competition – is that Sabadell star in a corporate operation that stabilizes it. In Abanca, the Galician PP still has a strong ascendant and, specifically, the opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijoó, under whose mandate as president of the Xunta the Venezuelan acquired the old Galician boxes. And he did even above the interest he said for them CaixaBank. As CEO of Novagalicia Banco – ahead of Abanca -, he led his privatization and raided the land for a possible transaction.
Unicaja, on the other hand, is not “a bank with owner”, but the political issue is not easy here either. The first shareholder is the Unicaja Foundation, with 30%, on which the Junta de Andalucía de Juanma Moreno has ancestry. If the BBVA attempt of take To the Sabadell de Cataluña has raised a dust there, it is very plausible to make the only bank that remains in Andalusia depends on Catalonia lift a similar discomfort.
An operation of these banks also involves technical problems. Sabadell can address a fusion to try to neutralize the BBVA OPA, but its maneuver margin is very conditioned by what the opas regulations call the “duty of passivity.” That is, the Council cannot make such a decision if it does not have the yes of the shareholders convened in a general meeting. You can address them later, as plan B if the OPA does not go ahead, but it would imply delaying the deadlines, add uncertainty and the possibility that everything derails.
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