The CEO of Banco Sabadell, César González-Bueno, stressed that “today” almost all the “factors that influence the public purchase offer” launched by BBVA are positioned “against” this operation. “Customers, SMEs, staff of both entities,” says González-Bueno, “reject the public purchase offer launched for Sabadell.”
During the 31st Financial Sector Meeting, organized by Deloitte, the CEO of Banco Sabadell explained why SMEs reject BBVA and end up taking over their entity. “One in two small businesses,” he explains, “work directly with Sabadell.” At the national level, “there are only four banks which capture the majority of SME operations”, five if we add “a few regional entities” in certain areas. González-Bueno explains that each company chooses “between three and five banks to work with”, so if it reduces its operations, “it will not have a choice”.
The competition moves to phase II of the OPA
“The operation moved to phase II because many voices wanted to be heard.” This is the summary given by the CEO of Banco Sabadell on the competition movement that OKDIARIO announced to them yesterday.
The National Markets and Competition Commission is now opening a process during which it will listen to different associations, “notably those of businesses”, but also customers, entities involved in the operation and the parties concerned. This involves assessing whether this banking concentration is positive or negative.
This morning, in fact, Sabadell appeared as an entity before the CNMC to present its point of view and explain the difficulties it sees with the takeover bid, and the reasons why it considers that it is not It doesn’t make sense to continue moving forward.
In the same sense, says González-Bueno, there are “groups that must be heard”, so that “we can understand the negative impact that the takeover launched by BBVA has on the Spanish business sector”.
90% of Sabadell, against the takeover bid
Banco Sabadell measures what it calls staff commitment to the entity every week, a sort of pride of belonging. González-Bueno reported that “during the pandemic, when the bank was trying to make life easier for its workers,” engagement increased “up to 70%.” The current situation, due to the takeover bid, has increased this “commitment to 90%”. This is a “difficult to maintain” figure, but which explains the positioning of all staff against the takeover bid.
“The fact that the bank has returned to such high valuation levels”, as well as this commitment, “means that customers and investors do not view the operation favorably”.
In fact, González-Bueno himself gave the change in the valuation of entities as an example. “Since the beginning, the joint value of the two entities has decreased by 9 billion”, which corresponds to the value of Sabadell. In other words, the market discounted the value of the transaction instead of adding synergies.
To all this scenario, we must add the difficulties that BBVA is going through in Mexico, its main market, severely affected after the victory of Donald Trump in the American elections.
The CEO of Sabadell sees it this way: “When the feeling grows that the takeover bid will not be carried out, BBVA goes up on the stock exchange, so it seems that the market is not favorable to the operation”.
Despite everything, González-Bueno explains that institutional investors will wait until the last moment to decide, “once they have all the information”. In this sense, concludes César González-Bueno, “the fact that the takeover bid lasts over time helps to give clarity to the operation”.
