Carlos Torres (BBVA) defends the takeover bid for Sabadell in Barcelona and meets with the CECOT employers’ association to bring positions closer to Catalan businessmen

The story battle is taking place in BBVA’s takeover bid for Banco Sabadell. Both are trying to convince the Vallesan shareholders that their proposal is the best and they are not skimping on opportunities to do so. This Tuesday it was the turn of BBVA’s chairman, Carlos Torreswho has returned to Catalonia to try to reach an agreement with the businessmen of the region, who have been against the operation from the outset. Catalonia is not only the place of origin of Banco Sabadell, but one of the regions in which a hypothetical merger would have the greatest consequences for competition for individuals and, above all, for SMEs and companies. That is why the president of BBVA appeared in the morning at a colloquium at the Esade business school in Barcelona and in the afternoon he met with a group of Catalan businessmen at a meeting organised by the employers’ association. BLINDalso in Barcelona.

In the morning, Torres argued that “the merger with Banco Sabadell makes a lot of strategic sense for all stakeholders.” Asked about a possible reduction in credit as a result of this operation, Carlos Torres pointed out that after recent mergers there is no decrease in credit in subsequent years, but rather the opposite, an increase in credit in the system in the first year after the merger.

The BBVA chairman also took the opportunity to respond to Sabadell’s CEO, Cesar Gonzalez-Buenowho on Monday said that the chances of the operation going ahead are “very low” and it will “derail.”

Torres argued that “the final say will be given to Banco Sabadell’s shareholders” and analysed the milestones still pending. “There are basically three: authorisation by the CNMC and the CNMV, and the most important of all, the decision of each Banco Sabadell shareholder, who are the owners of the entity, on what they want to do with their shares.”

“We have no intention of increasing the offer because it is very attractive. We believe that it will convince,” he stressed. Along these lines, he urged Sabadell shareholders to ask themselves “what will happen to the stock if there is no merger,” implying that it will fall. “When one presents an offer, that changes everything. The dynamics that occur are that prices are adjusted. This 2% difference should not be interpreted as the premium. It’s not a cousin”he assured.

The BBVA chairman is also convinced that he will obtain the approval of the National Commission for the Market and Competition (CNMC), even in the first phase. “The CNMC has already made it clear that the same methodology will be followed as on other occasions and, judging by that, we do not see that the operation has competition problems. The previous ones have been resolved in phase 1,” he recalled.

On this point, Torres believes that the analysis of competition has to be done at a national level, because business strategies are not set at a regional level, but at a national level. “Even if we look at local market shares, there is no territory in Spain where the combined entity resulting from the merger of BBVA and Sabadell has a greater market share than other entities that have already merged, such as in Castilla y León, Galicia, or the Basque Country,” he said at the event organized by Esade Alumni.

The executive has framed the takeover bid in terms of the need for Spanish and European banking entities in general to gain size in order to compete in the global market at a time of great changes in the sector, with the rise of the digital channel.

Tax on banking

Torres also criticised the government for creating an extraordinary tax on banks and regretted that European society, in general, considers businessmen “suspicious” of “doing something wrong” when they make money, unlike what he believes happens in the United States, “where successful businessmen are applauded.”

“Banking is a good example. We have had very low profitability for years and now we have had a year with higher rates, but medium-low, which allows us to start to increase profitability, although below the average of the Spanish business sector, and now voices are being raised and then the extraordinary tax on banking is being created,” he lamented.

In his opinion, the widespread opinion is “they are making a fortune, let’s impose a tax.” Torres also criticised European banking regulators and legislators for focusing on “avoiding the risks” of the sector.

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