BBVA yesterday had a feast of big announcements that did not leave the markets or the political class indifferent. The bank announced a record profit in 2022, the largest dividend in 14 years and an additional share buyback plan that will raise shareholder remuneration to more than 3,000 million euros. The response from the stock market was a rise of 4.7%, while in the political sphere, the second vice president of the Government and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, was in favor of limiting the rise in mortgages after knowing the results of the bank .
BBVA's profit stood at 6,420 million euros, 38% more than in the previous year, thanks to the rise in interest rates, which for the bank represents a "normalization" of the business after years with the price of money in negative.
“Growth has been spectacular, exceeding expectations. We have a long way to go," said the president of the bank, Carlos Torres Vila, yesterday at the press conference to present the results.
This improvement in results is accompanied by an increase in the percentage of profits allocated to dividends, which will go from 44% to 47%. The bank's policy is to distribute between 40% and 50% of the profits and has decided to approach the upper part of the range, which includes entities such as Sabadell or Bankinter. His decision involves distributing 43 cents per title or 8% of its stock price to shareholders. It will dedicate another 442 million to repurchase shares, which raises the unit value of each of them and, for practical purposes, also represents a reward for the investor.
BBVA now has excess capital of around 2,500 million euros, which gives it additional margin. Its capital ratio is 12.61%, above the bank's requirements.
The improvement in results coincides with the start of the new tax on banks and energy companies. The lien will cost 225 million euros per year for BBVA, the bank's president said yesterday, who will study whether to appeal it. It is charged on the activity in Spain, where recurring income was 5,940 million euros. It is equivalent to 4.8% of interest margins and commissions, but only from the banking business and not from services such as insurance.
The political reaction to BBVA's record results was given by Yolanda Díaz, who first defended a mortgage freeze on Twitter and then in a public act. "While the rise in the Euribor will make the average mortgage more expensive by 250 euros a month, BBVA's benefits grow," she said on the social network. “The crisis cannot be an excuse to earn more. Freeze mortgages, moderate benefits,” she added. Díaz's proposal was replicated by his government partners through the Minister of Industry, Reyes Maroto, who was willing to analyze it. “We will study our partner's proposal,” she said. In September, the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, already said that community regulations do not allow this measure to be applied.
"Having results with such a good evolution can be misinterpreted", but "in Spain we have not yet reached the cost of capital in profitability", the president of BBVA replied to Díaz yesterday.
"The work of companies is irreplaceable and history is full of companies that abandoned entrepreneurship for models with catastrophic results," he added.
