Goldman Sachs completes a speculative walk of 9,000 million in Santander, BBVA and Iberdrola

Goldman Sachs has just completed a large speculative tour of 9,000 million euros in just ten days between three of the largest corporations in Spain, Santander, BBVA and Iberdrola, in which it came to be among the first shareholders through operations with investment instruments.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
23 December 2022 Friday 06:34
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Goldman Sachs completes a speculative walk of 9,000 million in Santander, BBVA and Iberdrola

Goldman Sachs has just completed a large speculative tour of 9,000 million euros in just ten days between three of the largest corporations in Spain, Santander, BBVA and Iberdrola, in which it came to be among the first shareholders through operations with investment instruments. derivatives.

It is difficult to find out how much money it has earned or stopped earning, but between the position held until Wednesday and the one notified to the CNMV yesterday there is almost a 10,000 million euro difference at market price. These days, both the banks and Iberdrola have made progress on the stock market, so there have been options to extract profitability.

Goldman Sachs sources explain that the movement has responded to "derivative positions for clients". At no time has the bank wanted to take long-term stakes or enter the boards of directors to influence management. Derivatives, which consist of the purchase of a right to acquire or sell shares in the future, force you to pay only a premium for its acquisition and give a lot of flexibility to enter or exit the capital depending on the price of the share and the agreed moment.

On December 12, Goldman Sachs declared hundreds of derivative operations in Santander and BBVA that promptly made it the largest shareholder of both entities with a 7.46% stake in both banks jointly valued at 7.4 billion euros, according to the Notifications submitted to the CNMV.

On December 19, it also declared a 6.01% stake in Iberdrola valued at 4,207 million euros. As a market maker, you are required to report these changes, especially when they cross thresholds of 3% or 5% of equity.

The bank, which is not a regular investor in the Ibex and which aroused a lot of interest with these movements, has just notified the Spanish supervisor that its stake in BBVA has fallen to 1.03%, which is no longer significant, while in the Santander has now remained at 0.6%.

The undone positions have a value of 2,200 million in the case of BBVA and 3,200 million in Santander. In this investment journey, the shares of BBVA have risen 2.8% and those of Santander, 1.08%, but there were two days during these days, after the ECB's decision to raise rates, in which they revalued more than 5%.

In the case of Iberdrola, Goldman Sachs has dropped to 0.89% of the capital, thus ceasing to be the second largest shareholder, behind the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar, which has 8.7%. The difference between the stock market value of the previous 6.01% and the current participation is 3,600 million euros.

Goldman Sachs has also recently taken significant stakes in other large European groups because, as in Spain, it has decided to start notifying transactions carried out for third-party clients, many of them in Europe. In the Spanish case, the short-term movement stands out especially, both when making and undoing positions.

The entity itself acknowledges that these variable income operations have a purely speculative purpose, which differentiates it from investment funds that participate in the Ibex in the long term, including Blackrock or the Norwegian sovereign fund through Norges Bank. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered in New York and manages assets of 2.5 trillion euros.

In Spain, it has made the movements from several companies, although one of them, based in London, has been the one that has managed the main volume of derivatives. The most used formula has been the 'call option', which gives above all a right to purchase shares, but not an obligation. If it is not executed, a small premium is lost, but in return the interested party can have guarantees that he will carry out the operation at the desired price. These hedges protect interested parties from market volatility, which is being especially high this year.