Week of lime and sand for the Catalan economy. BBVA made an effort on Wednesday to present its offer to Banc Sabadell as a merger operation that would maintain a double operational headquarters, in Madrid and in Sant Cugat, would preserve the Sabadell brand where it is strongest and would strengthen Barcelona as a center of innovation for the new entity. The reality, in any case, is that if the integration were accepted by Sabadell, the banking weight of Catalonia would be further diluted, where CaixaBank would remain the only actor.
In parallel, however, Puig's stock market debut has contributed to reviving Barcelona's declining role as a financial center. The Catalan multinational chose the Barcelona Stock Exchange as the setting for its market debut, although at some point it was considered doing so at the same time in Madrid, Bilbao and Valencia. There were also those who recommended betting on New York or Paris. The Puigs were clear that their bet was Barcelona, where the company maintains its headquarters. It was an injection of optimism in the Spanish Stock Exchanges and Markets (BME) building on Passeig de Gràcia, where they recalled that there had not been a bell ringing there in 17 years, since 2007, with the IPO of Fluidra.
The possible BBVA-Sabadell integration has been read negatively by the Generalitat, which through the president Pere Aragonès and the Minister of Economy, Natàlia Mas, has shown its concern about the loss of a bank. “Citizens and SMEs need more financial institutions, not less,” Mas stressed. Businessmen and unions have also warned against the operation. In the second case, given the evidence that any banking concentration process results in a loss of jobs. As far as businessmen are concerned, because “the effectiveness of a bank that is very close to companies and very efficient would be lost,” as stated by Foment del Treball, the employers' association chaired by Josep Sánchez Llibre.
Also from the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona, Pimec and the Col·legi d'Economistes they warn of the impact on companies, and especially SMEs, of a new banking concentration process. Josep Santacreu, president of the Chamber, has gone further to emphasize that Sabadell has “a fundamental role in the structure of the Catalan business community”, so “an absorption that would make this key role disappear or dilute it would be detrimental in the economic sphere. and financial” of Catalonia.
It must be remembered that since the 2008 financial crisis, the banking map of Catalonia changed radically. From having more than a dozen financial entities with an operational structure in the community, it has now grown to two, CaixaBank and Banc Sabadell. With the great real estate crisis, the savings banks of Catalonia, Penedès, Terrassa, Sabadell, Girona, Tarragona, Manresa, Laietana and Manlleu disappeared in successive integrations, absorbed mainly under the umbrellas of BBVA and CaixaBank.
Pending the response from Sabadell, which meets its board this coming Monday, the offer presented by BBVA now threatens to further reduce the weight of banking in Catalonia, after the setback caused by the transfer of the corporate headquarters of CaixaBank and Sabadell to Valencia and Alicante, respectively, in October 2017. On the other hand, Sabadell is currently the only financial institution that almost exclusively maintains its central services in Catalonia after CaixaBank absorbed Bankia and established two offices in Barcelona and Madrid.
Those responsible for Sabadell remain silent, although sources in the sector report that the entity chaired by Josep Oliu considers the offer received to be unattractive and low in value.
