For a few weeks now, at the BBVA headquarters in Las Tablas, they have been updating the Excel that they built in the fall of 2020 to buy Banc Sabadell. Or perhaps they have never saved them and have been adjusting them with each presentation of results waiting for the right moment to surface the operation again. It's just what happened yesterday.
In November 2020, the merger (a euphemism to refer to the absorption of Sabadell by BBVA) went awry due to the same things as always: the price and the distribution of power. In that case, BBVA did not want to pay more than 2.5 billion euros for the bank. Today Sabadell is worth four times more on the stock market: 9,770 million.
In 2020, the operation was settled (pun intended) in two weeks. There was no agreement “on the eventual exchange ratio of the shares of both entities,” stated the relevant fact that they sent to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV). The failed operation three and a half years ago was carried out by the same actors as on this occasion: Carlos Torres as president of BBVA and Josep Oliu, his counterpart at Sabadell. What is not known is whether this mutual knowledge will speed up the process or slow it down.
The cards in the game are somewhat different since Sabadell's price has risen 326% from the closing price prior to the previous merger process on November 16, 2020. While BBVA's increase has been almost half: a 177%.
The improvement in Sabadell's relative price is based precisely on the failure of that first merger operation. The breakdown of the talks marked a change in strategy in the Catalan entity. The CEO, Jaume Guardiola, was replaced by César González-Bueno the month after negotiations between BBVA and Sabadell ended. And Oliu left his executive functions.
Since then, González-Bueno, settled in Barcelona and pushed by the wave of high rates, launched a plan that highlighted a clear commitment to the digital business and the restructuring of the British subsidiary TSB. In fact, on the same day that it was announced that the merger was not going ahead, the intention to sell TSB was reported. Now it is not in the plans.
Joaquín Robles, an analyst at SME credit and a British subsidiary in losses.” The analyst added that the bank has changed a lot.
In these three years, BBVA has been left out of the rumor mill about mergers within Spain. Quite the opposite of Sabadell, which has been the focus of speculation over a possible integration with Unicaja that Oliu has always denied.
After the failure of the merger, in March 2021 the reorganization of Sabadell's businesses in Spain was announced, with a new organizational chart that highlighted the incorporation of the former financial director of Bankia, Leopoldo Alvear. Several Bankia executives arrived with him, taking advantage of the fact that the former rescued bank was integrated into CaixaBank. Now they can experience a new fusion.
