Banco Sabadell once again defends itself against the takeover bid launched by BBVA, which this Thursday urged speed on the part of the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) to approve the purchase offer without entering into further analysis in depth.
“There is a clamor, in Spain, from the autonomous communities, from the political arc, that it is [una operación] “bad,” said the CEO of Banco Sabadell, César González-Bueno, at a press conference. Nor does he believe it is a “friendly” proposal. “When they send you an offer the day before and tell you that you cannot negotiate, it is not friendly,” he said just a few hours after the CEO of BBVA, Onur Genç, described the takeover as “not hostile.” “And when you say no, three days later you present a hostile takeover bid. Nobody liked that, it complicates things, even the numbers. How is it going to be a 1% overlap if we have one in every two SMEs in Spain,” he listed.
González-Bueno has also focused on the fact that the takeover bid does not have a pull due to the evolution of the two banks on the stock market. “We have not changed course, we do not do strange things.” The takeover bid “has no signs of happening because there is no price. We have risen 4% since the offer was made, BBVA has fallen 17%. Caixabank and Bankinter have risen 4%. And BBVA has fallen half as much as the Mexican banks, which have fallen more than 30%.”
And he believes that Competition is going to take its time to analyze the operation. “We are respectful of the CNMC. The logic is that it be analyzed in depth, if it is not a complicated offer I don’t know what is; and there are many people who want to appear on the file. Honestly, the logical thing is that it ends up moving to Phase 2.”
As has happened with BBVA, the Sabadell manager assumes that the case may arise in which the CNMV opens the period for acceptance of the offer, without Competition having said that it accepts the proposal or sets conditions on it. “The president of the CNMV explained that when there is an operation of this type, it is best that it be resolved as soon as possible; but you also have to have all the necessary information. Which should take precedence? In my opinion, the second. In these circumstances it has to be done with light and stenographers,” González-Bueno assured. “It is good that it is decided as soon as possible, with all the information on the table. If your value is reduced by 10,000 million and you are under pressure from the market and you cannot repurchase shares, it is logical that you should be in a hurry, but you cannot do dramatic damage to the competition.”
He points out that there may be 4,000 layoffs
In that change of speech that Sabadell sees in BBVA, its CEO quotes that at the beginning he considered that the savings were from IT [tecnología]Now there are 4,000 people on the streets. The same synergies were going to be achieved with or without merger, but not anymore. It was said to be [en Competencia en] Phase 1 and it’s not so safe anymore. “Time is proving us right.”
That figure of 4,000 layoffs ensures that it is information that they have deduced from the data that BBVA has sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the supervisor of the United States stock market. “At the SEC they have established what the savings are in leaving people and if you make the relationship with personnel costs, you get 4,000 people.”
In May, the president of BBVA, Carlos Torres, already acknowledged that the integration of the two banks would entail a workforce cut. “There may be departures of people in the short term, but we have experience” in cuts and “non-traumatic” departures,” Torres said then.
And regarding acceptance by shareholders, the CEO of Sabadell has let it be known that they are detecting that there is a rejection, but with nuances. “The Sabadell shareholders association says no” and “when we have private conversations” with institutional investors “they tell us what they think. I think anyway that they don’t have the information to decide. At this moment, at this price, no; But right now they don’t have to make the decision. “This is not the time nor do they have all the cards on the table.”
Nor does he see it easy for the OPA to be improved. “If the offer is improved,” he assumes that “it will be analyzed with the best criteria” and “priority will have to be given to that over any other criteria.” “The chances of that happening are low, he told us that he couldn’t raise the price because the stock had fallen 6 billion and now it has fallen 10,000.”
Critics of the tax but room to change it
Like the rest of the banks, which have been very critical of the tax at a time when profits have once again reached record figures, he sees room to make changes in the parliamentary procedure “until it is processed, passes all the procedures and becomes law.”
The CEO of Banco Sabadell did not want to enter into the debate about whether banks are being discriminated against compared to energy companies, from which the special tax is being removed. “Discriminated against, neither.” “There are amendments, there will be parliamentary procedures and there is the possibility of modifications, but I don’t know more.” “There has been an attempt to talk and the channels have not been effective,” he acknowledged.
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