Banco Sabadell’s confidence that the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) Impose hard conditions on BBVA in the OPA is going to less. That is why the entity, which celebrates its first shareholders’ meeting this March 20 … After the return to Catalonia, it begins to aim towards the government to intervene. And the Executive responds with the fact that they will make a decision to intervene or not once the verdict of competition is known.
“We hope to receive the CNMC report to analyze and act accordingly,” says sources from the Ministry of Economythat insist that they remain in the position they have transmitted on previous occasions. In other words, that the decision on the possible government intervention will still have to wait.
Right now the OPA is at the competition table, which is analyzing the operation in phase two. Once it issues its verdict, the government has the possibility of intervening in a third phase to harden the conditions that have been imposed on BBVA; Hard conditions, as the Sabadell expects, could get to derail the operation.
The truth is that the Government has spoken on multiple occasions on the BBVA OPA and has shown its rejection of the operation both for the ways and by the background. They have sometimes argued elements of competence or territorial cohesion to show their ‘no’ to the transaction, but for the moment they have not gone further. To date it is unknown if the Executive will intervene in that phase 3, although from his words it can be deduced that they could do it, something that Sabadell also expects.
Beyond this phase three, the Executive will have another time to participate in the operation: if the OPA triumphs, the regulations enable you to veto the subsequent fusion between entities. A lot has been speculated in this regard in recent months but the government, despite expressing its resounding rejection, has never clarified whether it would end up prohibiting merger.
Sabadell addresses government
This pronouncement of the Ministry of Economy occurs after the Sabadell challenged the government directly and for the first time to intervene in the OPA in phase three. «Arguments has. The arguments that I have counting can be for a government. The Government has to ensure the balance of the country’s financial system and put the framework for the market for the market forces, ”said Josep Oliu, president of the bank, before the media.
The leader appealed to the executive think «if this is an operation that suits the country or not, for different reasons; for growth, for credit, for competition, by SMEs, for the territorial balance … ». Among those arguments, for example, there may be issues of territorial cohesion, as the Executive Chief, Pedro Sánchez, has once wielded due to the damage that could be caused in regions such as Catalonia or Valencian Community. And there is also the national security argument, which “Maybe the merger is a danger to national security”as Oliu said.
The CEO, César González-Bueno, also referred to that kind of hope in phase three of the government to defend the financing capacity of SMEs. The CEO, although he did not expressly mention the Executive, did say that this “It is a subject of common good, someone should establish minimal conditions for that to be preserved”. And if, as they understand, the supposed decision of competence does not preserve these market conditions, only the government intervention remains in the inkwell.
Likewise, both bank managers asked the Executive to clarify their position on the subsequent fusion. «The government would have to be clear in phase three of the CNMC on its intentions with respect to whether or not there will be fusion. And in case it did not allow merger, what conditions of corporate governance could there be to not reduce the competition, ”said Oliu.
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