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BBVA toughens negotiations with Sabadell: “The merger is one more alternative, we are not obliged”

BBVA toughens negotiations with Sabadell to create the second largest superbank in the Spanish market. Just two days after acknowledging to the CNMV that there have been meetings between both entities to analyze their potential integration, the CEO of the blue group, Onur Gen, has cooled down the operation noting that his entity has “different alternatives” to invest the cash obtained after the recent sale of its subsidiary in the US.

The Turkish manager, usually more terse in his public interventions, has tried to cool down the euphoria about the merger during his participation in a financial forum organized by Deloitte and ABC. “There are multiple options out there. Sabadell’s M&A operation will compete with those options,” he said.

Genç has mentioned among those alternatives the repurchase of the bank’s shares, taking advantage of the strong discount with which they are listed on their book value. But there is more, such as organic growth in countries where the group already operates as Mexico or Spain focusing on businesses that enjoy high profitability.

“We will not do the deal unless there is a clear value creation opportunity in the operation. It is one of the things I put on the table. We are not required to do anything. We already have a 15% market share in Spain and I think it is above the minimum scale required to operate successfully in a market “, he added.

Financial sources frame the words of the CEO of BBVA in the negotiating process that both entities will have to carry out to set the exchange price of the shares in the merger. Both groups have been studying integration for weeks and hope to make a decision before the end of this year.

In the same way that BBVA introduces pressure to the conversations through its CEO, in the surroundings of Sabadell they respond that the operation will have to be worthy for both parties and it is clarified that if there is not a good purchase offer there will be no Okay. Analysts speculate these days that the purchase includes a up to 30% premium on the market value of Sabadell, which would approximate its price to around 3,000 million euros.

“We have to analyze opportunities, and to be able to analyze the opportunities, we have to have this interaction with Banco Sabadell. So we are at an early stage of that analysis process. The analysis does not imply anything more for the moment, so that we do not draw too many conclusions until we have something on the table, “insisted Gen.

The Turkish executive has insisted that “there are multiple options out there and a considerable buyback of shares stands out as a clear opportunity.” “We have to analyze the opportunity to be able to judge it among the different alternatives. It is about determining which is the best or not, and the fact is that, as I said, we do not need to make the agreement. We are not in a hurry, we have to analyze the numbers properly “, he concluded.

 

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