Bestinver sold its Sabadell shares in the market and did not attend BBVA’s takeover bid
Investors begin to reveal their strategy in BBVA’s takeover bid for Banco Sabadell. Bestinver has admitted that it has not resorted to the share exchange, but rather chose to sell its securities before the deadline expired on last Friday and invest that liquidity in BBVA. The manager of the Acciona group, which has been a shareholder of the Catalan entity in recent years, has chosen not to accept the offer with the aim of “avoiding risks and uncertainty.”
The company is considering the possibility that the team led by Carlos Torres will not reach 50% of the voting rights and will be forced to launch a second takeover bid to be paid entirely in cashbut without price improvement. In this context, the strategy followed has been to take advantage of the revaluation experienced to gradually undo positions and invest in BBVA, but also in Bankinter.
Despite this, Bestinver trusts in BBVA’s potential in the long term and in which he can remodel Sabadell’s management team once he takes control of the bank. The result of the operation will be known this Friday, October 17. The pools give more and more probability to a scenario in which it achieves between 30 and 50% acceptance.
The very composition of the shareholders, which is characterized by the high degree of atomization makes it difficult to predict the outcome. Around 42% is in the hands of individual investors, of which a large majority are clients of the ‘opado’. The Vallesan revealed this Tuesday that 30% of the capital in the hands of minorities is related to them and that They have only accepted 2.8% of their clients, representing 1.1% of the share capital. There is no record of the other percentage.
As for the large funds, BBVA hopes that they have all attended with a shareholding weight of 35%. Among them stands out BlackRock, that has exchanged the 0.05% that it has in active management, because although it appears as main investor with 7.4%the bulk is in index funds and, therefore, replicates indices. Precisely, the weight of active management reaches 20% and it is expected that around half will have attended.
On the other hand, David Martínez, classified as a strategic investor with 3.8% of the capital, has expressed his intention to exchange, a decision that has earned him a head-on collision with the rest of the Sabadell board of directors. in which he is present as a proprietary director. The team with corporate headquarters in La Vela believes that it has been able to exert a driving effect and encourage other large funds to support the proposal to create the second largest bank in Spain.
Finally, the insurer Zurich Insurance announced last week its intention not to accept. The signature, which is owner of around 5% of shares in the Vallesan entity -only behind BlackRock (7.2%)- is, in fact, considered by Sabadell as one of its partners of “strategic interest”, given that distributes its insurance products in Spain through of a joint venture with the bank. BBVA’s intention is to break these alliances once the operation is completed.
All those who have accepted the offer will receive a title of BBVA for every 4.8376 of Sabadellan equation that reflects a 10% improvement with respect to the price initially put on the table. With quotes from this Wednesday, the premium has narrowed and trades at a premium slightly below 1%.
