“I congratulated Sabadell for the result after a long and hard-fought process”

David Martinezthe third largest shareholder of Banco Sabadell, with 3.8% of the capital, congratulates the Catalan bank after the failure of BBVA’s takeover bid, an operation that it publicly supported. “Although for reasons that I have made clearI voted in favor of a different path, the majority of shareholders supported the independent business plan (…). I have congratulated the bank for the result after a long and hard-fought process,” comments the Mexican businessman.

Through a letter sent to ‘Bloomberg’, the man nicknamed the ‘ghost of Wall Street’ has come out to defend the “independent strategy” of Sabadell. “As a shareholder, I look forward to participating in the bank’s continued success.” Some statements with which he expresses his intention to remain in capital and settle differences with the management team. In addition to being a shareholder, Martínez is present on the board of directors as a proprietary director.

The disagreements began when he distanced himself from the report sent by this body in which the offer was rejected considering that the project had “strategic benefits” beyond price. Given that the offer was addressed to shareholders, the takeover bid regulations in these cases require the highest corporate governance body to prepare a document that includes its opinion and which usually serves as a guide for the minorities.

He different point of view between Martínez and the rest of the members led to a verbal confrontation between both parties. The ‘Aztec’ investor, not given to public appearances, published a letter in which he discredited the attitude towards him by the president of the bank, Josep Oliuand the CEO, César González-Bueno. After BBVA’s plan had foundered, the number two was quick to say that “he would apologize if he had given Martínez reasons to be upset.”

“I consider that there is more constructive ways to debate the merits of the proposal than insulting me, calling me ignorant,” made them ugly a few weeks ago. Sabadell suggested possible “hidden agreements” between BBVA and Martínez, something they denied. The offer, which valued the Vallesan entity at 19,000 million, has not gone ahead, since only 25% of the shareholders have accepted the exchange of shares of 1 BBVA share for every 4.8376 of Sabadell.

In this scenario, doubts about Martínez remaining as a proprietary director increased. However, this Monday’s messages hint at a reconciliation. The businessman landed in the shareholding of Banco Sabadell at the end of 2013 after acquiring 5% of the capital after investing 275 million in the expansion undertaken at that time. Despite this, hardly any details of his life and his links with the Spanish financial institution are known.

The truth is that Martínez is one of the most unknown fortunes in the Latin American financial world. One of the magnate’s movements that has had the greatest significance has been the debt restructuring negotiations in Argentina after the corralito, but also promoted the merger between Cablevisión and Telecom. This telecommunications and media group was Telefónica’s main competitor in the country until it exited the media with the sale of Telefé in 2016.