Oliu (Banco Sabadell) admits that “he was convinced” that there would be a second takeover bid

The president of Banco Sabadell, Josep Oliu, has confessed that the entity’s directors thought that BBVA’s takeover bid (OPA) would reach 30% acceptance: “In the last three days we were convinced that there would be a second takeover bid“. He said this this Tuesday in the ‘World in Progress’ forum, in which he added that this idea caused them to dedicate power to operation when it was not needed: “We wasted time.”

Oliu has explained that the bank created a “very small” team to manage the operation with the entity’s lawyers, the communications team, the planning director, the bank’s CEO, César González-Bueno, and himself from the council“This team has worked extraordinarily well,” he noted, and regretted that the OPA “It has lasted a long time and many things have happened.”

In Oliu’s opinion, the failure of the operation is due to the fact that BBVA “has not been able to see that it should make a very substantial price increase that it has not done.” Asked about the lessons he has learned from the process, He recalled that during his presidency he has led 17 mergers and two takeover bids, but that both have been agreed: “I will never make a hostile takeover.”

Regarding cross-border mergers, Oliu considers that they are far from materializing, given “that there are no clear synergies”. The different legislation on bankruptcy and taxation complicates this scenario. “You can’t think that you have the same bank operating in each country. Every country must have a bank,” he stressed. The banker only sees advantages to mergers in businesses such as shared payment platforms.

Organic growth

Oliu has ruled out that Banco Sabadell will be involved in any corporate operation in the coming years and has assured that in the immediate futurethe “focus will not be on increasing size” and that if it happens, it will be for organic growth and the bank’s business. He added that the priority will be “focus on profitability, on capital generation”and recalled that the bank plans to return excess capital to the shareholder and distribute dividends worth 40% of the bank’s value.

Questioned about whether the bank needs a hard core of shareholders to defend itself from other takeover bids, the president of the entity has explained that “the only hard core of an entity is powerful results, that the prospects for results are powerful and that the price is at a good level.”

Addressing the situation of proprietary director David Martínez, one of Sabadell’s main shareholders who supported BBVA’s takeover bid, Oliu said that the investor “both now and before supports the bank’s project.” “Just as I thought that alone we would create more value, he thought that perhaps together (with BBVA) we would create more value,” said the president of the entity.

If the shareholder decided to abandon Sabadell’s capital “we would have to look for another” or “it would be the market that would absorb” 3.86% that the investor owns, he has indicated. At the same time, Oliu has encouraged the entity’s clients who are not shareholders to invest in the bank: “Because it is very profitable and because in a couple of years it will pay them back 40% of what they invest,” he predicted.