The president of BBVA, Carlos Torreshas offered to government Raise the price of the OPA over 1 billion over the Sabadell bank In exchange for the Executive to freely give the operation, which implies that it does not impose conditions Too hard in the so -called phase 3 after the public consultation you have launched.
This is ensured by sources close to the Bank of Basque origin, which add that, in principle, that improvement would be made through the exchange equation. That is, the payment would continue to be 100% in Actions And without part in cash. However, the BBVA has not yet decided the final formula, which will depend on the final conditions imposed by the government.
«The 1,000 million are the price so that Sánchez Do not put hard conditions, ”explains one of the sources. “On the other hand, if you are complicated, the BBVA will continue with the OPA but without price improvement.” These 1,000 million are a improvement around 7.9% compared to the current assessment of Sabadell – which presents its quarterly results this Thursday – with the price of BBVA, about 12,650 million.
According to the sources, the BBVA ensures margin to raise the double price, that is, 2,000 million. However, “Torres considers that it is not necessary to rise more, which, with that improvement of 1,000 million or even with the current price, the OPA will go ahead.”
A sensu againstif the government finally imposes conditions too hard to the operation, the BBVA will not make any improvement for the Sabadell shareholders, who will have to settle for the current price or reject the OPA and lead it to failure.
-As OKDIARIO has been reporting, BBVA has great difficulty raising the price of the OPA: expanding payment in shares can demand a new Board of Shareholders (depending on the amount) and eaten The capital mattress to do so in cash. In addition, the Synergies announced will be clearly lower than those announced by the conditions of the CNMC and the bank taxand will have a loss of capital by the Trade Fund. Hence, you need that the government conditions are not harder, which explains this proposal.
Torres’s offer responds to the announcement of the aforementioned public consultation made by Sánchez last Monday in Barcelona. In turn, this announcement was the government response to the decision adopted by the CNMC (the competence authority) last week to accept the commitments proposed by the BBVA without imposing additional conditions and without having previously listened to the associations, employers and unions that they had requested to participate in the process (80 in total).
Juns pressure
This CNMC resolution was very well received by the BBVA, as is logical, but not by the Catalan partners of Sánchez, especially Together. Hence the requirement to impose additional conditions by Carles Puigdemont. And to justify them before European agencies (Commission and ECB) and before the International investorsthe president has taken the consultation out of the sleeve.
That is the fear of BBVA and what has motivated this proposal for an improvement in the price of the offer before the government makes its decision. The Minister of Economy, Carlos Bodyit has until May 27 to decide whether it raises the offer to Minister Councils, which is assumed to do. Then, the government will have a month – although the clock can stop – to make its final decision on the conditions that will impose to the BBVA.
In principle, these should be based on different criteria for the defense of competition, since that is the justification of the resolution of the CNMC. The most likely criteria to justify additional conditions are “the free movement of goods and services within the national territory” or the “guarantee of adequate maintenance of the objectives of the sector regulation.”
