The announcement by Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) - Spain's number two bank - to once again attempt a merger with the number five, Banco Sabadell, announced by the former in a surprise move on Tuesday, is disturbing news for Catalonia, and the skepticism it has caused is entirely logical. It is true that Sabadell no longer has its official headquarters in Barcelona and that, following the tectonic movements that occurred in October 2017, it is now in Alacant. But having said that, in terms of operations and connection with the Catalan business fabric, whether large companies or small enterprises, its relationship is of top priority, as one would expect from the history of a banking institution founded in 1881 in the co-capital of the Vallès Occidental county.
Banco Sabadell has, so far, limited itself to accepting BBVA's proposal, without having publicly expressed any view on it. It will proceed to do so after assembling its board of directors on Friday, or at the latest on Monday. Only the larger bank, chaired by Carlos Torres, has spoken, announced on the May Day holiday that it is proposing to Sabadell that the new financial entity have a double operating headquarters in Spain: the current BBVA headquarters in Madrid and another in Sant Cugat, location of Banco Sabadell's corporate centre. According to the Basque-Madrid bank, this would strengthen Barcelona's role as a European hub for the most innovative and disruptive companies in the world.
The Basque-Madrid bank also proposes that the corporate name and brand be that of BBVA, but that the Sabadell brand be maintained in those regions or businesses where it may have a relevant interest. On the new post-fusion board of directors, BBVA reserves three seats for the junior partner, one of them with the rank of vice-president. There would not be a monetary payment involved, but rather a stock swap, using a ratio of one BBVA share for every 4.83 of Sabadell, that is, a 30% premium. In short, this is not a new operation, but one very similar to that which already failed in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, and with the same protagonists, Carlos Torres and Josep Oliu. On that occasion, the exchange was more or less one to eight and the Spanish economy was semi-paralysed.
This is not a mere banking operation for Catalonia, which has seen how each institution absorbed by BBVA has meant a further loss of manoeuvring power
That is not the situation at present. This very week, Sabadell published its results for the first quarter, with record profits of 308 million euros, more than 50% more than in the same first quarter of the previous year. The situation of the bank, therefore, does not force it to merge and after many years it can look to the future with some optimism, the result of work well done by the team headed by Josep Oliu and César González-Bueno, preserving its independence against all odds and keeping it away from merger attempts.
The Catalan authorities, political parties and business and trade union organizations must try to preserve its current autonomy for the benefit of Catalonia and the Catalans. This is not a mere banking operation for Catalonia, which has seen how each financial institution already absorbed by BBVA has meant one fewer element in terms of manoeuvring power: starting with Banca Catalana in 1998 and the merger of the Unnim savings banks - Terrassa, Manlleu and Sabadell - absorbed in 2012 and which brought it around 2 billion euros in assistance from Spain's banking resolution authority, the FROB. Two years later, BBVA purchased Catalunya Caixa, formerly Caixa Catalunya. If it swallowed Sabadell now, it would close the circle. And Catalonia would, without a doubt, be the loser.