BBVA Chairman Carlos Torres says the bank accepts Sabadell shareholders’ decision to reject its $19 billion takeover bid, ending a 17-month pursuit that failed to gain sufficient support.

Bilbao

The chair of BBVA commented on the outcome of the bank's attempted takeover of Sabadell, describing it as unexpected and not the result they had hoped for. BBVA acknowledged the decision made by Sabadell's shareholders and expressed acceptance of the outcome, emphasizing a focus on the future.

Several factors were suggested as possible influences on shareholder behavior, including expectations of a second cash offer and the actions of passive funds. Despite some institutional investors supporting the bid, the overall response did not meet BBVA's expectations, and the chair noted that speculation on the reasons was less important than respecting the shareholders' decision.

BBVA chair calls Sabadell takeover result ‘unexpected’

We will have plenty of time to analyze, and we can speculate at this stage about what might have happened. Clearly, the result is not what we expected. It's not the result we wanted, but it's the result that the majority of the shareholders of Zapadel have decided. So, we accept it fully, and we move on and continue to look forward to a bright future. Maybe one thing that might have influenced behavior of the retail shareholder might have been the expectation of a second offer in cash, which was, as I told you last time I was with you, uncertain. And I think what has happened demonstrates that it was indeed uncertain. Also, maybe the passive funds might have not tendered as we had expected. But as I was saying, this is all at this stage just hypotheses, and it doesn't really matter much. What matters is the result, the decision by the shareholders of Zapadel. They are the ultimate decision makers. We accept it fully, we move on, and we continue to look ahead. Carlos, in the last time we spoke, to your point, you also were quite clear that if you couldn't win over the retail shareholder base, at least a shrewd institutional investor base would perhaps see the value of this takeover bid. Now, the Zapadel story is interesting. The retail shareholder base has a long history with Zapadel, but what about the institutional shareholders, some of which you did convert, like the likes of David Martinez, among others? But is there an indication here of what they were reacting to? Well, as I was saying, it's all at this stage hypotheses that we can make about what might have happened. It doesn't really change the results. So I don't think we should ponder much about the reasons why they did or did not tender. I do believe the institutionals did tender in a large majority, the long onlys in particular, also the hedge funds and the arbitrageurs, but they weren't of the size that they had been in other deals for the reasons that this took a long time. And maybe the behavior of retail and also the narratives in the press and in the media around what might have happened with the second offer might have influenced also the passives in terms of their expectation of what might happen, and that might have led to a lower tendering.

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Breakdown