Sabadell minority shareholders criticize BBVA's new offer: "Anything below 30% is a joke."

BarcelonaThe Sabadell Minority Shareholders Association criticized this Monday the BBVA offer for the Catalan bank despite the 10% improvement that was announced this morning, asserting that it is "bad" and that "anything less than 30% is a joke for Sabadell shareholders." He also strongly criticized the fact that BBVA "is creating confusion in the market" and denounced that the CNMV "should not allow it."

"When there is a regulator, it is there to regulate, and we believe that [the CNMV] is not doing so," stressed the president of the association, Jordi Casas, during a lunch with the press at the Círculo Ecuestre in Barcelona. A lunch in which, before learning of the news of BBVA's improved offer, the Sabadell Minority Shareholders Association had planned to announce the presentation of a request to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) to demand that "the law be complied with and to put a stop to the confusion that BBVA is creating about BBVA." However, today's news has forced a change of plans, and the association will decide "later" whether to file the request or not.

All in all, for Casas, BBVA's decision is evidence of what they are criticizing: "After saying many times that it would not improve the offer, two days before the deadline to do so, BBVA decided to improve it," he recalled. "They have lied repeatedly," he asserted.

Likewise, minority shareholders are also asking the CNMV, in the event that BBVA remains between 30% and 50% accepted and, therefore, goes for a second takeover bid, "to set the criteria that will determine the price of the new takeover bid before it is finalized. Shareholders must know what criteria will be used to determine the price of the second takeover bid; "You can't confuse the market and have that uncertainty," Casas emphasized.

The action

BBVA has repeatedly stated that, if the takeover bid doesn't go through, Sabadell will do poorly and its shares will fall. Furthermore, they have often attributed the takeover bid to the fact that the Catalan bank's shares have appreciated so much in recent months. However, according to the association, "there has been a clear desire on the part of Carlos Torres to manipulate the market."

"Before the takeover bid, Sabadell was already rising on the stock market and had a very significant increase in profits; what Mr. Torres says about the share price rising thanks to the takeover bid is his perception," Casas asserted. "Predicting that if the takeover bid doesn't go through, Sabadell will collapse is harmful and confuses the market; confusing shareholders must end," he criticized. "Our prediction is that they won't even reach 30%, because I don't know what interest the large funds have in participating in such a risky operation," they assert.