The disturbing end of the interview with Josep Oliu

On Saturday, Ricard Ustrell interviewed the president of the Bank of Sabadell, Josep Oliu, in the CollapseAs the banker himself explained, he only goes on television "on very special occasions." In fact, he couldn't recall ever having gone. It's easy to guess that the underlying storm of the BBVA takeover bid has prompted this exceptional need, although Oliu cited reasons of geographical coincidence: "I'm from Sabadell. And when they told me Ricard could ask me, who's also from Sabadell, I said I can't refuse him." Oliu liked to recall the past ties between his family and Ustrell's. A delicate way to establish a cordial pact and leave without any damage.

Ustrell structured the interview by moving from the most general and straightforward topics to more specific and delicate ones. He asked him questions about status and power, and the Sabadell chairman was skillful with his euphemisms. He preferred the term "well-off worker" to "bourgeoisie" and spoke of "influence" and "responsibility" rather than the term "powerful." He also avoided calling himself "Catalanist" and opted for the nuance of "deeply Catalan." And that's where Oliu began to get choked up and where a touch of nervousness was evident in his nonverbal language. They addressed issues of politics, the Process, the move of the headquarters to Alicante, and the return to Catalonia, all with careful elegance and no desire to dwell on the details. The takeover bid occupied the final part of the interview, in which Oliu expressed reluctance to address the Basque bank's intentions and took the opportunity to recall that in 2020, with the pandemic and at a time of relative weakness, they no longer listened to BBVA's siren calls and their clients did very well: they converted 88,000. If we had carried out that operation, today these ten thousand, converted into BBVA shares, would have become thirty-eight thousand." Ustrell, by the way, did not ask him about the dragon in the Sabadell ads or the insatiable little song that accompanied us on television throughout April, nor what he thought of the ads where supposed BBVA shareholders talk about the benefits of the takeover bid.

The end of the interview It was somewhat more disconcerting. When asked about his age, his desire to continue working, and his succession, in what seemed like a friendly and logical closing, Ustrell made an unexpected turn: "And a person like you thinks about death?" The best way to ensure that, in the future, the day television has to do Oliu's obituary, they will be able to recover the phrase. But the most disturbing came in the final punchline. Immediately after thanking him, the show's band closed the interview with a musical hit of a single verse from Maneskin: "Ime a devil, who's searching for redemption. In mother fucking monster, who's searching for redemption". A somewhat disturbing queue to say goodbye to a banker.