The arrival of spring not only brings the time change and milder temperatures. For investors in the Spanish stock market, it is the starting gun for the most lucrative period of the year. In 2025, the Ibex-35 reaffirmed itself as the one with the most generous remuneration in the Old Continent. According to the latest market data, the Spanish selective index leads dividend yield in Europe, thus breaking its own record of payments in a year marked by the strength of business results.

For the four largest banks in Spain, 2025 was not a bad year. In fact, with the exception of Banco Sabadell, CaixaBank, Banco Santander, and BBVA all posted record profits. However, the bank originating in the Vallès region closed the year with a net loss. match ball from the hostile takeover bid and will continue, for now, on the independent path it has so strongly advocated. In total, both entities have achieved a record profit of €32.278 billion this year. If the profits of Bankinter and Unicaja are added to that figure, the final total is €34 billion, more than double what they earned just four years ago (€16.289 billion).

I don't know if César González-Bueno, 65, CEO of Banc Sabadell, is a Beatles fan, but he's copied them by resigning at the height of their success. "He could have stayed on as long as he wanted, but he preferred to hand over the reins to someone with a promising career ahead of him," I'm told. After five years, he's leaving—he says—of his own volition and in agreement with Chairman Josep Oliu, his comrade in arms and through the tensions during the BBVA takeover bid, which they both sacked, convinced he's done his job.

After the BBVA's takeover bid journeyFollowing the failed takeover bid by BBVA, Banc Sabadell's CEO, César González-Bueno, 65, has decided to retire. He will be replaced by Marc Armengol, CEO of the group's British subsidiary, which was sold to Banco Santander. The bank's board of directors made this decision after González-Bueno, who joined the institution in 2020, decided to step down. According to the bank, they mutually agreed that "this is the optimal time for the transition." The executive, with a long career in banking, arrived at Sabadell shortly after BBVA's first attempt to take control of Sabadell in 2020, and is leaving four months after the Basque bank's second attempt failed last October. The bank will present its 2025 results this Friday.

On October 16th of last year, the banking episode that had dominated economic headlines for almost a year and a half came to an end: BBVA's hostile takeover bid for Banc Sabadell failed With only 25% acceptance from the second bank's shareholders, the offer was insufficient to move forward or launch a second takeover bid. Catalonia openly applauded the outcome, Sabadell celebrated with a massive party at the Palau Sant Jordi, and BBVA, led by Carlos Torres, accepted defeat. with a message of resignationA few months later, with a new year ahead, how are the two banks approaching 2026 after the takeover bid?

BBVA – which has accelerated shareholder payouts after The takeover bid for Banc Sabadell failed– has been among the last to increase its share buyback programs, by an amount of nearly €4 billion, the largest in the company's history. With this latest operation, share buybacks by the major Spanish companies in the Ibex 35 will exceed €14 billion this year, at the same levels as the previous year, maintaining the upward trend of this shareholder remuneration method.

Banco Sabadell and Zurich have strengthened their alliance by launching new home and life insurance products. Both entities have a joint venture (joint ventureEstablished 17 years ago, the insurer was one of those that supported the Vallès-based bank in BBVA's takeover bid. After BlackRock, plus one financial investor, the insurance group is the bank's largest shareholder, with 4.947%. The current agreement represents a further step in the "joint strategy" and strengthens their alliance "with the launch of new products on the market and the new Zenit product range, to continue expanding its position as a leader in insurance and boost the insurer's strategy of maintaining strong growth through this life and home insurance." The home and life insurance offering launched on the market incorporates new coverages and a new contracting model: a fixed premium for three years, with no increases based on age, claims history, or inflation, and with the option of monthly payments at no extra charge. Strategic Plan

This move by the Catalan bank aligns with its 2025-2027 strategic plan, which positions the insurance business as one of its growth drivers. The roadmap, presented last July, projected insurance growth exceeding 15%, thanks precisely to the alliance with Zurich.

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BBVA's takeover bid for Banc Sabadell was a process that lasted almost a year and a half and was ultimately rejected by shareholders. During this period, both entities dedicated significant resources, one to achieving its objectives and the other to defending itself. However, Sabadell managed to increase its corporate banking business, one of its pillars. It has reached a 16.25% share of total corporate lending (CIRBE), compared to 13.28% last year, and the number of clients in this segment has grown from 65,000 to 85,600 in a year, according to Eduardo Currás de Don Pablos, Deputy General Manager and Head of Corporate Banking at the bank. The entity is achieving the objectives it set just before the takeover bid, which was finalized on May 9, 2024. One of these objectives is to reach a CIRBE share of 20%. In any case, the bank has lowered the customer threshold from €10 million in revenue to €2 million and has added the start-ups

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Following the failure of BBVA's takeover bid for Banc Sabadell, Josep Oliu has received widespread acclaim. The latest accolades, including the Businessman of the Year Medal of Honor, were bestowed on Tuesday evening at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (TNC), during the eighteenth Carles Ferrer Salat Awards presented by Fomento del Trabajo. There, the president of the Catalan bank was applauded "for having been the driving force behind this benchmark, with national and international reach," according to the employers' association. Banco Sabadell, in fact, received two awards on this evening of business gatherings: the Medal of Honor for Business Trajectory was awarded to Pedro Fontana, chairman of the board of directors of Areas and also vice-chairman of the board of directors of the Vallès-based bank. Undoubtedly, yet another cry of victory in the face of the failed BBVA takeover bid, which the employers' association chaired by Josep Sánchez Llibre had already openly opposed, and which it has now celebrated with these awards before more than 800 attendees at a packed TNC.

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In these 15 years of the ARA, the Catalan economy, which three lustrums ago had a gross domestic product (GDP) of about 200 billion euros, has today more than 300 billion, more than 50% higher; it has experienced a total restructuring of the financial system, the flight of business headquarters with the referendum of October 1, 2017 and a fall in activity like in the Civil War due to the coronavirus crisis. This period has now ended with Banc Sabadell shareholders' refusal to accept BBVA's takeover bid, which BBVA had already attempted in 2020. But the story of this newspaper, which hit newsstands (there were still quite a few) on November 28, 2012, featuring Mois Noguera, the first Catalan born that year, on the front page, began two months after a general strike against labor reforms under the socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as Spanish Prime Minister. Following the biggest economic crisis since 1929, recovery was beginning to offer hope, but the world was reeling from the shock of the attacks on the debt of Greece and Ireland, and other countries with high deficits, including Spain.

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Banc Sabadell sets a new profit record. The bank earned a total of €1.39 billion between January and September of this year, representing a 7.3% increase compared to the same period in 2014. These third-quarter results are the bank's first since the lengthy BBVA takeover bid process. which was rejected after receiving the support of only 25.47% of the voting rightsAnd these announcements come as the euphoria of having overcome the takeover bid by the Basque bank is still palpable, and as the private celebration this Saturday approaches. The bank has rented the Sant Jordi Palace in Barcelona and expects some 9,000 employees to attend to celebrate the resolution of the case and thank them for their efforts during this time.

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Admired and charming Mr. Oliu (and pardon the inevitable rhyme), I'm writing to you from the ARA (Spanish National Radio), which is more effective than sending you a letter, both to applaud the outcome of the takeover bid and to lament it.

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Banc Sabadell has had to resort to patriotism to appeal to the conscience of its shareholders and overcome the BBVA takeover bid. Some have rejoiced for objective economic reasons; others have expressed a somewhat more immature, football-oriented gem, as if we were witnessing yet another moral victory. But the fact is that if those at Sabadell had to disguise themselves as Spanish in 2017 for operational reasons, now they have had to disguise themselves as Catalans for the same reason, which means that Catalan identity exists—subsists—under strange formulas, in the realm of the intangible. And this sensorial, non-material nation is the necessary, though not sufficient, condition for us to one day become a practical nation, materialized by facts, norms, and real—that is, political—obligations. Catalonia is something, but it hasn't been political for centuries, ever since the court moved to Madrid and politics with a capital P—the kind born in the Modern Age, the kind of state apparatus, diplomacy, and war—passed us by. The 21st century—and somewhat the 20th—is the time of the Catalans' reencounter with politics, even if it's just political etiquette, and this fact is transcendental. But understanding what politics is about is a process that takes time to crystallize, like everything important in history. As the decades pass, we will become more aware, and perhaps we won't be so harsh on the accident of 2017.

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I'm still here. Just a few minutes ago, the news broke about the failure of BBVA's offensive against Banco Sabadell—this story is over—and Carlos Torres, the president of the attacking bank, was already on the scene. He was in a hurry. The scale of the defeat, after his hyperbolic campaign, might have made him think that if he took too long to leave, perhaps someone else would offer condolences to those who had trusted him.

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The failure of BBVA's takeover bid for Banc Sabadell opens a new scenario for the Catalan financial institution and the Spanish sector. Experts predict future movements in the mid-sized banking sector that could be led by the Vallesan bank, now smaller following the agreement to sell its British subsidiary TSB to Santander, which provides a fifth of its profits. The objective is to strengthen the bank's profile "focused on Spain, one of the countries with the best economic prospects in the European Union," which means "having predictable income and a controlled cost of risk," explained the financial director, Sergi Palavecino, to present the strategic plan until 2027 in July.

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Everyone, and especially BBVA Chairman Carlos Torres, will be left wondering whether the overwhelming brand loyalty shown by Banc Sabadell's owners would have remained the same had a better offer been made. If the business lacks substance, it was necessary to convince with a price. And if for a lot of small individual shareholders, the name Sabadell still represented something worth defending, it had to be convinced by price and winning hearts.

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BBVA's hostile takeover bid for Sabadell has been an economic battle, but also, and very much so, a political one. Just hours after learning of its failure, the president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, met this afternoon with the president of the Catalan bank, Josep Oliu, at the Palau de la Generalitat. A clear and forceful gesture that conveys the importance this operation has had for the Government.

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After 17 months of battle, BBVA's takeover bid for Banc Sabadell has failedThe big question everyone is asking is: why? It has even surprised the Valles-based bank. Analysts and experts cite a number of reasons, and not all of them are financially related. Other reasons are political, social, and communication-related. All of this has led to BBVA failing to even achieve a 30% stake in the Catalan bank, which would have allowed it to attempt to take control of Sabadell. These are some of the reasons analysts give.

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The aversion to power is as instinctive and healthy as it is childish and naive. We want to be free individuals, and yet we know that someone must call the shots. Someone must lead. We must somehow organize ourselves collectively. Ideally, we delegate the power to command to the most qualified, right? But now we've settled into a populist critique of intellectual and academic elites: experts are under suspicion. How can this be? The mantra of a general rejection of politicians, of all of them, also dominates. Are they all the same? It's another way of denying power. So, how do we do it? Behind the crisis of democracy, there are these phenomenal confusions that feed on an endemic foundation of libertarian spontaneity—in Catalonia, we have historical experiences—a tendency fueled today by reactionary anti-system forces. The primary rejection of power, always latent, the fruit of a healthy skepticism, is paradoxically leading us headlong into new forms of personalistic and authoritarian government. The phenomenon is global. The Minotaur always floats.

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The outcome of BBVA's hostile takeover bid for Banco Sabadell has not gone unnoticed by the market. The Spanish stock market has reacted strongly to the failure of the operation: BBVA shares have soared, while Sabadell shares have fallen, something analysts had already anticipated in a scenario where the takeover bid were to fail (it has obtained support from 25.47% of Sabadell's share capital, below the minimum required), currently at 3%

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