A deep concern has arisen among businessmen in the Valencian Community, especially in Alicante. The possibility of a merger between BBVA and Banc de Sabadell could have, in the opinion of employers, a harsh commercial and also social impact in a geography where the memory of the collapse of the Valencian financial system is still alive. When Bancaixa, the Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo, CAM, and the Banco de València, collapsed due to the brick crisis and the disastrous management of its directors, with the complicity of the Valencian institutions of the time.
“Is Banc de Sabadell also going to leave?” ask the businessmen. In 2011, Sabadell absorbed CAM and in 2012 CaixaBank took over Banco de València, the entity that had been a key instrument of the Valencian bourgeoisie. Bancaja ended up integrated into Bankia. The sense of orphanhood of the Valencian employers’ associations was enormous, and politically the Valencian inability to sustain a system that had functioned successfully for almost a century was confirmed.
In the case of Alicante, the Banc de Sabadell knew how to dampen the drama. The Catalan entity moved its headquarters to this city, after the episodes of the 2017 process (CaixaBank would do the same in Valencia). In this time, Sabadell has known how to rebuild complicities and establish itself as an “Alicante” entity, not only establishing a broad commercial network with companies from this province and the rest of the Valencian Community; also developing important social work.
Last Thursday, president Carlos Mazón and the president of the Valencian Business Confederation, CEV, Salvador Navarro, did not hesitate to express their discomfort at this possible operation with BBVA. Also the president of the Alicante Chamber of Commerce, Carlos Baño, has assured in this regard that “for the businessmen of Alicante it is not good news since the absorption represents a reduction in financial entities, which means fewer interlocutors for the business world. ”.
Regarding the possible change of location of the corporate headquarters, Baño considers that “installing the new headquarters in Bilbao and Catalonia is a detriment to the province of Alicante.” “When Sabadell absorbed the CAM, the headquarters and the workers continued in Alicante with the synergies that this fostered and has served as traction for the installation of new companies in our province,” he added.
The most representative unions in Alicante have also shown their concern about whether the integration of Sabadell into the BBVA group is completed, given that 1,456 of the bank’s 12,850 employees work in the province. More than 500 do so in the corporate headquarters that the entity of Catalan origin established in the city, such as the large building on Oscar Esplá Avenue that in the past was the CAM headquarters.
Sabadell is the leading bank in market share in Alicante, since it bought the old CAM in 2012; 10% of the companies and 20% of the entity’s individual clients are in the province. Thanks to the intense implementation that the CAM had in Alicante, Sabadell maintains an extraordinary market share in the province, 40% in the case of individuals and 25% among companies.
