The first legal battle in BBVA’s hostile takeover of Sabadell will be fought over the support of each entity in the operation. The bank chaired by Josep Oliu considers that BBVA should reveal the names of its bank’s shareholders who have already shown their support for BBVA, according to financial sources. If not, Sabadell believes that BBVA should retract those comments. While sources from the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) say that they will analyze the information sent by Sabadell last night.
The president of BBVA, Carlos Torres, during a presentation of analysts and later in a press conference, assured that there had been significant Sabadell shareholders who had shown interest in participating in the takeover bid. However, this information does not appear in the communication made by the entity to the CNMV in which the content of the takeover bid was detailed as well as the economic offer and other details.
In a statement sent last night to the CNMV, Sabadell assured that the documentation delivered by BBVA in a conference with analysts and the comments made therein, “violate article 32.1 of Royal Decree 1066/2007, of July 27, on the regime of public offers for the acquisition of securities and, in general, introduce incomplete data that can affect the market.
That article says that “from the public announcement of a public acquisition offer (…) and until the presentation of the offer (…) the offeror (…) will refrain from disseminating or publishing by any means any data or information that is not stated in the previous announcement of the offer.”
BBVA sources have not commented on the matter. What Torres said yesterday at the press conference is that “the shareholders, indeed there have been relevant investors from Banco Sabadell who have contacted us to express their interest in an offer like the one we presented being materialized.” Earlier in the conference with analysts, the president stated: “yes, our team has had contact with many of those shareholders and some of them have approached us with a clear expression of favorable views on the transaction.”
