MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s BBVA remained confident that its hostile takeover bid for smaller rival Sabadell will be approved by competition authorities within the next few weeks, its chief executive officer Onur Genc said on Wednesday.
In November, the antitrust watchdog said that BBVA’s all-share offer for Sabadell, valued in April at more than 12 billion euros ($12.64 billion), must undergo a longer phase 2 review that could extend the process well into 2025 in a deal opposed by the government.
“Our conviction is that the competition authority will give the green light to the process in the next few weeks … we’re very close to the end of that process,” Genc said, underlining that the lender had submitted a unprecedented list of remedies to get the deal done.
Spain’s market supervisor CNMV, which also needs to approve the deal, has said it would wait for the government before deciding on the potential authorisation of the takeover prospectus.
One of the reasons to buy Sabadell is to reduce BBVA’s exposure to emerging markets such as Mexico and Turkey, where the CEO said it expected the bank to book a net profit of 2.5 billion to 3 billion euros ($2.73 billion) in the next two to three years if inflation continued to come down.
($1 = 0.9165 euros)
(Reporting by Jesús Aguado; Additional reporting by Emma Pinedo; Editing by Inti Landauro and David Latona)
