Sabadell insists that the BBVA merger proposal was made without prior negotiations.

CEO Sabadell Bank, Cesar Gonzalez-Buenoinsisted this Thursday that merger proposal raised BBVA It arrived on Tuesday, April 30, without any prior negotiations, and just a week after the Basque bank submitted a takeover offer.

This clarification comes after BBVA President Carlos Torresreported that “in mid-April” he personally met with his colleague from Banco Sabadell, Josep Oliuto inform him that they will submit a merger proposal later this month.

The date indicated on the calendar was April 30a day after BBVA unveiled its first quarter results, with the idea of ​​starting from now on negotiations on a possible integration in an amicable manner.

However, as Torres emphasized, on the same day that BBVA agreed to submit its proposal, a “leak” occurred, during which its interest in Banco Sabadell was revealed, which accelerated events.

During his intervention in financial meeting organized by IESEGonzález-Bueno reported this Thursday that the president of Sabadell, José Oliu, received the proposal to merge the two companies through an exchange of shares on April 30 and immediately transmitted it to the board of directors of the company.

That same day, Banco Sabadell’s top governing body met to take note of the “confidential” proposal, elect financial and legal advisers and set a new meeting for Monday. the 6th of May.

Meanwhile, Gonzalez-Bueno recalled that on Wednesday 1st of May BBVA published its “non-binding and confidential” proposal with the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) and, he added, “with this we will arrive on Sunday” before the meeting at which the Sabadell board of directors will decide on the merger. offer.

That Sunday, Oliu receives a letter from the president of BBVA, in which he warns him that the proposal had no further application and this was the maximum that the Basque bank could offer, indicating that it suffered on the stock market and lost more than 6 billion in just two days –Thursday, May 2 and Friday, May 3.-.

However BBVA confirmed today that contacts between both entities “began in mid-April“and claimed that “all figures” for synergies and costs that were transferred during the merger with Sabadell were calculated with “maximum severity”as the entity does “in all operations.”

Already 9th MayAt a press conference that BBVA organized to explain the hostile takeover proposal, bank president Carlos Torres expressed the idea: “Once again, with full respect to Pep Oliu (president of Banco Sabadell) and the conversations that we are having or not. Without revealing more than I should, I can say that we had a private meeting in mid-April where I communicated BBVA’s interest in sending him the terms of the merger. We met so that I could convey the terms. he received this proposal on April 30. There was a leak that prevented this meeting from taking place on April 30th.