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Reuters
1 min read
MADRID (Reuters) -Spain’s stock market supervisor CNMV gave the green light on Friday for BBVA’s 14.9 billion euro ($17.44 billion)takeover offer for smaller lender Sabadell.
Separately, BBVA said it had received authorization from the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States, where its shares also trade, to lower the acceptance threshold for the tender offer on Sabadell to 30% of voting rights, from 50%. BBVA would though have to launch a second tender offer in cash within a month on the remaining Sabadell shares.
BBVA previously said it sought to secure a majority of Sabadell voting rights or 49.3% of its shares.
Spain’s second-biggest lender by market value surprised investors in April 2024 by announcing a bid for Sabadell which turned hostile in May last year after it was rejected by Sabadell’s board.
Combining the two lenders would create a bank with around 1 trillion euros in total assets, the biggest bank in Spain after Caixabank, and mark the latest consolidation in the country’s banking industry.
Spain’s antitrust authority and the Spanish government have approved the takeover, though with strict conditions such as not allowing a full merger of the two banks for at least three years.
($1 = 0.8542 euros)
(Reporting by Jesús Aguado and Emma Pinedo, editing by Inti Landauro and Susan Fenton)
