Banc Sabadell acknowledges selling TSB is unrelated to BBVA's takeover bid

The Catalan bank Banc Sabadell acknowledged on Wednesday morning that selling its British subsidiary, TSB, is an "independent" move from BBVA's takeover bid proposal. However, it is well aware that it "complicates" the financial operation planned by the Basque bank.

Sabadell's CEO César González-Bueno said that the takeover offer would now have to be "more expensive," and that the only thing that he knows is that "after this financial transaction, the takeover bid has a higher negative premium compared to before the sale of TSB." The board management believes the premium was at -6% and is now at -10%.

Sabadell will sell TSB to the Spanish bank Santander for €3.1 billion, as announced on Tuesday afternoon. "We saw an opportunity for our shareholders," the CEO said as the "conditions are very favorable."

"It is the shareholder who decides. How would shareholders make a decision that goes against their interests when their interests are what they are mainly trying to preserve, especially in a time of a takeover bid?" he rhetorically said during the press conference on Wednesday from the bank's offices in Sant Cugat.

He also stated that selling the British Banc Sabadell subsidiary, TSB, is not a "shield" to protect the company from BBVA's acquisition plan. 

Company officials said that the sale did not take place before as "two fundamental elements did not take place:" one of them was that the subsidiary was "an excellent and independent asset," and also that there was a "high interest" in the market.

Banc Sabadell bought TSB in 2015 for £1.7 billion, then equivalent to about €2.4 billion, and about €1.98 billion at the current exchange rate.

At the time, the bank valued the acquisition as a "significant step" towards its goal of "expanding and consolidating its activity" in international markets.

Meanwhile, the Basque bank, BBVA, has said that it will continue with its takeover bid for Banc Sabadell despite the conditions imposed by the Spanish government.