Spain’s stock market supervisor has authorised Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria’s (BBVA) improved 17 billion euro bid for Banco de Sabadell. BBVA is a global financial services group. Sabadell is a Spanish financial institution providing banking services. The revised offer was announced earlier in the week. Shareholders have until October 10 to tender their shares. Results from the offer are expected to be published seven days after the acceptance period concludes.
Sabadell has up to five days from the authorisation to issue an opinion on the improved bid. The bank’s Chief Executive, Cesar Gonzalez Bueno, has indicated that the board would ‘probably’ not recommend the new price, continuing to view it as insufficient.
The new terms of the offer entail BBVA providing one of its own shares for every 4.8376 Sabadell shares. This represents a 10% increase to 3.39 euros per share, totalling approximately 17 billion euros. The initial offer was 3.084 euros per share, equating to 15.5 billion euros, based on closing prices on September 19 and the previous exchange ratio.
The bid represented a premium of 1.6% to Friday’s market close. However, since the announcement of the new offer, Sabadell’s shares have underperformed BBVA’s, causing the premium to rise to 2.89% as of Wednesday’s close.
