Unanimous gesture from the main business entities of Catalonia against BBVA's hostile takeover bid for Banco Sabadell. Entities from the Catalan economic and business fabric have sent a letter to the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to ask him to stop BBVA's takeover bid for Banco Sabadell, within the framework of the public consultation on the operation that Sánchez himself announced on Monday at the Annual Meeting of the Cercle d'Economia.
Citing reasons of general interest, the letter is signed by the 13 chambers of commerce of Catalonia, Barcelona Global, Cecot, the Col·legi d'Economistes de Catalunya, FemCat, Fira de Barcelona, Foment del Treball, Pimec, Pimec Autònoms and the RACC, who consider that the operation implies risks in areas such as business concentration, access to credit and retention of talent in the financial sector, with the loss of jobs and offices.
In the letter, the entities ask Sánchez to exercise his powers and commit to preserving a more local, competitive and rooted banking model in the territory. Specifically, the signatories cite five arguments that they consider sufficient to stop the takeover bid: they argue that it would be detrimental due to an "excessive concentration" of business and financial power; they believe it could imply the loss of jobs and offices; they advocate retaining financial talent in the different territories, and they ask to preserve credit channels and specialized financial services for smaller companies and projects.
Along these lines, they assure that the operation could lead to a loss of between 54,000 and 70,000 million euros in available credit for small and medium-sized companies. In the event that Sabadell disappeared, they warn that it would be "difficult to replace by other operators", and the ecosystem of talent and innovation would be weakened, as well as the connections between universities, business schools and the financial sector.
The last argument of the entities is also linked to territorial distribution, and they consider that, if the operation materializes, it would harm social and territorial cohesion. In this sense, they argue that the merger would entail an excessive centralization of economic power and financial power in the center of the peninsula and that it would imply negative consequences for territorial balance and access to financing in other regions.
In this sense, they assure that there is a "widely shared consensus" among all Catalan business entities regarding the "undesirable" consequences for the general interest of Catalonia and Spain as a whole. In this context, they have launched a campaign to invite companies and citizens to participate in the consultation, which they see as an opportunity to reflect public opinion on this operation.