Santander-Sabadell, the most perfect fusion of Spanish banking.

Álvarez & Marsal believes that it is the one that gives more value and less risk.

The bank merger that generates the greatest theoretical value and the least implementation risk would be that between Santander and Sabadell. This is one of the conclusions reached by Álvarez & Marsal in a new report on the financial sector in Spain. After the breakdown of negotiations between the Catalan group and BBVA, the experts from the consultancy firm consider that the union of the entity presided over by Josep Oliu and Ana Botín is the most attractive corporate operation in the system.

Although Álvarez & Marsal does not anticipate the probability that this integration could take place in the future, it does not rule out that it could occur in the next two years, taking into account the challenges facing the sector and the difficulties that pan-European transactions are currently experiencing. The analysis company considers that the union of Sabadell and Santander is much more attractive than that of BBVA, both in terms of return on investment and execution risks.

Its managers also maintain that an alliance with a European group currently entails considerable uncertainty, one of the measures Sabadell is seeking in its new strategic plan after trying to go it alone, due to the fact that cost synergies would be minimal and the rules of the game and the guarantee funds are different in each country of the Old Continent.

It should be borne in mind that Santander has declared both actively and passively that it will not participate in the consolidation of the national sector, as it feels comfortable with the position it has after acquiring Popular three years ago and that its project is to reduce costs alone in order to increase profitability.

CaixaBank-Bankia

In the study, Álvarez & Marsal points out that the integration of CaixaBank with Bankia, which is the only one that has been approved to date, is the operation with the greatest implementation risks. Even so, it stresses that the return on investment for the Catalan group will be 200%.

In the case of the merger of Unicaja and Liberbank, for which an agreement is expected to be reached this week, this return reaches 270%, according to the calculations of the consultancy firm. These levels would be exceeded by the equation of Sabadell with Kutxabank, although this combination would also generate relevant execution risks.

In recent weeks, after the breakdown of the negotiations with BBVA, the market points out that Sabadell could try again to reach an agreement with the Basque entity next year.


Fuente: El Economista.