BBVA toughens negotiations with Sabadell: "The merger is one more alternative, we are not obliged"

• The two new superbanks will account for more than half of the loans and deposits in Spain

BBVA toughens negotiations with Sabadell to create the second largest superbank in the Spanish market.

Just two days after acknowledging to the CNMV that there have been meetings between the two entities to analyze their potential integration, the CEO of the blue group,

, has cooled the operation, noting that his entity has "different alternatives" to invest the cash obtained after the recent sale of its subsidiary in the US.

The Turkish executive, usually more terse in his public interventions, has tried to cool down the euphoria about the merger during his participation in a financial forum organized by Deloitte and ABC.

"There are multiple options out there. Sabadell's M&A operation will compete with those options," he said.

Genç has mentioned among those alternatives the repurchase of the bank's shares, taking advantage of the strong discount with which they are listed on their book value.

But there is more, such as organic growth in countries where the group already operates, such as

focusing on businesses that enjoy high profitability.

"We will not do the agreement unless there is a clear value creation opportunity in the operation. It is one of the things that I put on the table. We are not obliged to do anything. We already have a

and I think it is above the minimum scale required to operate successfully in a market, "he added.

Financial sources frame the words of the CEO of BBVA in the negotiation process that both entities will have to carry out to set the exchange price of the shares in the merger.

Both groups have been studying integration for weeks and hope to make a decision before the end of this year.

In the same way that BBVA introduces pressure to the talks through its CEO, in the Sabadell environment they respond that the operation will have to be worthy for both parties and it is clarified that if there is not a good purchase offer there will be no agreement.

Analysts speculate these days that the purchase includes a

over the market value of Sabadell, which would bring its price to around 3,000 million euros.

"We have to analyze opportunities, and in order to analyze opportunities, we have to have this interaction with Banco Sabadell. So we are at an early stage in that analysis process. The analysis does not imply anything else at the moment, so it does not let's draw too many conclusions until we have something on the table, "insisted Genç.

The Turkish executive has insisted that "there are multiple options out there and a considerable buyback of shares stands out as a clear opportunity."

"We have to analyze the opportunity to be able to judge it between the different alternatives. It is about determining which is the best or not, and the fact is that, as I said, we do not need to make the agreement. We are not in a hurry, we have to analyze properly the numbers ", has concluded.

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