UNDER REGISTRATION

  • CÉSAR URRUTIA

    MADRID

Tuesday, December 29, 2020 - 01:54

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Unicaja and Liberbank meet today their Boards of Directors to approve the merger project that began in October and which, after completing all the legal procedures, should give rise to a single entity, the fifth largest in the Spanish market, by mid-2021 In recent days, the two banks have sorted out their differences regarding the corporate governance of the future entity, so that as

of today the countdown

of a project in which regulators such as B

Anco de España have not wanted to let the differences outweigh the interest of creating a single, more efficient entity.

Both banks are working to close the decision before next Wednesday.

If not, they will have to rethink the financial studies that have served to negotiate the merger, so that a postponement would mean a severe setback to the project, for which the headquarters and brand of the new entity move to Malaga.

The penultimate obstacle overcome was the permanence of the current

CEO of Liberbank, Manuel Menéndez

, as CEO of the new entity once

Manuel Azuaga, president of Unicaja

leave office in two years.

The differences that threatened a new blockade of the operation were resolved last weekend, in favor of Menéndez, at the limit of the term.

The meeting of the highest administrative bodies will be the start for the constitution of a bank with 108,959 million euros in assets (62,145 million from Unicaja and 46,814 million from Liberbank).

The group would add 1,591 branches (1,015 from the Malaga group and 576 from Liberbank) and

a staff of 9,929 workers

(6,249 Unicaja and 3,680 from the group based in Asturias).

After the approval of the boards, the term of one existing month will begin to run for an independent external expert to assess the transaction and establish the share exchange with which the respective shareholders' meetings will be convened, which would be the ones approved in the last instance the project and that, taking as reference the times consumed in the merger of Caixabank and Bankia, they could plan their meetings in the months of February or March.

The expected shareholding distribution in the new bank is that Unicaja will control 59.5% of the future entity, while Liberbank will add the remaining 40.5%.

The Unicaja Foundation, chaired by

Braulio Medel

It will be the largest shareholder, controlling around 30.3% of the capital of the new bank.

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