Spanish bank BBVA has confirmed that it is in talks with Banco Sabadell, which also owns TSB in the UK, regarding a possible merger between the two financial institutions. Sabadell has a market capitalisation of €2.3bn compared with BBVA’s €24.5bn.
In a statement sent to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) on Monday, BBVA said that it had begun a due diligence process of reviewing assets and that it had appointed external advisers to evaluate the operation.
Banco Sabadell also sent a statement to the CNMV, with both banks stating that ‘no decision has been taken in relation to a potential merger operation’ and that ‘there is no certainty that it will be adopted’.
The news came on the same day that BBVA, which has headquarters in the Basque city of Bilbao as well as in Madrid, announced the sale of its US subsidiary to PNC for €9.7 billion.
In September, the boards of Spain’s CaixaBank and Bankia approved a merger plan between the two, which will create Spain’s largest financial institution. The new bank will keep the CaixaBank brand, and will have assets of more than €664 billion, the companies said.
If the merger between BBVA and Banco Sabadell proceeds, the resulting entity will be the second largest, with joint assets of approximately €600 billion.
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