London: PonteSud – News Desk
The Spanish bank Sabadell has said it has received interest from prospective buyers of its UK division TSB, and said it would assess any firm offers it may receive.
Sabadell wants to sell TSB as it battles to fend off an €11bn (£9.4bn) hostile approach from its Spanish rival BBVA.
The Catalonia-based lender said it had received “preliminary non-binding expressions of interest” for TSB from unnamed bidders, and would examine any potential binding offer.
TSB, which has 175 branches in the UK, has more than 5 million customers and 5,000 staff.
Sabadell acquired TSB, which was previously owned by Lloyds Banking Group, for £1.7bn a decade ago. At the time, the bank wanted to “internationalise” and expand outside Spain.
However, the lender, which was created in 1881 by 127 families in Catalonia with the aim of financing local industry, has been locked in a prolonged takeover battle with BBVA for more than a year, casting uncertainty over TSB’s future.
Spain’s socialist-led government, which has been opposed to a combination of the two big banks, last month carried out a full review. Together, BBVA and Sabadell would be the second-biggest player in the loan market, ahead of Santander but behind CaixaBank.
The European Commission said last year it did not have any objections to the takeover of Sabadell after completing a foreign subsidies review.
In November, TSB appointed Marc Armengol as chief executive, and he took over at the start of this year. He is a former strategy director at TSB who has served on the board since 2022, and originally joined Sabadell in 2002. The bank made headlines during a large-scale IT meltdown in 2018.
A sale of TSB could generate between £1.7bn and £2bn, a source told the Financial Times. Potential bidders for TSB could include Barclays, NatWest, Santander UK and HSBC, the paper reported.
TSB declined to comment on the Sabadell statement. The potential sale of TSB is the latest in a flurry of recent dealmaking moves in the UK banking sector.
Metro Bank shares jumped on Monday after reports it had attracted a takeover approach from investment firm Pollen Street Capital.
Also on Tuesday, the Irish government said it had sold its remaining shareholding in AIB Group, one of the country’s two biggest lenders. It was nationalised 15 years ago as part of the eurozone’s biggest state rescue during the financial crisis.
The government sold a 2.06% stake in AIB at €6.94 a share, which will generate €305m, the finance ministry said. This will take the total returned to the state from its investment to €9.8bn.
