Josep Oliu and Carlos Torres, the heartbeat of energy that lights the battle between banks | Economy | EUROtoday

Josep Oliu has confronted the final part of the OPA launched by the BBVA with a requesty step. An Achilles tendon damage left the president of Banco Sabadell for weeks, and so they needed to handle with an orthopedic booty to go, with out showing annoyance, to the large board of shareholders held in Sabadell or public occasions such because the Tennis Tournament Count of Godó, which the financial institution sponsors profusely. Oliu has recovered the agency step simply when it’s time to tighten the rhythm. In entrance is Carlos Torres, president of BBVA, a biking fan who has endured numerous assaults with out getting off the headplay and that has at all times been conscious that the OPA is a background race that’s going to be determined within the remaining meters.

The financial institution contest is on its solution to turned 14 and, over time it has develop into extra “hostile.” During the Christmas conferences that the entities have fun with the press, a senior supervisor of one of many two banks presumed to have a superb friendship relationship with an govt of the rival model. A remark just like Michael Corleone in El Paperino, “It’s not personal. It’s strictly business”. Nothing private, simply enterprise. But typically issues evolve. In the BBVA OPA to the Sabadell, public speeches have risen in tune, and within the corrillos the darts have graduated the camaraderie. The contest has fully overwhelmed the land of finance to settle within the political agenda, with the federal government by absolutely intervening within the operation. The matter raises ampoules in Catalonia, one of many few assist factors that Pedro Sánchez has left, and has proven sufficient to situation the way forward for the 2 maximums chargeable for the BBVA and Sabadell. Josep Oliu, 76, faces the operation as an complete or nothing, whereas for Carlos Torres, 59 years, the danger is in tripping with the identical stone.

Sabadell’s survival goes past being knowledgeable problem, most likely the final one, for Josep Oliu. It is an entity intimately rooted in his hometown and that, earlier than him, his father managed it. Oliu, whom their family members know merely as PEP, proudly has that amongst their childhood reminiscences is to go to the Bank’s models on Sundays after Mass, and that whereas his guardian superior paperwork, he entertained himself by coloring monigotes. “It comes from being against the ropes, because the action came to be on the floor, but now this is strong,” says an individual near Oliu.

For its half, one other baby expertise is ready in Torres, it occurred with ten years, when his dad and mom despatched England a summer season to study English. “Instead of going to Budiño to have a good time,” he stated, at all times with attachment to Galicia, though he was born, virtually by probability, in Salamanca. Exmckinsey, labored in Endesa on the Manuel Pizarro period, which had coincided along with his father, agent of change. Friendship between the previous president of Electrica and Francisco González is well-known, additionally at one other time Bag Agent in Madrid and President after the BBVA.

It is the second time that the BBVA below the presidency of Torres addresses Sabadell, however though the OPA now doesn’t go properly, it’s taken as a right that it’s going to not resign or anybody goes to ask him to take action. This week, in an look from Santander, Torres himself cleared doable duties: “If the OPA does not come out, it is not a failure,” he defended.

A preferred mantra preaches that the American tradition rewards those that aren’t afraid to take clicks, and the United States seems within the curriculum of each bankers. Oliu is a physician in Economics from the University of Minnesota, and Torres Vila graduated in electrical engineering on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Both arrived at chiefs after carving knowledgeable profession within the financial institution: Oliu was a basic director of Sabadell, and Torres, who had led the BBVA digital banking space, went via the workplace of CEO earlier than assuming the presidency.

Similar trajectories and disparate characters. Consulted a number of sources that in latest months have had therapy with each of them, transcends the concept that Torres has a “rest and reflective” process, whereas Oliu is awarded a extra “vehement and impulsive character”. The Vallesan banker is reminded of statements the place he appealed to the necessity to create “a kind of rights of rights”, and 4 months in the past, in an act in Sabadell, he charged towards the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) for consulting the rivals of the Catalan entity for the OPA. “It’s like asking the fox if they let him go with the chickens,” he in contrast.

Oliu claims to be “deeply Catalan”, and people who know him clarify that he lived with penalty the switch of the headquarters to Alicante in 2017, a transfer that independence has not forgiven him even supposing, firstly of this 12 months, he formalized the return house.

Torres has utilized prudence and discretion even when the partisanship they’ve proven in favor of Sabadell entities which are purported to be a impartial position, comparable to foment of the treball or the Cercle d’Economia, has appreciated something within the BBVA. In the case of Cercle, as well as, there’s the annoying incontrovertible fact that who was its president till this week, Jaume Guardiola, was employed each from BBVA and Sabadell.

Torres, forofo of Real Madrid, acquired an allocation of eight million euros final 12 months. He doesn’t let his crew name him “president”, and prefers to be required by identify. Oliu exhibits little curiosity in soccer, and reserves his passion for equestrian and horses. He acquired a remuneration of 1.9 million euros in 2024, however in a latest interview in Tv3 He refused to be a bourgeois and most popular to current himself as a “accommodated worker.” Collaborators of the 2 managers clarify that the cordial therapy is imposed, even within the moments of extra stress attributable to the OPA.

Torres Vila is happy to speak about data methods and is a follower of the podcasts that, below the title We study collectivelydisseminates the entity that instructions. In one of many chapters it seems as an interviewee, and emphasizes that success is to behave with “effort and dedication”, somewhat than or to not obtain a outcome: “We will all happen to us that things do not come out as we expected, it is part of life,” he says.