France’s BPCE has bought a 7 per cent stake in Spanish lender Sabadell in a “friendly” deal, a year after BBVA’s hostile takeover approach on its domestic peer collapsed.
BPCE, which owns Natixis investment bank, has been expanding outside its French home market under chief executive Nicolas Namias in the past few years, including with the €6.5bn acquisition of Portugal’s Novo Banco announced in 2025.
It said on Tuesday it had bought the Sabadell stake — worth just under €1.2bn at current prices — on the market, and aimed to become a long-term shareholder in the Spanish bank, Spain’s fourth largest. The banks underscored “the friendly nature of this equity investment” in a joint statement, adding that BPCE would not raise its stake above 9.9 per cent.
“This was evidently a concerted move,” Namias told reporters. He added that the banks were both big financiers of small and medium-sized businesses and would explore strategic partnerships together. “There’s a will to build a friendly and stable partnership.”
BPCE aims to have a seat on Sabadell’s board.
The deal will bolster Sabadell after it was targeted in a hostile €17bn takeover bid by its larger Spanish rival BBVA, which began in 2024 after the bank rejected a friendly approach.
Sabadell fought fiercely against the BBVA bid, arguing that the lender would create more value for shareholders as a standalone entity. BBVA ultimately failed in October 2025, with its bid accepted only by Sabadell shareholders owning a quarter of the bank’s stock.
Following BBVA’s failed bid, David Martínez, a Mexican billionaire and Sabadell shareholder who had backed the takeover attempt, sold a 1.6 per cent stake in the bank, reducing his holding to just under 2 per cent.
“This transaction strengthens our ability to continue executing our strategic plan,” said Marc Armengol, Sabadell’s CEO.
Borja Ramirez Segura, analyst at Citi, said the transaction was an “endorsement” of Sabadell’s standalone strategy.
But he added there could still be implications for future consolidation in the Spanish banking sector. “The arrival of a friendly strategic shareholder with board representation ambitions could . . . strengthen [Sabadell’s] position in any future consolidation discussions,” he wrote in a research note.
BPCE, France’s second-biggest retail bank formed by the combination of Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne in 2009, has been pursuing acquisitions as it looks to lessen its reliance on France.
Its bid to tie up Natixis Investment Managers with Italian insurer Generali to create a European asset management champion unravelled in late 2025, however, after opposition from the Italian government.