Lloyds Banking Group’s retail banking business in Spain now part of Banco Sabadell

24-7-2013 — /EuropaWire/ — As of today (07/08/2013), Banco Sabadell is responsible for the retail banking business of Lloyds Banking Group in Spain, until now part of Lloyds Bank International S.A.U. and Lloyds Investment Bank España SGIIC S.A.U. This transaction, announced in April, was completed this morning in Madrid.

The operation enables Banco Sabadell to further strengthen its franchise in the non-resident retail banking segment and makes it a partner of Lloyds Banking Group in Spain, with which it has also established a long-term strategic alliance.

Josep Oliu, Chairman of Banco Sabadell: “This transaction represents an opportunity to strengthen our position in the non-resident segment in Spain, and allows us to include among our shareholders a prestigious international partner such as Lloyds, with which we have also signed a strategic agreement that includes mutual recommendation and preferential treatment of customers and the application of businesses in our respective countries.”

Commenting on the transaction completion and the signing of the collaboration agreement, António Horta-Osório, Group Chief Executive, Lloyds Banking Group said: “Lloyds Banking Group and Banco Sabadell share an absolute focus on providing our customers with excellent products and service. Establishing a long term strategic partnership, as we are today, will allow us to bring the very best of our propositions for the benefit of our respective and mutual Retail and Commercial customers.”

This transaction, which was completed in line with the calendar, includes the transfer of 28 branches of Lloyds Bank International in Spain and of the 53,000 customers, most of them non-residents, served on a daily basis. The business transferred by Lloyds in Spain consists mostly of deposits and mortgages by individual customers, and amounts to approximately 1,591 million euro in loans and 770 million euro in customer deposits (as of the end of April 2013).

The consideration established today was 84 million euro, to be paid with the delivery of 53.7 million shares of Banco Sabadell from treasury stock, representing 1.8% of share capital, making Lloyds a stable shareholder of Banco Sabadell.

The transaction includes the establishment of an agreement of mutual recommendation and preferential treatment of individual customers, SMEs and large companies and the collaboration and combination of capacities in the commercial banking businesses.

Under the agreement, Lloyds guarantees that its UK customers in Spain will be served at the 2,305 Banco Sabadell branches with the same level of service to date, and will also benefit from a distinct product offer specifically for this customer segment. In exchange, Banco Sabadell customers in the UK will be served in similar conditions and under the same service parameters at the 2,940 Lloyds Banking Group branches.

Once the transaction is completed, the banks are expected to conclude the definitive integration of teams and businesses in the first quarter of 2014.

Banco Sabadell’s experience in banking for non-residents dates back to 1996, when it acquired NatWest group in Spain. That business was rebranded as Solbank (today SabadellSolbank), which focuses on non-resident European clients on Spain’s Mediterranean Coast and in the Balearic Islands.

Banco Sabadell currently has more than 270,000 customers in central and northern Europe, of which 48% are UK nationals.

Contact us

António Horta-Osório (left) and Josep Oliu