BlackRock has reported that its stakes in BBVA and Banco Santander reach 7.4% and 6.2%, respectively, making the entity the largest shareholder of both banks, as well as strengthening its position as a shareholder of reference of the Spanish bank. In early January, the US firm reported to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. According to Thursday’s closing price of 3.68 euros, this means that the value of BlackRock’s stake in Santander is 3,856 million euros.
The data is in contrast to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), where only a 5.426% stake appears, which has not been updated since 2019. In parallel, BlackRock informed the SEC at the end of February that it had in its possession 445.7 million BBVA shares, representing 7.4% of the financial institution’s total capital. Based on the price of 7.26 euros at which BBVA shares closed on Thursday, this BlackRock stake is valued at market prices at 3,235 million euros.
As with Santander, the data that BlackRock has reported to the United States financial supervisor does not correspond to the one that has been sent to the Spanish supervisor. The CNMV shows that BlackRock’s stake is 5.917% since April 2019. The US financial company’s stakes in Santander and BBVA place it as its main shareholder, at a distance from the second.
One of the reference shareholders in the big bank
For both entities, according to data from ‘Bloomberg’, it is Norges Bank, the Norwegian pension fund, which has 3.37% in BBVA and 3.06% in Santander. In the case of CaixaBank, BlackRock is also one of its reference shareholders, since it is the third largest holder of shares in the bank, with 5.017%, behind CriteriaCaixa’s 30% and BFA’s 16.1%. , according to data from the CNMV.
Data from the Spanish financial regulator also indicates that BlackRock is the largest shareholder of Banco Sabadell, with 4.460%, which was reported on February 14. In the case of Bankinter, BlackRock is the fifth largest shareholder, with 3.002%, behind Cartival, Fernando Masaveu, Lazard and Fidelity. Unicaja Banco is the only Spanish listed bank in which BlackRock has no declared stakes in the CNMV. The data from the ‘Bloomberg’ terminal show that the US manager has 0.88% of the Andalusian bank’s capital.
