Spain’s Banco Sabadell approved Wednesday moving its headquarters back to Catalonia, the first major firm to do so after thousands left in the wake of the region’s failed 2017 independence bid.
The move was agreed by the lender’s board at an extraordinary meeting and comes as Sabadell is fighting a hostile takeover bid from its larger rival BBVA.
The bank, which was founded in 1881 in Sabadell, a city of around 200,000 located north of Barcelona, has cited its importance to the wealthy northeastern region’s economy as one of the reasons for opposing the takeover bid launched in May.
The board decided “that the time is right to return to its place of origin now that the circumstances that motivated its move over seven years ago no longer exist,” Sabadell said in a statement.
The bank relocated its legal headquarters to Alicante in the neighbouring region of Valencia in October 2017, shortly after Catalonia pushed ahead with a secession referendum deemed illegal by the courts which was followed by a short-lived declaration of independence.
Some 7,000 companies from all sectors moved their headquarters out of Catalonia at the time, including Sabadell’s rival CaixaBank.
Many customers had withdrawn their deposits from banks headquartered in Catalonia to protect themselves from the possible impact of a unilateral declaration of independence.
If Catalonia had succeeded in breaking away from Spain, the European Central Bank’s deposit insurance scheme would no longer protect bank customers in the region.
The head of the regional government of Catalonia, Salvador Illa of Spain’s ruling Socialist party, said Sabadell’s decision was “good news” that shows “we are on the right track”.
Illa became head of Catalonia’s government last year following a regional election, ending more than a decade of separatist rule.
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