Deutsche Bank | Spanish banks have experienced a strong rebound in late 2024 and early 2025 (up 30% year-on-year), significantly outperforming their European peers. Driven by resilient NII, prospects for more stable interest rates and a generally benign macroeconomic environment in Spain supporting activity and asset quality, this positive trend could face potential temporary headwinds. Despite the encouraging results of Q4 2024 and the broadly positive outlook for 2025, the somewhat weaker H1 2025 could lead investors to adopt a more cautious stance. Although the outlook remains positive, potential headwinds are anticipated (mainly related to NII), mainly due to greater-than-expected competition, both in lending and, especially, in deposits. Although we expect rationality to prevail in the long term, we see a non-negligible risk that NII will be relatively disappointing at the beginning of the year, which could raise fears that profitability will be compromised by the risk of not meeting forecasts of declines in NII of between low and mid-single digits.
CaixaBank – Hold to sell, P.O. of €5.70 to €6.20; Banco Sabadell – Buy to hold, P.O. of €2.30 to €2.70; Banco Santander – Buy, P.O. from €5.80 to €7; Unicaja Banco – Buy and hold, P.O. from €1.60 to €1.75; BBVA Buy, P.O. from €11.75 to €13.95, Bankinter Buy, P.O. from €8.70 to €10.25.
