Exane 'moving off the fence' on Sabadell, upgrades to 'outperform'

** Exane BNP Paribas upgrades Banco Sabadell SABE.MC to "outperform" from "neutral", saying the lender's new management has an opportunity to reverse past decisions that led to "relatively low" return on tangible equity

** The broker says it is moving off the fence on Sabadell, seeing accelerating fees and lower non-performing assets management costs as the main drivers for RoTE improvement

** It sees the bank's RoTE at about 19% in 2028, 1 percentage point higher than the average for domestic Spanish names

** Exane adds it sees Sabadell's fees growing by 5.5% per year on average over 2025-2028, along with lower provisions

** It raises the lender's target price by 23% to €4.30

** Out of 23 analysts that cover Sabadell, seven rate the stock "strong buy" or "buy"​, 12 "hold" and four "sell" - LSEG data