Fundación Bancaria “la Caixa”
The Fundación Bancaria “la Caixa” , based in Valencia, is a non-profit Spanish foundation with extensive banking, industrial and real estate investments. The foundation is the legal successor of the former savings bank “la Caixa” ( catal. La caixa dt. 'The cash', full name: catal. Caixa d'Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona dt. 'Savings and pension fund of Barcelona'); As part of a restructuring in 2011, the entire banking business was transferred to the listed Caixabank , in which the foundation now holds 40%. Caixabank is the largest retail bank in Spain.
history
The predecessor institution, the 'Pension, Retirement and Savings Bank for Catalonia and the Balearic Islands' ( Caixa de Pensions per a la Vellesa i d'Estalvis de Catalunya i Balears or Caja de Pensiones para la Vejez y de Ahorros de Cataluña y Baleares ) was founded on April 5, 1904 by the lawyer Francesc Moragas with the aim of creating better conditions for the investment of savings and pension funds. In 1990 there was a merger with the Savings and Loan Bank Barcelona 'founded in 1844 ( Caixa d'Estalvis i Mont de Pietat de Barcelona or Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Barcelona ), the oldest Catalan savings bank.
Politically, the Caixa was considered to be close to the Spanish Socialists (PSOE) , while its main competitor, the former Caja Madrid (merged into the later nationalized Bankia in the course of the Spanish banking crisis ), was dominated by the conservative Spanish People's Party (PP) .
In 2007 Caixa's investment company, Criteria CaixaCorp, which held extensive stakes in industry and real estate (including stakes in Abertis , Gas Natural , Suez ), was floated on the Madrid stock exchange in order to raise capital for further growth in the banking business. At that time, Caixa was the third largest credit institution in Spain and the largest savings bank in Europe. In the course of a far-reaching restructuring, in 2011 the entire operational banking and insurance business, as well as all banking and insurance holdings of Caixa, were transferred to the listed Criteria CaixaCorp and renamed Caixabank; At the same time, the industrial holdings and the real estate portfolio of the former Criteria CaixaCorp were outsourced and combined in a new holding company, CriteriaCaixa. The foundation initially held 76% of Caixabank, but has diluted its stake to 40% today (as of summer 2017) following multiple capital measures and no longer holds the majority on the Board of Directors of Caixabank.
At the beginning of October 2017, the foundation decided to move its headquarters to Palma de Mallorca after the threat of considerable legal uncertainty in the wake of the Catalan independence referendum ; at the same time, Caixabank moved their headquarters to Valencia and Criteriacaixa also to Palma de Mallorca.
Culture and society
The charitable activities of the foundation are carried out through the Obra Social "la Caixa" ; it is one of the main players in the cultural life of Spain. With an annual budget of 500 million euros (2008), it is one of the five best-funded foundations in the world. Three fifths of the budget is spent on social issues, with around 80 million each going into research, the environment and culture. And just as the company logo of la Caixa, created by Joan Miró , has spread across Spain from its headquarters in Barcelona, so la Caixa is also expanding as an art institution, for example in museums, auditoriums and conference centers, which are known as CaixaForum in numerous Spanish cities a wide range of activities for the public, from music and visual arts to social programs, education and humanities.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Caixabank: Quienes somos , company website, accessed October 7, 2017 (Spanish)
- ↑ Expansion: CaixaBank traslada su sede a Valencia y La Fundación Bancaria La Caixa y Criteria a Palma , October 7, 2017 (Spanish)