The State will delay his departure again from CaixaBank. The Government plans to extend the December 2025 limit at least until 2027, which will remain one of the main shareholders of the entity during the new three-year strategic plan that it presents this Tuesday, according to what they told They got up different financial sources.
It will be the fifth extension of the deadline to divest the stake inherited from the Bankia rescue. The current limit expires in December 2025but the Government wants to take advantage of the revaluation potential of the Catalan bank, which is trading near historical highs.
Official sources from the Ministry of Economy confirm that the delay is on the table and that everything indicates that this decision will be made. The State has in its hands the 18% of the Catalan entity after the purchase of Bankia in 2021, with a current market value of about 7.4 billion euros.
Only the La Caixa Foundation, through Criteria, has a larger stake in the bank: slightly above 30%. The giant also stands out BlackRockwhich controls just over 4% of the capital. Before the integration with CaixaBank, only two packages representing 14.5% were sold in the market. The last time was at the end of 2017, before Pedro Sanchez will arrive at La Moncloa.
Without political will
In fact, those around the FROB, the Spanish rescue fund, have been pointing out for months that the good stock market performance in the heat of rates was a favorable moment to resume privatization, as has happened in other countries such as Italy and Greece. But, according to sources close to the rescue fund, there has been no “political will.”
“CaixaBank is preparing a distribution of 11,000 million in dividends, according to the investment bank Jefferies
The change of privatization date only depends on the council of ministers. On previous occasions, the Government delayed the limit at least one year in advance and extended the deadline by another two. The Ministry of Economy considers that CaixaBank has an upward path despite the fact that the European Central Bank (ECB) has already started reducing the price of money and could accelerate them to avoid entering Europe into a technical recession. It is estimated that the entity has an upward trend of around 25%.
The department headed by Carlos Cuerpo supports the management of the bank’s leadership, which as of January will no longer have José Ignacio Goirigolzarri as president. The former top executive of Bankia will leave his duties after three and a half years at CaixaBank, where the footprint of the former rescued entity has been almost completely erased from the first line of management.
Pressure on the sector
The Frob sits on the council with a proprietary representative, Teresa Santero Quintillá. Although it does not directly interfere in the management of the bank, the Government uses this position to pressure the rest of the sector, as various top-level banking executives complain privately. CaixaBank controls about 25% of the market in Spain and any movement marks the way for competitors, as happened with deposits and with the mortgage agreement to alleviate installments in the midst of a rate rally.
In its new strategic plan, CaixaBank’s management team will seek to increase its profitability even in a context of lower rates. According to calculations by the investment bank Jefferies, it will announce a compensation target of 11 billion for the period 2025-2027. This figure represents 25% of its market capitalization.
It would be a figure similar to the previous roadmap, in which a goal of 9,000 million was first set between dividends and buybacks, but in the end the entity distributed 12,000 million due to the record increase in the price of money.
Profitability despite the fall in rates
The interest margin, which measures typical banking business, has already peaked, but, as Jefferies analysts expect, it will be offset by the boost in commercial activity, with an average annual growth in credit granting of 2%. With rates around 2%, the entity would be able to achieve sufficient profitability to cover the cost of capitalwith a ROTE (return on tangible equity) above 14% in 2027, at the end of the strategic plan. As of September this year, according to the latest published accounts, this ratio reached 16.9%.
Bankia received a public injection of more than 24,000 million euros for its recapitalization and that of Mare Nostrum counter (BMN), an entity that it bought in 2017. At the moment, the State has only recovered around 4,000 million via dividends from Bankia since 2014 and from CaixaBank in 2021 and 2022, and after the capital gains obtained from the sales of two packages representing a 14.5%.
Source: www.vozpopuli.com
