Noa de la Torre Valencia
Valencia
Updated Friday, February 2, 2024-12:32
CaixaBank
presented its 2023 results this Friday, a year that leaves the financial institution with a total of 4,816 million euros of record profit, 53.9% more than the previous year. However, the inevitable question that the president and the CEO have had to answer was not so much about numbers as it was about politics.
Junts
' demand from
Pedro Sánchez
's Government
for a plan that encourages the return of companies to
Catalonia
has put companies like CaixaBank in the spotlight. For the entity, however, the question of headquarters is not even under discussion.
The president of CaixaBank,
José Ignacio Goirigolzarri
, has been clear about this: "Valencia is the best place for our business." He said it this Friday at the traditional press conference in Valencia, the bank's headquarters since it decided to leave Catalonia in 2017 at the height of the
process
. What's more, he has even hinted that the bank is no longer the Catalan entity it was in the past.
"The configuration of CaixaBank changed due to the merger with Bankia, increasing its presence in markets such as Valencia and Madrid," insisted the president, who recalled that both CaixaBank and Bankia then had their headquarters in Valencia. "In the first board of directors we had after the merger, we reflected on the headquarters and concluded that it would continue to be Valencia."
"Not for reasons of security or legal insecurity," said Goirigolzarri, who in any case refused to evaluate the threats from Junts, which had proposed a system of fines for companies that refused to return to Catalonia. According to the president, the decision was "because it was the best for our depositors and shareholders." "We said that we were in Valencia with a vocation to stay and that has not changed. We continue to think the same thing," he insisted.