The Government does not want to exceed the current 18.1% stake in CaixaBank. The State received 16% of the bank through the Banking Orderly Restructuring Fund (FROB) when the merger with Bankia was approved in 2020, but the quota has risen above 18% due to the share buyback programs approved by CaixaBank. However, the Government does not want to increase it further, as revealed by the Minister of Economy, Carlos Corpo, this weekend in an interview with The Vanguard.
In practice, it means that the FROB will sell securities when CaixaBank activates new buyback programs to maintain its constant position in the entity, Ministry sources confirmed to this newspaper. One is currently underway, practically completed, and the bank announced another, worth 500 million, which will begin on the 19th. CaixaBank has declined to comment.
Its shares are trading near their all-time highs, boosted by good results in the face of rising interest rates. Yesterday it closed with a price of 5.56 euros per share, somewhat below the 5.85 euros marked on November 4 at the end of the trading session. It assumes that the State’s participation is around 7,230 million.
But the Executive believes that there is still room to go. Therefore, for the moment, it intends to maintain that position to maximize the value of its participation and, in this way, recover the largest possible amount of the more than 22,000 million in aid injected by the Bankia rescue more than a decade ago and which rose to 24,069 million when the entity integrated BMN. Taking into account the value of its current participation in CaixaBank, the collection of dividends since 2014 and the sale of 14.5% that it carried out in Bankia between 2014 and 2017, the State would recover almost half of the total amount.
The Government maintains the exit of CaixaBank’s capital on the roadmap and should do so before December 2025. A deadline that has already been extended four times in 2016, 2018, 2021 and 2022 due, at that time, to the unfavorable situation in markets for divestment. Sources from the Ministry affirm that there is still one year left for this period to expire, therefore, currently there is no other extension on the table. The FROB is the second shareholder of the Catalan bank, behind the 31% in the hands of the “La Caixa” Banking Foundation.
Buyback programs
Given the good evolution of the business, in line with the banking sector, the entity decided to distribute 12,000 million euros to shareholders between dividends and share buyback programs, within the framework of its 2022-2024 strategic plan. Of that amount, it has already spent about 9.5 billion.
Specifically, of those 12 billion, almost a third was allocated to buyback programs. The penultimate one, of 500 million, announced in July, is about to run out, according to what the bank communicated to the CNMV last week. But on the occasion of the third quarter results, the entity notified the launch of another buyback program, the fifth within the framework of its 2022-24 strategic plan, worth 500 million euros and which will begin at some point from November 19.
The same date on which the bank will present its next strategy for 2025-2027. So far this year, CaixaBank has appreciated 49% on the stock market, being the third Ibex value that has risen the most behind IAG and Banco Sabadell.
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