Who owns the Spanish stock exchange?

BarcelonaA large portion of the Ibex 35's trillion-euro value, the main index of the Spanish stock market, is held by funds and similar entities, with a significant foreign presence. Among the main shareholders are the world's largest asset manager, BlackRock, and Criteria, the investment arm of La Caixa bank, which holds the largest portfolio of corporate holdings in Spain, valued at over €37 billion. The state's shareholding is gaining ground in the share ownership structure, reaching levels not seen for more than two decades, while direct investment by households is declining, falling to what it was 32 years ago, according to a report by Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (BME), the Swiss operator of the Spanish stock exchange. Institutional investor participation continues, driving companies and stock market indices to record highs thanks to the gains experienced by shares despite geopolitical uncertainties. Four companies listed on the Ibex 35 have a market capitalization exceeding €100 billion. They are Inditex, Banco Santander, Iberdrola, and BBVA.

Broadly speaking, based on 2024 data, there has been a decline in the shareholding of small shareholders, that is, families, who now represent 15.8% of the total, which, according to the study, is "the lowest in the last 32 years." Their participation peaked in the late 1990s with the wave of privatizations, from the former Tabacalera tobacco company to Telefónica and Endesa. In any case, they remain the third largest shareholder group, after foreign investors and non-financial corporations. The significant presence of individual investors or families has historically been a defining characteristic of the Spanish stock market, reaching a high of 35.1% in 1998, the culmination of the privatization of public companies. By the end of 2024, their share had fallen to less than half of that figure.

Behind families are investment funds and insurance companies, and almost tied are banks and savings banks, which had a much larger presence in the capital of Ibex companies in the 1990s and gradually divested their industrial holdings, often under mandates from the European Central Bank (ECB).

In fact, although it is not the main player, the public sector has increased its stake as an owner, holding 4.1% of the total, the highest proportion in 27 years, according to the BME study. The entry of the State, through the public holding company SEPI, into Telefónica's capital with a 10% stake has been a significant factor, countering the arrival of Saudi Telecom Company (STC), with 9.97%, and Criteria, the investment company of La Caixa, which matches the public stake in the telecommunications operator.

La Caixa's investment company is the leading Spanish portfolio of corporate holdings. Of the Ibex 35 companies, in addition to Telefónica, Criteria is the largest shareholder of CaixaBank, with 31%; Naturgy, with 23.96%; and Colonial, with 17.32%, and the second largest shareholder of ACS, with 9.36%. Furthermore, the president of the La Caixa Foundation and of Criteria, Isidre Fainé, is vice president of both ACS and Telefónica. Criteria also holds stakes in companies listed on the continuous market and in others that are not publicly traded, such as Aigües de Barcelona, ​​along with Agbar (now called Veolia, the French multinational that owns itand the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB). It also owns 5% of Veolia and 18% of the Belgian company Interparking, after integrating Saba. For its part, the State, in addition to Telefónica, is also the main shareholder of the airport operator Aena, through Enaire, which reports to the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility and holds 51%; it is a major shareholder in Enagás, with 5%, and owns 25.159% of Indra and 20% of Redeia, which controls Red Eléctrica.

In any case, foreign investors remain the main shareholders, holding 48.7%, three-tenths of a percentage point less than the previous year. There are a total of 8,634 private institutional funds, with a significant presence from the US and the rest of Europe, especially in the companies listed on the Ibex 35, which have the largest market capitalization. Their holdings at the end of the first quarter of the current year exceeded €207 billion. BlackRock, Vanguard, and Capital Group are the private asset managers with the largest number of funds and holdings in Ibex 35 companies. In addition, 22 sovereign wealth funds—that is, those established by states—hold holdings worth €34.937 billion. The largest is the Norwegian Norges Bank Investment Management, with holdings in the 35 Ibex companies worth €13.277 billion. The second is Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the largest single shareholder in Iberdrola, with 8.694% of the capital, and the second largest in Colonial, with 16.367%, with total holdings worth more than €12 billion. And the third is the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which holds shares in 15 IBEX companies, worth €1.795 billion.

Record in 2022

Despite being the main investors, foreign investors have been reducing their stake for the past two years. The highest level, which represented an all-time record, was registered in 2022, with 50.3% ownership. This 50% threshold had been surpassed for the first time in 2019. In any case, their share has grown considerably over the last 25 years.

The internationalization of equity stakes in many Spanish companies "has been a constant since the 1990s," says BME. "In parallel, the ownership and financing of these same companies have also diversified thanks to international investors and a Spanish stock market that has largely satisfied the requirements of the most demanding investors in terms of technology, accessibility, efficiency, and transparency," it adds.

The main investors within the foreign group are the so-called institutional investors, that is, investment and pension fund managers, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, venture capital funds or private equity and even investment banks and intermediaries that hold equity portfolios. According to FactSet data for the first quarter of 2025, of the €207 billion held by the 8,634 private funds participating in IBEX companies, European funds represent 70.7% of the total funds and 48.7% of the market capitalization. The United States comes in second, with 25% of the total funds but 46.9% of the market value. Its holdings are primarily channeled through vehicles such as traditional investment funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which passively track indices of listed stocks from the world's major stock markets, and also through private equity funds. All these types of investors became widely known with BBVA's takeover bid for Banc Sabadell, in which BBVA hoped to attract all these types of investors. However, the possibility of a second round of the operation, after acquiring 30% of the capital, ultimately led to the demise of the deal. Of the 72 fund managers with more than €500 million invested in the Ibex 35, 11 hold shares in all the companies of the Spanish index. These 11 include the US firms Vanguard and BlackRock, the French firm Amundi, and the Spanish firms Santander AM, CaixaBank AM, and BBVA AM, among others, according to the report.

Among the world's leading asset management groups, BlackRock stood out at the close of the first quarter of 2025 with holdings in the Ibex 35 index representing 15.6% of the total market capitalization of its shares, distributed among its entities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Auongaong, and Singapore. In second place was the Vanguard Group, with holdings of €22.989 billion, or 11.1% of the total.

BlackRock is the world's leading asset management company, and its enormous figures are unmatched by any other entity. In total, it manages assets equivalent to approximately US$13.5 trillion; €15.7 trillion at the current exchange rate at the end of the third quarter of this year. Vanguard, another of the sector's giants, managed assets worth US$10.1 trillion (€11.7 trillion).