Antoni Bassas' analysis: 'Behind the return of La Caixa'

Today everything is brought to La Caixa and to its president, Isidre Fainé, because yesterday afternoon La Caixa announced that he was returning to CataloniaSince 2017, the headquarters have been in Palma, Mallorca.

We need: what They are back with the La Caixa Foundation and its investment group Criteria. The Fundación la Caixa is one of the world's leading foundations. This year, for example, its social and cultural work (increasingly more social than cultural) will distribute 655 million euros. Where does all this money come from? From the profits of Criteria, whose asset portfolio now amounts to some 29 billion euros. Criteria has stakes in Naturgy, Telefónica, ACS, Colonial, Veolia and Puig.

What has not been returned is CaixaBank, the bank in which more than half the country has an account. The headquarters will continue to be in Valencia. For now, what CaixaBank's top executive, Gonzalo Cortázar, said a few weeks ago is valid: "There is nothing new, we are still in Valencia, our vocation to be in Valencia has no deadlines, so we are talking about an indefinite nature. We will not move the headquarters." And he added that the CaixaBank of today "is now a different entity" from that of 2017, among other things because it absorbed Bankia in 2021.

The decision to return the headquarters of the La Caixa Foundation and Criteria to Catalonia is a business one. As they said yesterday in the statement, "the circumstances that caused the temporary transfer of the headquarters to Palma in 2017 no longer exist," so it is good for business. And it is good for the legacy that Isidre Fainé wants to leave behind. He will turn 83 this year and has always had to answer the same question since 2017: when will he return?

But at the same time, the political significance of the decision is enormous, and the great beneficiary is Pedro Sánchez and, later, Salvador Illa. We return to the statement: "The circumstances are no longer met." This morning on TV3 the Minister of Economy declared: "Now the conditions are met to make natural decisions," ergo the conditions are me, Pedro Sánchez, the PSOE. Just when the PP insists that

Spain is breaking up, the State is emptying in Catalonia, the market answers no, Spain is sufficiently united for Barcelona to stop being seen by the market as a politically and legally unstable place. The gift that this means for Sánchez allows him to repeat that the unity of Spain is in danger when the PP governs, not the PSOE.

The departure of CaixaBank in 2017 was a hard blow for Catalonia, and it was a decision that could be justified by the panic of the moment, although it was an alarm raised by the State, from the king down, to obtain punishment. What did not make much sense for the Foundation to leave: how could a Foundation that distributed hundreds of millions of euros throughout Spain every year be unpopular or affected by a boycott? And the fact that CaixaBank is not returning now is the same. If now "the circumstances are no longer present" negative for the Foundation and for Criteria, why is CaixaBank not returning (which would be the equivalent of the return of Banc Sabadell)? It is the largest bank on the Peninsula, is listed on the Ibex and 18% belongs to Spain. That departure of La Caixa entrusted panic to another 4,000 companies. Now that La Caixa has returned, in part, will they all return?

Good morning.