Four Catalan Ibex companies that do not comply with parity on their boards
For the first time, the Ibex 35 group exceeds the 40% of women required by law
BarcelonaThe companies that are part of the Spanish stock market index, the Ibex 35, closed 2024 together exceeding for the first time the parity required by law, of at least 40% of women in the highest executive bodies, according to the XIII Report on Women on the Boards of Directors of the Ibex 35 and the VIII X-ray of the continuous market, which are prepared annually by the consultancy firm Atrevia and the Iese business school. Of the 35 companies in the index, 25 meet the objective, but there are 10 that do not, including four Catalan companies: Naturgy, Fluidra, Puig and Grifols. Solaria, Ferrovial, Telefónica, Sacyr and Acerinox also do not reach 40%.
Among the 25 that meet the parameter, some exceed 50% female presence, including the Catalan Cellnex. Inditex, Logista and Redeia also have more than half of women on the board. And the most feminised board in the Ibex 35 is Bankinter, with almost two thirds of women (63.64%) on its governing body.
Specifically, of the total members of the boards of directors of the companies in the Spanish stock market index, 41.22% were women. The same does not occur with listed companies that are part of the continuous market, where the female presence on the boards of directors had a weight of 36.4%. In the case of the Ibex 35, the presence of women improved by 1.4 percentage points (from 39.82% in 2023 to 41.22% in 2024). That is, it went from 176 women on the boards of directors of the 35 companies to 183.
In the case of the continuous market, the female weight on the boards of directors improved by 1.85 percentage points and stood at 36.34% in 2024. In fact, 32 new women – double the number from the previous year – were added to the boards of these companies and they are now 439 of the 1,208 members that the boards of directors of these companies have in total.
The report analyses the highest body of 118 companies in total, between the selective and the continuous market. There are 56 companies (47.46%) that met the minimum established of 40% female presence. This objective of 40% is set by the European directive and the law of equal representation and balanced presence of women and men, which came into force last August. This law establishes that the boards of directors of listed companies must have a composition that guarantees at least 40% of people of the less represented sex. Among all the listed companies that comply with the regulations, 25 belong to the selective and 31 to the rest of the continuous and, in total, they add up to 16 more than the previous year.
Despite the improvement in compliance, for another year six companies in the continuous market (head of the Ibex) did not have female directors, according to the study, the same number as last year, although the composition changes with the departure of Nextil and the entry of Soltec, which joins the list with Berkeley Energia, Borges, Borges. In the Ibex, all companies have at least two female directors.
Consumer and financial services, at the forefront
By sector, the companies with the highest female representation on their boards of directors are consumer services and financial services, both exceeding the 40% threshold: 42.42% and 42.24%, respectively. The average number of women per company also increases in both sectors: financial services registers the highest value (5.23), followed by consumer services, with 4.38, both categories exceeding the average of 3.83 for all listed companies.
Oil and energy, which in recent years had been in the lead, lost ground, going from 39.85% to 37.41%, as did technology and communications, which also registered a drop in the percentage of women on their boards (from 37.84% to 36.62%). Real estate services are once again the sector with the lowest percentage of women on boards of directors, although female representation continues to gain weight, going from 27.41% to 31.78%. In addition, it has the lowest number of women per company, with 2.80, more than one point below the average. Industry and construction experienced a drop, from 33.75% to 32.01% of female representation on their boards, also reducing the average number of women per company (from 3.57 to 3.35).