Puig Brands, the Catalan multinational family group for beauty and fashion, which is negotiating an integration with the American Estée Lauder, three times larger, brings to the table the process of ownership change of local companies that has been occurring over the last 20 years. This very week, the Japanese Marubeni Corporation has bought 85% of Factorenergia, founded in 1999 by Emili Rousaud, former candidate for the presidency of Barça, for 204 million euros. The ownership changes of Catalan companies have not stopped. Between 2005 and 2006, the sales of Panrico, by the Costafreda family, to the fund Apax Partners were closed; and that of Chupa Chups, founded by Enric Bernat in 1958, to the Italian Perfetti Van Melle. Bernat's heirs today operate Casa Batlló on Barcelona's Passeig de Gràcia, one of Antoni Gaudí's iconic buildings, which they bought in the 90s.

Celsa's shareholders, the creditor funds that acquired ownership, will contribute €800 million to refinance the steelmaker's debt. The board of directors has approved a two-part operation: a €200 million investment from the shareholders and a €600 million subordinated loan (these are loans that are last in line to be repaid in the event of bankruptcy proceedings). An extraordinary shareholders' meeting has been called for December 4th. These financial transactions will conclude the company's financial reorganization process. This process began with the capitalization resulting from the September 2023 court ruling, which mandated the transfer of ownership from the Rubiralta family to the creditor funds. A further cleanup of the accounts was also carried out at the close of that fiscal year, along with debt reduction through the sale of assets in the Nordic countries and the United Kingdom.

Three weeks after Criteria, the investment company of the La Caixa Foundation, definitively ruled out entering the capital of Celsa, the Catalan steel company has taken stock of 2024, in a year – the first since the creditor funds established themselves as new shareholders – which has closed with losses of 281 million euros, but which has also reduced its debt by 48%, to 1,793 million euros, the sale of its British and Scandinavian subsidiaries, and also with the help of a €109 million capital increase.

Another chapter in the Celsa case is coming to an end. Although Barcelona Commercial Court 2 will hear the case in September 2023, decided to hand over Celsa to some creditor funds, who had presented a restructuring plan to become the new owners of the company after accumulating billions of dollars in debt for years, the new management, now with the company under its arm, decided to take it to court again who had been its president until then, Francisco Rubiralta. He did so almost a year later, in mid-2024, in the case of a corporate liability action against him for loans worth €469 million granted to family holding companies that were already uncollectible because these companies were in bankruptcy proceedings. Now, Barcelona's Commercial Court No. 5 has ruled in favor of Rubiralta: it considers it proven that the loan was uncollectible and was known to be uncollectible by both the plaintiff company and its partners, debtors, and financial creditors.

Neither did Europastry. The other investment announced by Àngel Simón—the former CEO of Criteria, the investment arm of the La Caixa Foundation, who was dismissed a few weeks ago—has been definitively rejected by the current team, of which Francisco Reynés, executive chairman of Naturgy, is the first vice president.

Criteria, the investment company of the La Caixa Foundation, has definitively ruled out a stake in the Catalan steel company Celsa, currently owned by the former creditor funds. This investment was one of the factors that precipitated the dismissal of Criteria's former CEO, Àngel Simón. At the same time, the chairman of Naturgy (one of Criteria's main holdings), Francisco Reynés, joined the board and was later appointed first vice president. José María Méndez became CEO.

On April 16, just before the Easter holidays, something unusual occurred at La Caixa, the country's leading business conglomerate. The group chaired by Isidre Fainé is a world of "teamwork, with visible leaders, but without too much obsession with notoriety, and even less so with that related to conflicts," explain sources familiar with the universe of Miró's star.

There was a time when banks had powerful industrial portfolios. An example was Banesto, when Mario Conde was its chairman, which was swallowed up by Santander; or BBVA itself, which had been one of the key shareholders of Telefónica and Gamesa (now part of the Siemens group). When it was a savings bank, La Caixa was—and still is in some cases—the key partner in companies such as Gas Natural (now Naturgy), Agbar, Abertis, and Repsol, and it maintained this vocation, which was frowned upon by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of Spain.

New industrial venture from the investment arm of the La Caixa Foundation. CriteriaCaixa has reached an agreement in principle with Celsa Group, Europe's leading producer of low-emission circular steel, to acquire a stake in its capital through a capital increase. The transaction, with which the financial institution makes a clear commitment to one of the largest industries based in Catalonia and will result in approximately 20% of the shares, is expected to close in the coming weeks.