CAIXABANK has announced this evening (Friday) that it will be moving its head office out of Barcelona and into Valencia, Spain's third-largest city.
The glass-and-chrome tower block housing the headquarters of CaixaBank is difficult to miss when strolling through the centre of the north-eastern city, and the company started out in Catalunya before gradually branching out around Spain.
Its loss will be a major blow to the financial services market in the region, although not to Spain as a whole, given that Valencia will gain from becoming the central hub of one of the country's biggest banks.
CaixaBank bosses fear Catalunya's regional president Carles Puigdemont will issue a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI, or DUI in Spanish) this coming week as he has already threatened to do now that 90% of those who managed to vote on Sunday opted for the region to secede from Spain.
In total, 42% of those eligible to vote – all adults aged 16 or over living in or native of Catalunya – cast their ballots, and only 7.5% voted against independence, while a further 2.5% votes were annulled due to errors, or were blank ballots.
Even though Puigdemont's UDI would not be recognised internationally, CaixaBank wants to 'protect its legal and regulatory security' and the interests of its customers, shareholders and employees – company bosses recall that if Catalunya were to be considered an independent nation, it would automatically be outside the European Union and therefore no longer in the Eurozone.
Chairman Jordi Gual says moving the bank's head office address will not mean employees forced to relocate, although the roles of many of them may need to change.
Until Banco Popular is fully absorbed by Banco Santander, CaixaBank will continue to be the market leader in the sector in Spain with the largest customer base in the country.
One in four adult residents in Spain are CaixaBank customers – about 14 million – and the company holds around 30% of the national market share.
Of CaixaBank's 5,000 branches across Spain, 1,300 – or 26% - are in Catalunya.
CaixaBank's decision follows on from that of Banco Sabadell, which has opted to leave the Barcelona-province town of the same name and set up its head office in Alicante.
And an extraordinary general meeting this evening called by Gas Natural Fenosa has also led to a decision to leave Catalunya – the firm is already working on moving its headquarters to Madrid.
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