President of CaixaBank, Jose Ignacio GorigolzarriBefore the corporate shareholders’ meeting this morning in Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències de València, it was “clearly positive” that the occupation of Ukraine had “made a radical change of scenery” compared to the previous environment, but the dangers of inflation were clearly emerging. Despite everything, the banker believes that the “improvement” will continue this year. “Although the uncertainty regarding the evolution of the global economy and especially the European economy is very high. Evidence of this is the enormous volatility we see in the financial markets, but also in the raw materials markets, especially energy markets” .
Given this scenario, the financial institution lowered its growth forecasts for the Spanish economy. 1.3 points from 5.5% before the invasion of Russia Ukraine 4.2% and places its forecast for annual average inflation growth in 2022 at 6.8%, three points lower than last March. Goirigolzarri believes that the effects of war “far outweigh the short-term impact on our economies.” According to him, “What we are experiencing will bring about geostrategic changes of enormous importance for the world and especially for Europe”.
CaixaBank President, who started his speech by emphasizing the “human drama” created by the war beyond its geostrategic and economic consequences, emphasized the “positive” response of the European Union and predicted the upcoming changes. “They will also affect the strategy of many companies, because paradigms are in a process of open scrutiny and the impact on supply chain redefinition is a clear example”.
In this response, Goirigolzarri stressed that the banking sector is facing a situation very different from the 2008 financial crisis, which caused a massive restructuring, and he declined to mention CaixaBank’s special strength in this context.because “we are the market leader in terms of business volume, we have a significant liquidity pad and this makes us very solvent”.
CEO Gonzalo Gortázar stressed that after Bankia’s integration process was completed last year, this operation “will soon cease to be an effort factor and will increasingly become a growth factor to achieve full commercial performance”. This is a dynamic that will be favored by “expectation”. There is a gradual increase in interest rates. It’s not possible to predict movements with certainty, but there is reason to think negative rates will soon be behind them” and “A gradual increase in interest rates will have a very positive translation on our interest margin line”.
At the CaixaBank shareholders meeting, a vote was taken on the dividend distribution to be reflected in the profit of 0.1463 Euros per share for the 2021 fiscal year, which will be effective from 20 April. In this way, the entity will pay its shareholders EUR 1,179 million, an amount equivalent to 50% of the consolidated net profit adjusted for the extraordinary effects of the merger with Bankia. Likewise, he should support the re-election of Tomás Muniesa as vice president. and private manager Eduardo Javier Sanchiz as an independent director, in both cases for a period of four years.
The entity’s governing body also reduces CaixaBank’s capital to a maximum of 10%, annual accounts, canceling the chairman’s vote in case of a tie in the board’s votes, and maintaining the remuneration of members of this governing body in 2022.