La Caixa
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| Private not-for-profit | |
| Industry | Financial services and Insurance |
| Headquarters | Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain |
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Key people
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Isidre Fainé Casas (President) Joan Maria Nin (Chief Executive Officer) |
| Products | Commercial bank |
| € 2.488 Billion (2007) | |
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Number of employees
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27,740 (September 2008) |
| Website | www.lacaixa.es |
La Caixa (Catalan pronunciation: [ɫə ˈkaʃə]), formally Caixa d'Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona (Spanish: Caja de Ahorros y Pensiones de Barcelona), is Spain's third largest financial institution, with a network of over 5,800 branches, more than 9,500 automated teller machines, a workforce in excess of 31,900 and more than 13 million customers.
Today's La Caixa is the result of the July 27, 1990 merger between the Caja de Pensiones para la Vejez y de Ahorros de Cataluña y Baleares, founded in 1904, and the Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Barcelona, founded in 1844. From the beginning, La Caixa focused on savings for families and offering its customers security in their old age, when this type of social provision did not yet exist in Spain. Owing to its origins, it is a financial institution, albeit not for profit and charitable and social in nature, with a private board of trustees, independent of any other company or institution.
Similarly, the Group has a portfolio of industrial interests in companies mainly in the infrastructure, energy and communications sectors. In November 2006, the La Caixa Board of Directors approved the company portfolio of holdings' listing on the stock market, through the Criteria CaixaCorp company, which came into effect on October 10, 2007.
In January 29, 2008, Criteria CaixaCorp was added to the IBEX 35 stock market index.
On January 27, 2011, the Board of Directors of La Caixa announced the reorganisation of the Group, by virtue of which La Caixa transfers its banking business to Criteria CaixaCorp, which becomes a banking group called CaixaBank, and Criteria CaixaCorp transfers part of its industrial participations to a new unquoted entity that depends on La Caixa.
On June 30, 2011, all the banking business of La Caixa, including consumer banking, private banking and asset management, was transferred to CaixaBank. All the branch offices now use CaixaBank name while keeping the logo of La Caixa.
CaixaBank brings together the banking business of La Caixa, the insurance business and the participations in international banks and in Telefónica and Repsol. The bank is founded with a leadership position in the Spanish financial and insurance sector, and additionally diversified in with other complementary activities. It also has some 5,200 branches, the lowest ratio of arrears among the large Spanish financial groups, the best coverage and the best position of capital.
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Wikipedia