Olivas affirms that the Bank of Spain pressed politically to merge Bancaja with Caja Madrid

Olivas affirms that the Bank of Spain pressed politically to merge Bancaja with Caja Madrid

The one that was 'number two' of Bankia was opposed at first by the "complexity" of the operation, but defends that the Levantine entity had greater solvency that the average of the sector

  The Bank of Spain seemed to want at all costs the integration of half a dozen savings banks, the most important Caja Madrid and Bancaja , which later gave birth to Bankia . This has coincided in recent weeks during the trial held at the National Court for its listing on the stock market the four main responsible for the bank, the only ones accused by the Anticorruption Prosecutor for a crime of fraud to investors, with a petition for sentences of between five and two years and seven months in prison: former president Rodrigo Rato , former executive director José Manuel Fernández Norniella , former CEO Francisco Verdúand, this same Monday, that it was vice president of the group, José Luis Olivas.

  Olivas even tried to show, as Fernández Norniella and Verdú did, that his responsibility was limited despite the importance of his position. Still, and questions from the prosecutor Carmen Launa, who has rejoined the trial after a month off, acknowledged that it was he who put as a requirement in the discussions with the financial supervisor to be vice president of the new bank after the merger. "I asked for strictly image reasons," he said. it was logical that if the president had to be from Caja Madrid (Rodrigo Rato) the vice president would be the second most important entity, which was Bancaja ».

What did deny this expolitic - on a trajectory similar to that of Rato had a significant position in the Administration (president of the Valencian Community to replace Eduardo Zaplana) before entering as a senior in the financial sector - was that his salary was Approximately one million euros, although the prosecutor insisted that this was proven in the data that appear in the procedure. "No way", he replied with some anger, while saying that because of his position in BFA ( Bankia's parent company ) he did not charge anything and that in the bank he only had a contract for two months "since September 2011 and I do not remember how much copper". But Launa replied that BFA was 12,000 euros and Bankia 1.4 million.

In Bancaja he was "non-executive" president, he emphasized in his interrogation to claim that he had no freedom of decision at the head of the entity - "he was one more advisor, without specific functions", he added - despite which he maintained that initially he resisted the merger with other savings banks. "I told him (the deputy governor of the Bank of Spain, Javier Ariztegui) that he did not see it because we had a 52% solvency above the required one," he explained, as well as observing "an important complexity" in an operation that supposed "the integration of seven different boxes with their own computer systems and with different auditors ».

But then the governor of the Bank of Spain (BdE) himself, then Miguel Ángel Fernández Ordóñez , came in and called to "convince me of the convenience of the operation" because it would generate "greater synergies". "He made macroeconomic reflections - he continued in his response to the prosecutor - and, in the end, he has his authority and we must not lose sight of the fact that financial entities are supervised by them (BdE)", so Olivas ended up accepting «If there is no other way». Of course, he warned then that "he would have difficulties for the board of directors (Bancaja) to accept and also with the Valencian authorities", so he asked him to help him "get the support.

«Timely management»
"The governor told me yes, made the necessary arrangements and was approved unanimously." "He told me not to worry," he added, "and the truth is that the council ended up approving the entire integration project unanimously." "I know he spoke to certain advisors of a certain weight," he declared without further ado, "and I suppose he would explain the same reasons to me." "The fact is that I found that in the end I had no opposition," he concluded.

Launa, however, also questioned him about the role of the auditors in the merger and whether it did not seem to him that there was "incompatibility" in which the same firm that reviewed the accounts of Caja Madrid and Bancaja ( Deloitte ) acted as a consultant, together with the AFI consultancy, to support the integration. "The Bank of Spain," he argued, "was interested in everything being done well but with some speed", "because of that," he argued, "it was convenient that we did not come with a new auditor who did not know the balance sheets and needed a year to get to know them." .

In any case, he defended that they were "true professionals (auditors)" and that "he was not up to date with the analysis they were doing", while emphasizing that the Bank of Spain and the FROB "were aware". The supervisor himself approved the plan in June 2010, he said, "and that gave me the greatest confidence in the world."