That is how the Spanish State made the economic war against Catalonia.
La Zarzuela and La Moncloa joined forces to force changes of
headquarters of banks, large companies and multinationals to spread
panic among the population. Catalan managers explain what happened.
Thus the State made the economic war against Catalonia
The Zarzuela and the Moncloa were united to force changes of
headquarters of banks, large companies and multinationals and spread
panic. Catalan managers explain what happened
"The
king is the head of the State, symbol of his unity and permanence,
arbitrates and moderates the regular functioning of the institutions,
assumes the highest representation of the Spanish state." Thus article 56 of the Constitution begins, the first of those referring to the Crown.
Only from a generous interpretation of the article can the frantic
activity presented to the monarch be understood during the days after
the referendum on October 1, 2017.
Felip VI intervened personally in the most convulsive week that has
experienced the Catalan economy in recent years, according to several
sources have confirmed in the ARA.
The head of state, President Mariano Rajoy and the head of his
government worked those days with a common goal, calling on businessmen
and managers to force a flight of companies that served as economic
punishment against a sovereignist process that arrived at its height
when the images of the 1-O police repression went round the world.
Voices of the first business level explain to the ARA that they are called by Philip VI and Josep Oliu.
Other sources indicate that Isidre Fainé, president of La Caixa, the
first shareholder of CaixaBank, held a meeting that week attended by
Felip de Borbon and a very select group of great entrepreneurs of the
Ibex.
The first objective of this state operation was to force the change of headquarters of the two Catalan banks.
With the leakage of deposits already unleashed (one third of which, the
direct responsibility of the State, as the ARA advanced yesterday) and
the actions in free fall, the two entities reached the same conclusion:
do not enter they could oppose
Between CaixaBank and Sabadell there were coordinated movements (on
Wednesday, October 4, they informed the decision Carles Puigdemont,
Oriol Junqueras and the presidents of the ANC and Òmnium), but the
synchronization could not be full: Sabadell He could change the
headquarters with a simple board meeting - which he did the next day,
day 5- thanks to a legal change introduced to the last shareholder
meeting. The emergency protocol was known to the bank, but it was not until that week that Oliu was convinced of taking the step. Financial sources argue that the president of the bank was "the person to whom he decided most." During those days, a person remembers having seen him in the bank with his eyes dangled. They also indicate that the person who expressed more doubts about the change of office was the secretary, Miquel Roca. However, the transfer took place in a few hours. But for CaixaBank it was more difficult.
The old savings bank necessarily needed to convene a general assembly
of shareholders that endorsed the transfer of the headquarters and this
demanded a time that it did not have. And the alternative was to appeal to the Spanish government.
CaixaBank sources have denied the existence of the meeting between
Fainé and the king as the entity urges the approval of the decree by the
Moncloa.
THE RELATION BETWEEN Fainé and Rajoy was already broken before 1-O, to
the point that the Spanish president did not catch the phone in those
days. Thus, the Catalan financier called at that time the Economy Minister, Luis de Guindos.The
now vice-president of the ECB moved the matter to Rajoy, who, before
giving a green light, agreed to it with the PSOE and Citizens . CaixaBank negotiated the details of the decree law with Guindos and Jorge Moragas, Chief of Staff of Rajoy. On Thursday 5th, while Sabadell closed the decision, CaixaBank continued to wait for the decree.
The first Catalan entity was faced with an added problem that week when the state establishment put its bow: Monday half a thousand workers cut off the Diagonal in protest against police violence. And, according to different sources, the images of the protest multiplied the pressures against the great Catalan bank.
Far from being unanimous, CaixaBank's decision generated internal discrepancies.Among those who opposed the decision to take over the headquarters of Catalonia was the president of the entity, Jordi Gual, according to the NRA. "It was a hot meeting, intense, to make a decision that did not make an illusion to any employee," point sources consulted. Finally, it was decided to move the seat outside of Catalonia for the first time in its centenary history. And despite the discrepancy of Gual, the weight of La Caixa, the first shareholder, was imposed and the change was a fact.
Banco Sabadell and CaixaBank had already taken the step and the orchestrated move for Moncloa began to take control. There was a key actor missing: the rest of the imposing business group of La Caixa. The multiple sources consulted for this newspaper disagree in their version of what happened.
A very widespread version of Catalan business is that the departure of
all the companies of La Caixa was the price that Guindos and Moragas
imposed to promote the decree that allowed the bank to move.
And that, therefore, CaixaBank followed (the following days, with more
media coverage) La Caixa, Gas Natural, Criteria, Aigües de Barcelona,
Abertis and Cellnex with little opposition to the advice. Only Saba stayed, which is not listed on the stock exchange.
But there is another version. "It was not a counterpart: La Caixa has a very sensitive skin and do not require explicit requests;
Fainé decides to leave everyone because he wants to, because he is
convinced that, with Together for Yes and the CUP, Catalonia will become
independent and everything will go into disaster, "said these voices. "A Fainé convince him that there will be DUI, although weeks before they told him not; he decides it prudently and because he was well in Madrid ", points another voice.
With a change of his seat, he secured more legal stability, he took the
opportunity to pressure the independentist parties and joined the
State.
Why should CaixaBank be conquered with Madrid?
Because there was a perception that if the sovereignty process had come
so far it was because La Caixa and the big businessmen had not avoided
it.
"There is a summit of power, which is 2,000 people, no more, who find
it normal to send newspapers, companies and citizens," explains a
prominent director of the Ibex 35.
"These 2,000 are begun by the king, who always intervenes below the
table and is the first one who believes that the Process has arrived so
far because La Caixa and El Sabadell have not done what they were
playing," he says.
The pressures of the state's leadership in Catalan banks are commonplace, and a good example is how to remotely remote the bank statement prior to the September 27, 2015 elections .
This nucleus of the Madrid power has longed for an explicit position of
Fainé and Oliu against independence and, in his opinion, this has not
been given.
Catalan business sources remember that in circles of Madrid, "figures
like Joan Rosell [President of the CEOE] and Joaquim Gay de Montellà
[president of Labor Promotion] are seen almost as independentists." This label, which does not even remotely link to reality, is also dragged by the two financial entities. "If you did not change yours it seemed you were a pro-independence party," says a manager.
To add dramatism to the situation, the Catalan banks faced those days with a new threat. It is what in the surroundings of the bank of the star is known as the " A" for them!financial
The week of October 2 was launched a very strong commercial capturing
campaign of the large accounts that had left Sabadell and CaixaBank. With an outstanding protagonist: Banco Santander.
Different financial sources point out that the bank of Ana Botín,
unlike BBVA, was led to attract these new clients to squeeze the climate
of fear of a possible cataclysm in Catalonia.
The zeal and the hyperactivity with which the red bank carried out this
operation even caused formal complaints from the Catalan banks. Whoever received these criticisms was Chief Executive Officer, José Antonio Álvarez, who blamed the blame and pointed out his sub-government as responsible for the " A for them!financial
The circumstance is that Alvarez has been replaced ten days ago by his
position as CEO of the first Spanish bank for the problems experienced
by the entity in Spain.
This newspaper was able to know that the dismissal was received at the
noble offices of CaixaBank and Sabadell with a little dissimilar joy.
To explain what was being triggered, there are those who talk about domino effect. Maybe it would be more accurate to refer to a snowball.
But despite the fact that he was already starting to roll and have
considerable dimensions, the invisible hand that pushed the ball into it
wanted more.
WOULD ANOTHER effect. And this happened to the multinationals.
Specifically, for one: Seat, a Catalan economy flag, of German capital
and the first company in Catalonia in number of workers, with more than
13,000 employees.Matías Carnero, chair of the business committee
, explains that after knowing the banks, Luca de Meo summoned a crisis
committee in which he made clear his criterion: "Seat should be kept
neutral."
In those days, different ministries, as well as the Generalitat, pressured Seat to find out if he would keep the headquarters.
"Everyone said the same thing: let us do cars!" The crisis committee
met every day, studied possible scenarios -including an increase in
police repression-, and the staff was told that everything would
continue the same if there was no legal change. But on day 12 things changed.
During the ceremony of the Day of Hispanicity in Madrid, an emissary
from the House of the King transmitted to "a director of Seat" the
preoccupation of the Crown. "The next day we learned that the questions that the House of the King had already moved to De Meo," recalls Carnero.
Although no one has explained until now who played the role of
transmission strap, several sources remember that among the guests to
the October 12 celebration was the expolitician and businessman Josep
Piqué, a member of the board of directors of Seat Whatever it was, De Meo also resisted the pressure of the monarchy and Seat remained headquartered in Catalonia.
That month was settled with nerves and with a change in the agenda: the
world presentation of Seat Tarraco, the first model of the brand with a Catalan name, had to be postponed.
The last remaining hunting trophy was the rest of multinational companies based in Catalonia. "Here the king played a role, because the multinationals do not reach the ministers," says a connoisseur of the facts.
There is coincidence in the perception that Philip VI was personally
involved in making calls to foreign companies to move their headquarters
outside of Catalonia.
Consulted by this newspaper, the House of the King does not deny the accusations. "What the king does on his private agenda does not explain it," says a spokesman. Regarding the calls, of course: "You always do things about them". He adds: "Your mission does not start and it ends in the events and hearings where there are photos."
The king's public agenda also gives clues: in 2014 he made 14 acts in
the first half of October, in 2015 he maintained the figure, in 2016 he
had 6 official acts and last year only 2: the polemic speech of the day 3
and the parade of October 12.
As a manager reflects, the king's pressure on multinationals was not very successful. "Most of them decided to stay in Catalonia, for respect for their people, their workers," he explains. In his opinion, and just as the facts would eventually prove, "the pressures slipped on them." Different voices show that surely Brexit helped her.
Nobody knew that the United Kingdom's post in the European Union had
been voted in June 2016 and 16 months later there had not been any
traumatic break-and the conflict has not yet been solved. This made the supposed economic apocalypse that was about to take place in Catalonia. And this motivated that the contingency plans of many multinational companies still kept in the drawer.
The refusal of the multinationals was firm, despite some internal
pressure, with Spanish directors who threatened to resign if the
headquarters of Catalonia were not removed.
There are different versions about the sophistication of the arguments
used by supporters of moving theirs, especially in non-financial
companies.
One of the most used was allusions to the law of transitory Catalan,
which allegedly opened the door to a double taxation, the prohibition of
transferring their business and the nationalization of certain sectors,
in addition to the power of the Government to dismiss presidents of
financial institutions. Legal sources consulted by the ARA find that this polemic law did not address all these aspects.
Often these pressures were made by ministers or members of the lower-ranking government. People who received calls agreed to point out that it was "suggestions" and unexplained messages. There were also less delicate calls. Customers of Catalan companies who, when they called the provider, invited him to change their home. There is an eloquent case: a manager from El Corte Inglés spoke with a Catalan provider.
When receiving a negative response to the question of whether they had
taken over the headquarters of Catalonia, he said: "You will know."
The question arises alone. What did directors and companies from the private world instant other market players to leave Catalonia? An undeniable ideological component must be included in the answer. Entrepreneurs and executives also have political ideas and, in this case, with the skin tension, they said theirs. "They wanted to sell that, if there was independence, it would be a lot, the Monegres," says a veteran of the Ibex. "And the exit of social headquarters is symbolic, but it has a strong political burden," he adds.
"I wanted to get it all down", says another senior manager, who adds a
pessimistic diagnosis: "It was an economic war, a war that began with
the expense of Gas Natural in Endesa and even before". This voice remembers the role of traditionally as innocuous institutions as the College of Registrars.
Usually unactive, those days sent a daily note updating the marker of
companies that had moved their headquarters outside of Catalonia. "They were carrying the helmet," he says.
This voice does not call for another reflection of the future: "As
things stand, it would be better for us to focus on unregulated
businesses, such as technology and fashion, in Catalonia."
Among the dozens of voices who have participated in this report (and
that have done so with the condition of keeping anonymity) there are
also criticisms of the role of the Generalitat.
They regret that the government did not fight the comments on the
transitional law, they criticized that it acted with "slowness", that it
was "disoriented" and left very few arguments with the directors who
claimed to be based in Catalonia. And especially to face such coordinated and massive action as the one launched by the State.
The shared vision is that the Generalitat did not respond to
entrepreneurs and, in fact, the Economy Department organized a meeting
with multinationals to convey them peace of mind, but it did not occur.
The current Minister of Enterprise and then the General Director,
Àngels Chacón, says that if they could not stop the departure of their
offices it was partly by the decree law that the Spanish government
approved at the request of CaixaBank, and that they received "all kind
of companies ". "We spent a month and a half as if we were in the UCI, with marathon schedules," he says. Managers regret, however, that the Generalitat did not have a proactive attitude to help companies.
The sources consulted to elaborate this story explain that there was
much more reason to remove the headquarters of Catalonia than reasons
(based or not) to protect the business. For example, for a manager, it is fiscalally more advantageous to tax in Madrid than in Catalonia, where IRPF is higher.
The argument also mentioned the conviction that companies based in
Madrid receive less fiscal inspections than those in Catalonia. "Some took the opportunity to move the headquarters and thus end up paying less taxes," says the president of an Ibex company.
And another key factor was the follow-up: everyone did it and change
their place was fast, had a small cost and protected you against the
risks that the State warned (exit from the euro, tariffs, economic
collapse ... ).
The balance of everything is shocking.
Between 3,449 and 4,422 companies, according to the source that is
consulted, have moved the headquarters of Catalonia from October 2017.
It was a real stampede. And as in every stampede, in this case there was a first person who started to run and, also, someone who forced this reaction.
