la Caixa

The Catalan savings bank " la Caixa", full name: Catalan c. Caixa d' Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona (, savings and pension fund of Barcelona ') is the third largest bank in Spain and the largest savings bank in Europe. The Institute with over 27,000 employees and more than 5,500 branch offices is represented mainly in Europe, North America and Asia. The focus of the customer business is located in Catalonia.

The President of "la Caixa" is currently Isidre Fainé i Casas, director general ( managing director ) of the institute, which is 7 June 2007 Joan Maria Nin i Génova.

Operations

The sum of the management of "la Caixa" and its subsidiary institutions customer deposits amounted in September 2008 to 238.4 billion euros, with total consolidated Group sales of more than 411.5 billion euros. The extensive industrial holdings of the Institute focus on the energy, infrastructure and communications sectors and of the holding company subsidiary Caixabank (formerly Criteria CaixaCorp ) kept, traded in October 2007 independently on the stock exchange and, since January 2008 is one of the Ibex companies. At the investment portfolio includes a significant share of the multinational Spanish utility Gas Natural. " La Caixa" also holds a stake of 8.9 % of Bank of East Asia. In January 2008, has taken over the majority of the private banking business of Morgan Stanley in Spain with a business volume of about 600 million euros " la Caixa".

The Sparkasse logo used since 1980, a blue starfish with a yellow and a red dot is taken from a work of Joan Miró.

Politically, " la Caixa " as the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE ) related parties, while its main competitor, the Caja Madrid, the Spanish conservative People's Party ( PP) is dominated.

History

The predecessor institution, which, Pensions, retirement and savings for Catalonia and the Balearic Islands ' ( Caixa de Pensions by a la Vellesa i d' Estalvis de Catalunya i Balears and Caja de Pensions de Ahorros y para la Vejez de Cataluña y Baleares) was founded on April 5, 1904 by lawyer Francesc Moragas with the aim to create better conditions for the investment of savings and pension funds. Today's Institute was formed in 1990 by merger with the established in 1844, savings and loan association Barcelona ' ( Caixa d' Estalvis i Mont de Pietat de Barcelona Caja de Ahorros y Monte or de Piedad de Barcelona ), the oldest Catalan savings bank.

Culture and Society

The Fundació la Caixa is a foundation and a major player in the cultural life of Spain. With an annual budget of 500 million Euros (2008), this counts as one of the five bestdotierten foundations of the world. Three-fifths of the budget is spent on social issues, each about 80 million go into the areas of research, environment and culture. And how is that established by Joan Miró logo of la Caixa has spread from its headquarters Barcelona from all over Spain, as expanded la Caixa as an art institution such as museums, auditoriums and conference centers, which are known as CaixaForum in numerous Spanish cities with a wide range of activities for the public, by the music and visual arts to social programs, education and humanities.