2023-06-10 09:44:04
They offered him the presidency of Repsol by urging him to leave Bankia before its nationalization. Oriol Junqueras gave him Quantum Physics classes in the Soto del Real prison. He and Isidro Fainé broke off negotiations to merge La Caixa and Bankia at the bar of the Círculo de Bellas Artes cafeteria in Madrid. His salary at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was almost 10 times higher than that of Vice President of the Spanish Government (for being tax-free).
These are some of the insights that the former Bankia president Rodrigo Rato (Madrid, 1949) (Madrid, 1949) reveals in his memoirs, ‘So far we have arrived’ (Peninsula). Written together with Alicia González (Madrid, 1972), a journalist for El País and Rato’s wife, they come to light 12 years after the creation of the bank, with court cases still pending and a month after Spain holds general elections with which It was his party now led by the popular Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
Rato reflects on his entire personal and professional career, although he focuses above all on his time as economic vice president of the Government of José María Aznar, his time at Caja Madrid/Bankia and the judicial journey since he left the bank, now integrated into CaixaBank.
His approximation to reality is partial and subjective, although quite accurate. around what happened in one of the biggest financial crises in the history of Spain, which ended with the nationalization and rescue of Bankia.
Rato builds his story and settles accounts with politicians (José María Aznar and Luis de Guindos), bankers (Francisco González and José Ignacio Goirigolzarri), supervisors (Miguel Ángel Fernández Ordóñez) and members of the judicial sphere (judge Fernando Andreu and prosecutor Carmen The nail). He shamelessly admits his own mistakes but also looks for excuses and identifies external enemies to justify his actions.
Although he is right in many of his lines of argument, he is not exempt from responsibility. He was able to say no to many things that were demanded of him and that he did not like. He didn’t and he was wrong to hold onto the position.
inheritance received
The former Vice President of the Spanish Government he became president of Caja Madrid in 2010, with no experience in retail banking. He inherited from his predecessor -Miguel Blesa (who had been in office for 12 years)- a weak entity, excessively focused on the real estate sector and supporting its growth in immigrants. Its ability to generate income was limited.
Even so, he explains in his memoirs: «I arrived quite euphoric, wanting to immerse myself in what I thought would be the last stage of my professional life.». But he lacked a team sufficiently prepared to manage an entity with so many risks. “My first mistake was not considering choosing an own management team urgent and a priority,” writes Rato, who regrets having started to solve the problems of the entity with the same executives who had caused them.
In those initial bars in Caja Madrid is the germ of one of the financial instruments that gave Rato the most problems in the future, opaque or black credit cards. «When I had been in Caja Madrid for a month, I made a mistake that nine years later would land me in jail. They gave me the card as a member of the steering committee and I took it without thinking. I should have asked for the details of its usage and its accounting. But I didn’t,” he points out.
Rato did not have a team, but he did have politicians in the governing bodies of the fund, something that he denies was a problem. He is wrong. In any case, without time for more, he entered a sector that was undergoing restructuring after the bursting of the real estate bubble.. He acceded to pressure from supervisors and the government, who first asked him to merge with a weak entity (Bancaja) to create a larger group (Bankia) with a balance sheet that needed to be cleaned up. Shortly after, they demanded more and he went public to raise the capital he needed to strengthen his solvency. All in defense of the national interest.
It is true, as explained in the text, that These continuous changes in the regulatory frameworks of the sector destabilized Bankia, which was required to recapitalize once and for all, with the markets unwilling to invest in Spanish savings banks in a crisis environment. But he was the one who wanted to keep Bankia alone, without merging with other larger groups and resorting to the Stock Market without giving the State entry into the capital. Rato overestimated his capacity for resistance and did not see what was coming when the Government forced him to resign, named his successor (Goirigolzarri) and nationalized the entity, now part of CaixaBank.
Aznar’s finger
One of the first characters he puts in his place in his autobiography is Aznar, who was president of the Spanish Government between 1996 and 2004. Rato recounts how he contributed with other center-right politicians to bring the then leader of the popular to Moncloa. He cried at his first inauguration speech as president and agreed to be his second vice president. He would have liked to be the first.
Later, things changed and Rato does not forgive Aznar for ruling “alone” and for wanting to designate his successor after the end of his terms. «He was our chosen one and not the other way around. We did not understand. A great finger – in reference to the appointment of Mariano Rajoy – that did not come in handy for anyone ».
Another of his (from the PP) that he also exposes is the former Economy Minister Luis de Guindos -for making negative publicity about Bankia, forcing it to merge with La Caixa, driving the sector crazy with the regulatory changes and finally demanding his head-. He accuses the entire government of Rajoy of making him the scapegoat of the financial crisis and of wanting to see him in jail. He also charges against Vice President Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, because her chief of staff notified journalists of the exact moment they were going to arrest him.
In the purely banking sphere, Rato incites those responsible for the Bank of Spain – “with time I would learn that there is nothing less reliable than the support of those responsible for the Bank of Spain” – and competitors such as Francisco González (former president of BBVA, for attacking Bankia), Isidro Fainé (for negotiating for the benefit of La Caixa and not the rest of the sector) and his successor in office, Goirigolzarri.
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Not even the Bankia auditor is spared from the reckoning nor the Royal House, which never again invited him to the receptions in Zarzuela after attending the abdication of King Juan Carlos I. Nor is the axis formed by Germany and France, which dominated the European Central Bank when it, before Mario Draghi reached the top, refused to be the last resort savior of the banks.
He dislikes that they accused the banks of indebtedness of the Spanish economy as a whole. “They chose to blame the owners of the drunken bars and exonerate the drinkers,” says Rato, who shows the most personal side of him in the book. He used to pray and now he meditates, adores Portugal and swims in the sea whenever he can.
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