Rodrigo Rato’s memories

2023-06-10 11:22:41

They offered him the presidency of Repsol by urging him to leave Bankia before its nationalization. Oriol Junqueras He gave him Quantum Physics classes in the Soto del Real prison. Isidro Fainé and he 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 revealed by the former Bankia president Rodrigo Rato (Madrid, 1949) in his memoirs, So far we have arrived (Peninsula). written next to Alice Gonzalez (Madrid, 1972), journalist for El País and wife of Mousecome to light 12 years after the creation of the bank, with court cases still pending and a month after Spain holds general elections with what was his party now led by the popular Alberto Núñez Feijóo.

Mouse reflects on his entire personal and professional career, although he focuses above all on his time as economic vice president of the Government of Jose Maria Aznarhis 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 regarding 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 (Jose Maria Aznar y Luis de Guindos), bankers (Francisco Gonzalez y Jose Ignacio Goirigolzarri), supervisors (Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez) and members of the judicial sphere (the judge Fernando Andrew and the prosecutor Carmen Luna). 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

The former vice president of the Spanish Government became president of Caja Madrid in 2010, without experience in retail banking. He inherited from his ancestor-miguel blesa (which 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 it urgent and a priority to choose my own management team,” he writes. Mousewho regrets having started to solve the entity’s problems with the same executives who had caused them.

The former vice president of the Spanish Government publishes his memoirs and admits errors with the ‘black’ cards

In those initial stages in Caja Madrid is the germ of one of the financial instruments that gave the most problems to Mouse in the future, opaque or black credit cards. “When I had been at Caja Madrid for a month, I made a mistake that nine years later would land me in prison. They gave me the card as a member of the management committee and I took it without thinking. I should have asked for the details of its use and of their accounting. But I didn’t do it,” he says.

Mouse He 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 housing 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 he explains in the text, that these continuous changes in the regulatory frameworks of the sector destabilized Bankia, which was required to recapitalize once in a while, 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. Mouse He overestimated his resilience 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 didn’t understand each other. A big finger – in reference to the appointment of Mariano Rajoy– that did not come well to anyone “.

Another of his (from the PP) whom he also exposes is the former Minister of Economy Luis de Guindos -for making negative publicity about Bankia, forcing it to merge with La Caixa, driving the sector crazy with regulatory changes and finally demanding his head-. To the whole of the Government of Rajoy He accuses him of making him the scapegoat for the financial crisis and of wanting to see him go to jail. He also charges against the vice president Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, because his chief of staff notified the journalists of the exact moment when they were going to arrest him.

In the purely banking field, Rato incites those responsible for the Bank of Spain – “over time he would learn that there is nothing less reliable than the support of those responsible for the Bank of Spain” – and competitors such as Francisco Gonzalez (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.

Neither the Bankia auditor nor the Royal Family, who never again invited him to the receptions in Zarzuela after attending the abdication of King Juan Carlos I, are not spared from the reckoning. The axis formed by Germany and France is not spared either, that dominated the European Central Bank when it, before it arrived Mario Draghi at the top, he refused to be the savior of last resort for 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,” he says Mouse, who shows his most personal side in the book. She used to pray and now she meditates, adores Portugal and swims in the sea whenever he can.