La Caixa accelerates its commitment to industry

There was a time when banks had powerful industrial portfolios. An example was Banesto, when Mario Conde was its chairman, which was swallowed up by Santander; or BBVA itself, which had been one of the key shareholders of Telefónica and Gamesa (now part of the Siemens group). When it was a savings bank, La Caixa was—and still is in some cases—the key partner in companies such as Gas Natural (now Naturgy), Agbar, Abertis, and Repsol, and it maintained this vocation, which was frowned upon by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of Spain.