CAIXY Caixabank (PK)

By Jeannette Neumann 

MADRID--The powerful chairman of Spain's CaixaBank SA is set to step down to take control of the lender's massive foundation, a move that had been anticipated as the bank aims to comply with a postcrisis Spanish law that requires different executives run a bank and its foundation.

CaixaBank will on Thursday submit to the board the appointment of chief strategy officer Jordi Gual as chairman, the bank said in a regulatory filing. The appointment of Mr. Gual to replace Isidro Fainé is subject to regulatory approvals, CaixaBank said.

Investors and analysts still expect 73-year-old Mr. Fainé to hold considerable sway at the business he has transformed from a regional savings bank into the third largest lender in Spain by market value behind international mammoths Banco Santander SA and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA.

Mr. Fainé will be able to maintain control of the Spanish lender for now because of CaixaBank's complex structure.

The banking foundation owns 100% of CriteriaCaixa, which in turn holds stakes in industrial investments and a majority stake in CaixaBank. As head of the foundation, Mr. Fainé will be CaixaBank's biggest shareholder.

CriteriaCaixa currently owns 46.9% of CaixaBank. The holding company has said it would decrease its ownership in the bank to 40% by the end of 2017.

Mr. Fainé has been head of both the foundation and the bank. But a 2013 Spanish law passed in the wake of the country's banking crisis, triggered by a property boom that went bust, required a separation of those two roles.

Investors and analysts had expected Mr. Fainé to choose to run the foundation, which oversees an annual budget of around EUR500 million, or around $550 million, because that would allow him to maintain oversight of the bank as its top shareholder.

"The appointment of Mr. Gual is a mere step to comply with the banking foundation law," Fidentiis analyst Mario Ropero wrote in a research note on Wednesday morning after local Spanish media had reported the management changes. "We do not foresee any strategic changes at the bank."

Mr. Fainé has been CaixaBank chairman since 2009.

CaixaBank shares were up around 3% after the regulatory filing was published, as were most Spanish stocks as European markets recover from the Brexit shock.

Write to Jeannette Neumann at jeannette.neumann@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 29, 2016 05:20 ET (09:20 GMT)

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