From his corner office on the 22nd floor of the Barcelona headquarters of savings bank La Caixa d’Estalvis i Pensions, Juan María Nin can gaze at various artifacts of his heritage. Looking east through the plate-glass windows, he can see the power station that his paternal grandfather, an engineer, once operated alongside the city’s Mediterranean port; Nin’s father, also an engineer, grew up in a small house on the plant’s grounds. Looking north toward Barcelona’s upper town , Nin can see the apartment building in which he was raised. No wonder the 55-year-old chief executive feels so at home here.
Just don’t mistake the cozy familiarity for provincialism. Nin is embarking on a bold expansion drive to take La Caixa far beyond its Catalan roots. Using the proceeds of a November 2007 IPO of La Caixa’s industrial holdings, the veteran banker has shelled out some €2.3 billion ($3.4 billion) to buy minority stakes in Bank of East Asia, a Hong Kong lender that’s pushing headlong across the border into China, and Grupo Financiero Inbursa, a Mexican financial services company controlled by billionaire Carlos Slim. Nin is also looking to snap up retail banks in the U.S. and Eastern Europe, while at home he moves into corporate banking and wealth management. He intends to transform La Caixa, Spain’s most profitable retail bank, into a global institution with the swagger and breadth to rival bigger compatriots like Banco Santander and Grupo BBVA.
“我们的长期目标是保持在t表现良好he retail markets that have always been our specialty,” Nin told Institutional Investor in a recent interview at his office. But international expansion, combined with the new business lines in Spain, he insists, “will be the turbos behind the long-term growth of La Caixa.”
这样一个雄心勃勃的议程在最好的时候会有风险，但是在一代人中最差的金融危机中，努力正在追求他的全球追求，并与伊比利亚以外的经验很少经历。“La Caixa有一个伟大的记录，但事实是，这并不难于编译，”Jens Peters是一家在都柏林的KBC资产管理中运行20亿欧元的资产。他指出，西班牙银行信贷在过去十年中每年增长25％，每年存款增长15％。“现在的大问题是La Caixa在越来越拥挤的国内市场和国际上的新领域将模型转换到新的领域，他们在很大程度上被忽视了。”
而且，由于信贷危机缩小了西班牙房地产热潮，因此九国的国内市场正在迅速恶化。最近几个月的住房销售额大幅下降，价格已经开始下降，在依赖施工依赖经济上铸造了一个壁垒。7月，政府今年第二次削减了其成长预测，仅为1.6％，这将从2007年记录的3.8％上升下降。坍塌经济对拉卡西的盈利构成严重威胁;抵押贷款占银行额为165.6亿欧元的贷款书的70％。当La Caixa延期的属性开发人员延伸的属性开发人员延长时，威胁在7月份爆发了威胁
€700 million in loans, was forced to seek court protection from creditors in the country’s biggest-ever bankruptcy filing. Even before that development La Caixa’s nonperforming loans had nearly doubled, to 1.26 percent of total loans at the end of June, from 0.68 percent three months earlier.
“西班牙的银行很可能刚刚看到住房冰山的一角，并且事情变得更糟，”法兰克福的工会投资基金经理Helmut Hipper说，这是一支销售金融股。“在经济衰退中，没有西班牙银行将被禁止。”
Nin acknowledges the difficulties but insists that La Caixa’s conservative lending policies will sustain profits and enable the bank to continue its expansion. La Caixa is Spain’s largest real estate lender, but its average loan amounts to only 52.5 percent of the value of the underlying property, according to Fitch Ratings. The bank also doesn’t lend for the construction of vacation homes, the market segment that has been hit hardest by the recent downturn. Although the bank’s nonperforming loan ratio rose sharply in the second quarter, it remained below that of rivals Grupo Banco Popular, which saw its ratio rise to 1.42 percent from 0.72 percent, and Banco Santander, whose ratio rose to 1.34 percent from 1.16 percent. Even with the increase in bad loans, La Caixa managed to post an 8.4 percent rise in first-half earnings, to €1.06 billion.
“我们始终总结了零售贷款，以满足客户的支付能力，而不是资产价值，所以我们的无性贷款与房地产部门的无智能贷款的比例应远低于平均水平，”Nin说。“我们希望甚至在最艰难的市场中表现优于胜过。”
Nin’s expansion into corporate lending will reduce La Caixa’s dependence on the mortgage market, but not on the Spanish economy. The bank this year opened a new unit, CaixaEmpresa, that is targeting Spain’s small and medium-size businesses. CaixaEmpresa opened 70 offices in the first half, and the effort helped push up business lending by 18.2 percent in the first half, the latest period for which detailed figures are available. Nin expects the corporate lending drive to reduce mortgages to 60 percent of La Caixa’s loan book by the end of this year.
Even fans of the bank’s strong domestic franchise express skepticism about Nin’s foreign strategy, however. Unlike Santander and BBVA, which have extensive networks of wholly owned subsidiaries across Latin America and Europe, La Caixa is expanding by taking minority stakes in other institutions, largely because of its limited firepower. The bank paid €680 million between October and March to acquire 9.72 percent of Bank of East Asia, and has agreed to spend €1.6 billion for 20 percent of Mexico’s Inbursa. Critics question how much influence La Caixa can hope to exercise through such stakes.
“世界上充满了银行业的战略少数民族股权，被证明是不良的投资，”伦敦·阿巴科金融基金的创始人和经理Inigo Lecubarri表示，占金融机构的4亿欧元的投资基金。“你不仅有风险你无法控制少数股权，但你也可能被竞争对手推出。”
务实的nin解散这些问题。他说，少数民族赌注往往是进入有前途的市场的最佳方式，因为La Caixa拥有相对谦虚的预算，许多目标的管理层希望保持独立。此外，他认为，该银行通过其与葡萄牙Banco BPI的经验表明了少数股权的能力，其中它拥有27.5％。La Caixa首次投资于BPI，并于1995年乘坐董事会座位，当时该机构是一家小型投资银行。在La Caixa的资本和西班牙零售市场中扩大的经验，BPI稳步增长成为葡萄牙第二大零售业。La Caixa的存在对于从其主要国内竞争对手，BCP的主要国内竞争对手抵消敌意的收购报价至关重要。
“我们将仅在我们有明确的联盟的情况下投资，以保护其兴趣和我们的兴趣，”纳内纳说。“我们最终可能在一个情况下，它对自己和我们的合作伙伴融入了少数民族的股权，但我们是实际的，我们的第一个优先事项只是建立健全和有利可图的投资。一旦我们投资银行，我们的经验和市场发展就会确定我们的所作所为。“
像西班牙大多数的储蓄银行一样，La Caixa是一个互动机构。它由160名成员大会控制，其中存款人持有58个席位;慈善和社区团体，48;地方政府机构，34;和员工，20.FundacióLaCixa是一个慈善组织，该组织从阿尔茨海默氏症的研究和电脑提供资深人士，以帮助移民和文化展览会，每年获得25％的银行净利润。
With the approval of successive Catalan governments, La Caixa has grown from a regional lender in the 1980s to become Spain’s largest retail bank, with 5,581 branches, a 10 percent share of retail deposits and €264 billion in assets. The bank’s distinctive blue-star logo — designed by the Catalan artist Joan Miró — is ubiquitous on commercial streets across the country. Growth didn’t come at the expense of efficiency. La Caixa boasts some of the best operating metrics of any European lender, with costs amounting to just 42.5 percent of income in the second quarter of this year, the most recent period for which detailed figures are available; return on equity was 17.2 percent for the period.
“La Caixa的恒星扩展记录是在邻近，服务和简单而有效的产品创新之上，”竞争中上市银行的竞赏首席财务官表示。“当大银行通过合并和关闭分支机构正在削减成本时，他们成为我们最激烈的竞争对手。”
该银行还通过在该地区的一些重点工业公司中采取股票，包括天然气天然气的自然天然气的最大供应商，促进加泰罗兰利益;Abertis InfraStructuras，欧洲最大的收费公路和机场运营商;和西班牙最大的水公司之一，Sociedad General de Aguas de Barcelona。这些赌注在称为Caixacorp标准的车辆中，价值约203亿欧元。
尽管有其优势，La Caixa面临持续增长的障碍。Spain的许多46其他储蓄银行已从其Playbook中占据了一页，以近年来放大自己的网络，而桑坦德和BBVA一直积极扩大其国内零售业务。
Concerned about the growing competition and clouds over the Spanish property market, bank management, led by then-chairman Ricardo Fornesa and then–chief executive Isidro Fainé, recruited Nin in June 2007 to carry out a new strategy. Their plan involved floating a minority stake in Criteria Caixa through an IPO and using the proceeds to expand La Caixa’s business at home and abroad. They set an ambitious target of increasing profit by 20 percent a year through 2010.
“作为一个机构，我们有一个良好的时机感，”66岁的Fapé说，他在La Caixa举办了董事长岗位，而福雷斯娜，76岁，成为Caixa标准董事长。“我们带来了nin并从之前的职位上辞职，因为他的经验和个人资料作为领导者完全适合La Caixa的现实和未来的目标。”
西班牙最经验丰富的银行家之一，他获得了毕尔巴鄂大学的法律学位，其中许多国家顶级银行家的培训基地，然后在进入该行业之前从伦敦经济学院获得了硕士学位。他在20世纪90年代建立了一个成功的集中式企业银行业，在20世纪90年代建立了一个成功的集中企业银行业，然后在该国1999年与BCH合并之后，成为该国的领导银行Banco Santander公司银行业负责人。2002年，他被另一个区域加泰罗尼斯贷方招募了Banco Sabadell，他在担任国家零售和公司银行部队作为首席执行官。
虽然为他的加泰罗尼亚人感到骄傲，但他坚持他欠他对底线的忠诚度。“我一直因利润和损失账户而不是政治效忠而死亡，”银发，无废话的银行家说。“从历史上看，它是一个基本的La Caixa的基本宗旨，因为这里的每个人都知道这是如何让最多的钱进入基础的手中。”
Nin aims to transform the industrial holding arm, Criteria Caixa, into an international financial services group. The November IPO raised €3.8 billion, and Nin plans to divest some noncore holdings to raise additional cash. Disposal targets include Criteria’s 5.73 percent stake in Spain’s Telefónica, worth €4.6 billion; its 12.7 percent interest in the country’s biggest oil company, Repsol YPF, valued at €3.2 billion; and its 5.01 percent holding in Bolsa y Mercados Españoles, which operates the Madrid stock exchange, worth €83 million.
通过使用所得款项制定更多海外收购，NIN期望将金融服务资产的重量增加到目前约24％的3至5年内的60％。他旨在彻底购买银行，或者收购至少20％的股权，这将允许拉卡西巩固收益，并相信，给予它真正的影响力。“我们将向我们的投资者展示标准不仅仅是一个控股公司，但我们肯定不会期待一夜之间，”他说。
Criteria’s existing financial assets include CaiFor, Spain’s largest life insurer; InverCaixa, Spain’s third-largest fund manager, with €14.5 billion in assets; Caixa Renting, a leasing unit; FinConsum, a consumer finance operation; and GestiCaixa, a small asset-backed-securitization unit. Nin transferred those businesses from the bank to Criteria before the IPO; the aim is to provide their products and expertise to La Caixa and to foreign banks that Criteria acquires or invests in.
Criteria also contains a newly beefed-up private banking arm, La Caixa Banca Privada. Nin jump-started the unit’s growth in January by acquiring the Spanish private banking business of Morgan Stanley for €546 million, with Criteria chipping in €120 million, or 22 percent, of the purchase price, equal to the percentage of the holding company not owned by La Caixa. The deal enables La Caixa to leap from seventh place in Spain’s wealth management market to third, behind Santander subsidiary Banif Banca Privada and Sabadell; the bank now has 36,000 clients with more than €500,000 in assets, up from 8,000 previously.
NIN的战略最终取决于国际扩张，需要一些时间来确定他的初步举措是否会得到偿还。
东亚银行在香港享有强大的特许经营权，是中国增长最快的外国银行之一，其中有50个分支机构。NIN希望将标准的股份提高到20％，但这将取决于其与东亚管理的关系如何发展。“亚洲是一个非常困难的市场，”他承认。香港银行由主席和首席执行官大卫李控制，其家族创立了银行，拥有4.61％。它还拥有另一位潜在客户：中国银行于11月份飙升了5％的利息，在La Caixa开始购买后不久。
到目前为止La Caixa高管没有显示来回m talks with their counterparts at Bank of East Asia. “We have not yet come to the point where we can clearly see what kind of cooperation we can do on the retail front,” says Peter Yuen, head of relations with financial institutions at the Hong Kong lender. But, he adds, “in terms of corporate banking, there are many opportunities where we can channel business to each other in areas like trade finance, foreign exchange and letters of credit.”
nin预计对墨西哥的Inbursa有很大影响。作为与苗条的协议的一部分，谁是Fainé的老朋友，La Caixa将任命两个人到15人董事会和12人类管理委员会的一名高管。至关重要的是，巴塞罗那银行将有否决权战略决策和资本增加。
Inbursa is Mexico’s biggest distributor of insurance and pension products, with 6.7 million clients and 1.8 trillion pesos ($178 billion) under management or in custody. The group’s Banco Inbursa is the country’s seventh-largest lender, with 132.4 billion pesos in assets and 91 branches. It is dwarfed by market leaders BBVA Bancomer and Citigroup-owned Grupo Financiero Banamex, both of which have more than 1,000 branches in the country.
“在保险产品中，inbursa的主导地位和强大的品牌声誉，但缺乏在零售银行业务的情况下为我们提供理想的盟友，”Chiteria Caixa董事总经理弗朗西斯科雷诺斯说。“我们将帮助他们扩展其零售网络，并将其新产品与个人抵押，信用卡和消费者金融产品带来新产品。”
“Inbursa是La Caixa获得快速增长市场的有效手段，而墨西哥人则获得零售产品的即时范围，惠里奇斯（Cristina Torrella）说巴塞罗那评级。
为了他的下一步举措，NIN希望在美国和东欧获得银行，并相信最近金融股的急剧下降呈现出购买机会。他承认去年冬天与布鲁克林，基于纽约的一号帝国社区Bancshares接管会谈。当那些会谈可能恢复时，纳内纳不会说，但是一位高级标准执行官说，银行可能会在任何美国收购六个月内撤销六个月，以了解该国的住房困境是否产生更好的讨价还价。
在欧洲东欧，资产负债表主要不受次级抵押贷款危机的影响，他说他正在积极与小型和中型银行交谈。“在美国和东欧，我们希望最初花费5亿欧元之间的达到2亿欧元，购买零售银行的20亿欧元，”他说。“无论我们走到哪里，我们都会期待最终通过有机增长和进一步的收购来扩展和巩固。”
Financing on that scale shouldn’t be a problem for Nin. Criteria can spend up to €493 million on acquisitions after the Inbursa purchase and still keep its debt-equity ratio below the conservative 20 percent ceiling that the CEO has set. And La Caixa itself has considerable spending power, given that the bank has tier-1 equity capital equal to 8.5 percent of assets. “Thanks to the excellent health of La Caixa, the strength of the euro and a market that is penalizing the share price for financial institutions, we think there may be some very interesting opportunities for us very soon,” says Reynés.
然而，许多投资者对该战略有所怀疑。自首次公开募股以来，标准的股价跌幅近34％，以至于上个月晚些时候的贸易额约为3.38欧元;该价格占控股公司净资产价值的急剧折扣41.5％。
“The point of strategic investments in foreign markets is to open up long-term growth prospects that you can develop,” says one fund manager who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Criteria can’t be certain of doing that with minority investments, so there is little reason to buy the stock, especially when you can buy the shares of their partners directly.”
在他的外国运动中需要一些明确的成功，以安静批评者。