History
Today's La Caixa is the result of the July 27, 1990 merger between the Caja de Pensiones para la Vejez y de Ahorros de Cataluña y Baleares, founded in 1904, and the Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Barcelona, founded in 1844. From the beginning, La Caixa focused on savings for families and offering its customers security in their old age, when this type of social provision did not yet exist in Spain. Owing to its origins, it is a financial institution, albeit not for profit and charitable and social in nature, with a private board of trustees, independent of any other company or institution.
The La Caixa Group manages a total bank turnover of over 411,522 million Euros (September 2008), with total customer resources in excess of 238,404 million Euros.
Similarly, the Group has a portfolio of industrial interests in companies mainly in the infrastructure, energy and communications sectors. In November 2006, the La Caixa Board of Directors approved the company portfolio of holdings' listing on the stock market, through the Criteria CaixaCorp company, which came into effect on October 10, 2007.
January 29, 2008 saw the inclusion of Criteria CaixaCorp in the IBEX 35.
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