«If Bankia's stock exchange prospectus was authorized and reviewed by the CNMV, what we were going to correct»

«If Bankia's stock exchange prospectus was authorized and reviewed by the CNMV, what we were going to correct»

Fernandez Norniella, 'right hand' of Rato, alleges that they were demanded "much more" than in a normal OPV but describes as "chaotic" the situation due to the economic crisis

  If the regulators and supervisors gave their approval to the controversial IPO of Bankia , how is it that it is being judged now in the courts and in criminal courts? And, more importantly, because the bank first warned "in a general way" about possible risks that it failed to materialize. These questions, raised several times during the investigation phase, focused on Tuesday the second day of interrogation in this trial held at the National Court of who was 'right hand' Rodrigo Rato in that financial institution, José Manuel Fernández Norniella , one of the four senior managers accused by the Prosecutor's Office of a crime ofInvestor fraud.

   If on the eve pointed to the control work done by the Bank of Spain , this time did the same with the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) and, more specifically, on the supervision of the brochure prior to the opening of the stock market Of the entity. "If it was authorized, reviewed and verified by the corresponding regulator, which is the highest authority on the IPO, it will understand that I consider myself humbly incapable of correcting what the CNMV may say if it considered it sufficient," said the person promoted to the Board. executive director in 2010 and will occupy one of the three vice-presidencies of Bankia with a salary of more than one million euros and who is now hiding behind his advanced age (he is 73 years old).

And it is that Fernandez Norniella defended in his declarations that the controversial pamphlet surpassed different filters, not only according to Spanish legislation but also the European regulation. And, in any case, he added, they were given more requirements than in a normal public sale (OPV) operation - for example, that there were 40% of institutional investors and the accounts of the last three years -, among others. things because the bank was barely three years old. "The CNMV was demanding much more and that left me happy," the defendant said with an apparent tone of calm and then added that he verified "what he had to prove, which was that the regulator certified what he had to certify".

«Not everything was going well»
"If it was not enough, I do not have the capacity to determine it," he answered both the Prosecutor's Office and the lawyer who is prosecuting on behalf of the FROB at his insistence on knowing why certain provisions were not included (for example, 872 million per bank). of Valencia ) or deterioration (such as those of Bancaja)) -, but I do have the security as a counselor that this brochure was approved by the CNMV and valued by the Bank of Spain, the placement banks and a series of institutions that are the ones that have to guarantee the board ". However, and with respect to some analyzes of the Bank of Spain's own inspectors 'embedded' in Bankia (almost a dozen), the defendant disagreed with the need to make much more important provisions for a possible depreciation of real estate assets and He said he was convinced that 1,500 million euros were provisioned for this risk.

But the chief anti-corruption prosecutor, Alejandro Luzón , his answers did not seem to convince him, especially seeing how he answered with evasive and without going into details when asked about the "serious financial problems" that had the bank but were not mentioned in that booklet, as the need to provision another 700 million for the collapse of the real estate Martinsa Fadesa , the irregularities of the real estate group of the entity or the strong depreciation of the securities of Bancaja Inversiones . "But you did not know anything? he came to snap at him. Sorry to ask you this, but he was one of the four most important advisors of the bank ... ".

Fernandez Norniella initially accused the dialectical coup, but then resumed his defensive line of being "there in passing" and was only "one of the hundreds of people who founded Bankia among several boxes ". He said that he was focused on his "professional project" within the group-precisely the real estate that caused so many headaches-and he did not understand "how can it happen, in such a short time, from being viable to not viable". However, once again under pressure from Luzón, he acknowledged that "I can not say that everything was going well either", although in his opinion one of the turning points was the report of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).who at the beginning of 2012 indicated that they had financial problems. «At one point he did 'crac'», he justified himself, and «we entered a complicated ellipse».

Bank of Valencia, «extramuros»
The situation of Banco de Valencia (participated by Bancaja ) also returned to occupy part of its statement, because the Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office maintains that it is the origin of a large part of the serious problems that Bankia had. But the one who was 'right hand' of Rato tried to dissociate himself from his control by claiming that it was "something extramural" and "foreign" to the daily management of the entity, and even tried to undervalue it - despite its important size - by pointing out that it was just "one of the 200 societies" that savings banks brought when they merged into a single group, "like any other," and "the one who was being commissioned" (in theory, its executives). .

However, he acknowledged that the board of directors (of which he was a member) knew that in the summer of 2011 there were several meetings between BFA (the parent company of Bankia), Banco de Valencia itself and the Bank of Spain to analyze their situation even then. criticizes and see the need to undertake a capital increase, which concluded that they would only enter if all partners did. But Fernandez Norniella said he did not remember if it was then said that he could be intervened (his rescue ended up costing 4,500 million to the public coffers), although he did say that in Bankia they were focused on "getting ahead, within the dramatic and chaotic situation in which we were in the (economic) environment and how things deteriorated ».