The Bank of Spain has taken over the management of the savings bank Caja de Ahorros de Castilla-La Mancha (CCM) due to its delicate liquidity situation. It is the first such action since the economic crisis began.
The board of CCM have been dismissed and the bank will now be managed by a committee comprising three people closely related to the Bank of Spain, these being Jorge Pérez, Carlos Miguel and Raúl Hernández. It is their task to carry out the necessary reorganisation of CCM.
The Government is providing a guarantee fund of €9 billion, although this is seen as a ‘maximum’ and current reports indicate that the actual amount needed to help CCM will probably be in the region of €2 billion to €3 billion.
Minister Pedro Solbes has said the bank is not insolvent and will continue to operate normally, but it does have a delicate liquidity problem at the moment. There have been two attempts recently to find a partner for CCM but both have failed.
Unicaja was the last to be approached with an offer but they declined, stating that the guarantees offered by the Bank of Spain were insufficient given the real situation of CCM.
Pedro Solbes was keen to point out that the intervention was a precautionary measure and an isolated incident in the Spanish financial system which, overall, has full solvency.