The buyback of CaixaBank shares announced for this year will amount to 500 million euros. That is the amount of money that the financial institution will allocate in 2024 to the purchase of its own securities that will later be amortized by taking them out of circulation.
This shareholder remuneration formula, which has grown in recent years among listed banks, allows shareholders to have a larger portion of the bank without doing anything since there are fewer shares in circulation. Last year, for example, Criteria Caixa took the opportunity to sell part of its shares (worth 100 million) in Caixabank since they had increased their stake in the capital.
According to a statement sent to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), the bank has reported that the board of directors of CaixaBank has approved and started the program to buy back its own shares that it had previously announced. The program aims to maintain the CET1 capital ratio, the most demanding bank solvency indicator, at around 12%. The expected impact of this repurchase of own shares will be 0.22% of this ratio, which would leave it at 12.18% according to the data at the end of December 2023.
The board will seek approval from the general meeting of shareholders next week to execute this capital reduction.
The program will last for six months starting this Thursday, although the bank reserves the right to end the buyback program earlier if the maximum monetary amount is reached or if another circumstance occurs that advises or requires it.