La Caixa Foundation and CriteriaCaixa investment fund HQ return to Barcelona

The La Caixa Foundation and the CriteriaCaixa investment fund decided to return their headquarters to Barcelona on Wednesday afternoon.

Both groups moved to Palma de Mallorca, the capital of the Balearic Islands, in 2017 due to the push for independence.

Former Caixa bank president Isidre Fainé leads the foundation that fully controls the investment fund. In 2017, the groups decided to move their headquarters to Mallorca to “preserve the interests and the normal operation of the group as long as the situation in Catalonia did not change.”

In a written statement shared with media outlets, the foundation announced that the return was approved unanimously during an extraordinary council.

Only two months ago, the other major Catalan bank, Banc Sabadell, had already approved to move its headquarters from Alicante back to Sabadell.

The text also highlights that the foundation headquarters will move to the central offices of CaixaBank in Barcelona, located on Diagonal Avenue 621-629. As La Caixa is the only investor of CriteriaCaixa, the investment fund will also move its main offices to the Catalan capital.

“The agreement reached today has been taken after observing that the conditions that forced the temporary move of headquarters are no longer there,” the text reads.

“This movement does not mean any worker or company spaces will be moved, as most of the employees and working centers have always been located in Barcelona,” the statement continues.

The foundation confirmed its “strong compromise with its beginnings” when it was founded in 1904, coming from the former ‘Caja de Pensiones para la Vejez y de Ahorros de Cataluña y Baleares.’