The shares of the new CaixaBank start trading today.

The bank begins its new phase with a market value of more than 21,000 million euros.

CaixaBank’s stock market debut. The shares of the bank resulting from the integration of Bankia into CaixaBank start trading today. The reference price for the session is the 2.61 euros at which CaixaBank shares ended last Friday, after rising 2.47%.

CaixaBank begins its new journey on the stock market with a share capital of 8,064.64 million shares, after incorporating the 2,079 million shares it has issued to give to Bankia shareholders, who have received 0.6845 CaixaBank shares for each of those they held in the absorbed bank.

Taking into account Bankia’s closing price in Friday’s session (the last in its almost 10-year stock market history), the starting market value of the new bank will be 21,038 million euros. This means that CaixaBank will start today as the tenth largest Ibex stock by market capitalisation. It climbs five places in the ranking by stock market value and gains weight in the Ibex, from 3.48% to 3.75%.

Within the financial sector, CaixaBank is ahead of Banco Santander and BBVA, with a market value of 50,218 million and 29,559 million euros, respectively.

CaixaBank’s shares have risen 43.82% since 4 September when the bank and Bankia confirmed to the Spanish National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) that they were holding preliminary talks to study a merger. So far in 2021, CaixaBank is up 24.27%.

The new CaixaBank arrives at the first day of trading with one of the strongest endorsements from banking analysts. 55% of the firms that analyse the stock give it a target price of 2.65 euros, which means that it has upside potential of 1.5%. The most optimistic firms, JB Capital Markets and Oddo BHF, give the stock a valuation of 3.2 euros and 3.1 euros, respectively.

In the spring of last year, CaixaBank reduced the percentage of profit it pays out in dividends to its shareholders from 50% to 30% because of the pandemic. The new entity will have to specify in the coming weeks what distribution of profits it will make from last year’s results. Both CaixaBank and Bankia are among the institutions with the greatest potential to pay dividends once the limit imposed by the European Central Bank (ECB) due to the Covid crisis ends, now set at 15% of profit.

Peaks
In the next 5 stock exchange working days, including today, Bankia’s shareholders will receive the liquidation of the picks left over from the share exchange carried out at the close of trading last Friday. Except for those who indicated otherwise in writing, those who were left with insufficient shares in the disappearing bank to exchange them for CaixaBank shares, transferred those picks to Cecabank, which acted as agent in this exchange operation. The entity exchanged them for CaixaBank shares, which will then sell them to CaixaBank and proceed to liquidation. This sale operation will have a corresponding tax impact.


Source: Expansión.