Medel leaves the direction of the Unicaja Foundation after pressure for his departure

Braulio Medel has left this Tuesday the address of the Unicaja Foundation. The historic banker had spent months of pressure for his departure that had made the Government intervene due to doubts about his management of the entity, the main shareholder of Unicaja Banco. The foundation has held an extraordinary patronage to deal with the dismissal. He will be replaced by José Manuel Domínguez Martínez. Medel has already announced his intention to advance his departure before the expiration date of his mandate, scheduled for October.

Medel advances his resignation from the presidency of the Unicaja Foundation

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Medel wanted the report on his suitability for the position requested by the Protectorate of Banking Foundations, dependent on the Ministry of Economic Affairs, to be canceled, according to financial sources told EFE. According to these sources, the idea of ​​stopping making the report would be based on the fact that, when Medel left, it would no longer make sense to assess his suitability, although they warn that the order of the Protectorate is still in force.

In March, the Protectorate expressed serious doubts that the necessary suitability and commercial and professional integrity concur in Braulio Medel to perform his functions. He also doubted that he exercised the exclusive benefit of the Foundation's interests and properly managed his stake in Unicaja Banco, of which he is its largest shareholder.

The Board of Trustees of the Unicaja Foundation, convened for this Tuesday, included among its issues the "partial loss of the object of the report" requested by the Protectorate in relation to the suitability of Medel. In that same meeting -the sources indicate- Medel sought to renew a related patron, Filippo Faraguna, who is the one who, as president of the audit commission and in charge of matters related to the report, has included the question of the loss of the object of the report, it is to say, that the aforementioned report is not made, which was a requirement of the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

The Board's agenda included the acceptance of the resignation of Braulio Medel as patron and president and the appointment of José Manuel Domínguez to the position. Medel proposed a month ago to succeed Domínguez, who was director general of the general and technical secretariat of Unicaja Banco until recently, although this was previously agreed upon with the majority political parties.

José Manuel Domínguez Martínez, PhD in Economic Sciences and Professor of Public Finance at the University of Malaga, held from 1990 until very recently various managerial positions of maximum responsibility successively at Caja de Ahorros de Ronda, Unicaja and Unicaja Banco. He is also the director of the Edufinet Financial Education Project since its creation in 2005.

The Unicaja Foundation is the largest shareholder of Unicaja Banco with 30% of the capital. For months, the fifth entity in the country was experiencing an internal storm that had led to the resignation of three independent directors, who showed their disagreements with the bank's appointment policy. This fact raised the concern of the supervisors, both the Bank of Spain and the European Central Bank, due to the doubts it caused about their governance. The storm has worsened since the merger with Liberbank was closed last year.