Daily Times

The Spanish government has extended the deadline to sell its 17.3% stake in Caixabank, worth some 5 billion euros ($5.3 billion) at current market prices, by two years to the end of 2025, saying it aimed to get the best price for the holding.

“This extension aims to ensure greater efficiency in the use of public resources, maximising the recovery value of the state’s stake and thus responding to the ultimate goal of protecting the general interest,” it said in a statement.

This is the fourth extension to the government’s self-imposed deadline to sell its stake in the bank, the country’s largest lender by domestic assets. Caixabank completed its 4.3 billion euro ($5.2 billion) acquisition of state-owned Bankia in March 2021, creating Spain’s biggest domestic bank with more than 650 billion euros in assets.

The government bailed out Bankia in a 22.4 billion euro rescue package in 2012 at the height of Spain’s financial crisis. With the sale of its stake in Caixabank, Spain seeks to recover the public money used to shore up Bankia’s finances at the time. Last year, Economy Minister Nadia Calviño said the government was “in no hurry” to offload its holding in Caixabank. Meanwhile, Japanese government on Saturday revised upward its economic growth forecast for fiscal 2023 to a real 1.5 percent on expectations for increased capital spending and private consumption. The upwardly revised forecast is a 0.4-point increase from the government’s previous projection of a 1.1-percent growth made in July.

According to the Cabinet Office, GDP in fiscal 2023 (April 2022-March 2023) is now forecast to reach 558 trillion yen (4.22 trillion U.S. dollars), surpassing fiscal 2018’s record of 554 trillion yen (4.19 trillion U.S. dollars). From the previous fiscal year, the office said that nominal GDP is also forecast to hit a new high of 571 trillion yen (4.32 billion U.S. dollars), marking an increase of 2.1 percent. With real wages expected to rise, the government said it projects private consumption, which accounts for more than half of the economy, to increase 2.2 percent in fiscal 2023.