asked Josep Lluís Bonet, president of Freixenet, of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce and Professor of Economics, why the company he chaired did not leave Catalonia in October 2017, his answer was always that legal certainty, thanks to the intervention of the State, was always assured. In short: there was nothing to fear. On the contrary, the historic rival of the Sant Sadurní d’Anoia cava company, Codorniu, did decide to transfer its fiscal headquarters to La Rioja. The arguments of Bonet, one of the most prominent businessmen who spoke out against the ‘procés’, still resonate almost five years after that fateful October. That date began the flight out of Catalonia of more than 2,500 Catalan companies led by the two big banks: Caixabank and Sabadell, the La Caixa Foundation itself, and large listed companies such as Abertis, Cellnex and Naturgy. In the case of financial entities, the justification was to prevent the outflow of deposits that these entities were suffering at the beginning of October for fear of what might happen. An express decree approved by the PP Government allowed the transfer of the headquarters to be accelerated without the need to go through the approval of the Shareholders’ Meetings. In non-financial companies there were two more arguments: pressure from international fund managers, shareholders of some companies, and take advantage of the occasion to install the headquarters in a more fiscally competitive autonomous community. This last movement was already taking place with the investment commitment of Catalan companies in areas of the Aragón fringe and even in the north of the province of Castellón.
These years have wanted to remove iron from the relevance of where it is the fiscal headquarters compared to the operational headquarters. The important thing is that the decision center of the companies remains in the place of origin. This is the case with many of the companies that left. At the Banco Sabadell headquarters on Barcelona’s Diagonal, at Cellnex’s in the Free Trade Zone and even at the Codorniu estate in Sant Sadurní, to cite three examples, the main management teams of these entities continue to meet, which they were used to long before the ‘procés’ was installed to travel to generate business and influence. The fiscal headquarters only obliges to hold the meetings of the Board of Directors in the determined place and to maintain a minimum of economic activity. Yes, there have been cases in which the weight of the company has grown much more in Madrid compared to Barcelona for reasons that have more to do with the proximity to the regulatory bodies –Naturgy–, or for strategic decisions, as in the case of Caixabank after the purchase of Bankia. The entity chaired by José Ignacio Goirigolzarri has its fiscal headquarters in Valencia, a place to which Caixabank gives public relevance during the presentation of its annual results.
in Catalonia, from the employers’ association Foment to institutions such as the Cercle d’Economia and different academics at the private level, have been asking for some time to put an end to this distortion between operational and fiscal headquarters, urging the Spanish and Catalan governments to do everything possible to facilitate and encourage the companies that left Catalonia to gradually return to their origin. Operational and fiscal headquarters should go hand in hand. This return would not only have a symbolic effect. It would generate the perception of a return to institutional normality, of legal certainty and that the dialogue process initiated between the Generalitat and the central government is beginning to bear fruit.