Published on 28th December 2012
One of Spain’s biggest banks has been officially declared worse than worthless, leaving 350,000 small investors likely to be virtually wiped out in a restructuring expected to go ahead next month. The disastrous state of Bankia, a grouping of seven savings banks hammered together in 2010 and floated in 2011, shows it is valued at -4.2 billion euros (-3.5 billion pounds), dashing any lingering hopes that its shareholders might salvage anything from the wreckage. Shares in the bank — formed out of Caja Madrid and six much smaller savings banks, a deal known as Snow White and the Six Dwarfs — slumped by another 20 per cent yesterday to 0.55 euros after the latest valuation was published by the Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring, the Spanish bailout organisation. [The Times]