Maria Àngels Vallvé, the living and honest history of finance in Barcelona

The auditorium on the top floor of EY's Barcelona headquarters was filled to hear firsthand the career of Maria Àngels Vallvé, who at 83 years old is still in full form. Through the personal history of Maria Àngels Vallvé, one can also follow the history of Barcelona's finance over the last half-century. She was the first woman to be a stockbroker in Spain. Until the mid-1980s, to be a stockbroker, it was necessary to pass competitive examinations because, now it may seem very distant, but this group had the rank and nature of civil servants. Furthermore, until 1969, the requirements to access were to be Spanish and male; "male with an M," as she herself clarified, causing the first of many smiles generated by this new session of the True Leaders series, jointly organized by EY and The New Barcelona Post.

Once the gender requirement was eliminated, Maria Àngels Vallvé decided to take the competitive examinations and in 1971 obtained this position, which made her the first woman to access the trading pits for buying and selling shares on the Barcelona Stock Exchange. "They greeted me with a mocking smile," she recalled, but immediately her perseverance, daily learning, and also "the high-pitched voice that stood out above the rest" allowed her to make a place for herself in a world, the financial one, that was essentially masculine.

This career, however, cannot be understood without -precisely- the role of three fundamental men in her life: her grandfather, Joaquim Ribera, founder of the company Metales y Platería Ribera, where she had her first job; her father, Joan Vallvé, who -when it was also not common at all- advised her to study Economics and to go to the United Kingdom for a year to train and, above all, her husband, Joan Hortalà.

The man who was president of the Barcelona Stock Exchange between 1993 and 2020 also has a career full of records: in 1966, at just 25 years old, he became the youngest professor to obtain a chair, in this case in Economics. It was at the faculty where Joan Hortalà and Maria Àngels Vallvé met, and from their passion for economics also arose a lifelong love, five children, and fourteen grandchildren. Vallvé recalls that if she has been able to develop her career, it is because she had "a man ahead of his time" by her side in reconciling work and family life and advocating for women's professional progress. One of these advancements must be placed in the late 1980s, when the financial sector experienced the most significant transformation in its history: those public stockbroker positions became private offices by law. A law that, among other things, led to the creation of what is today its current maximum regulatory body: the National Securities Market Commission.

It was thus that three of these stockbrokers agreed to found an office in Barcelona: the initials of their surnames combined to form an essential brand for understanding the finances of Barcelona, Catalonia, and Spain: Garçón, Vallvé, and Contreras, GVC. The union between the three stockbrokers lasted only a few years. In 1991, Deutsche Bank wanted to buy the office, but far from selling her shares, Maria Àngels Vallvé not only refused the sale but bought the shares from her other partners who, however, asked that GVC cease to be the equivalent of the three surnames, and for this reason, GVC stands for General de Valores y Cambios (General of Securities and Exchanges): "I became Mrs. Securities," she explained in another charming turn of the event that, despite the touch of humor, explains by itself the courage and audacity involved in the operation.

Buying in times of crisis

That operation occurred in the midst of the first Gulf War. In 2001, Credit Suisse bought GVC for an undisclosed sum of money, but soon after, both parties realized that no one was satisfied with the operation, so Maria Àngels Vallvé began the repurchase process, favored by the fact that in September of that same 2001, the attack on the Twin Towers ended up leading to "a change in governance" at Credit Suisse.

The years 2007-2008, another crisis, in this case financial, led to the purchase of an investment firm giant, Gaesco, which the CNMV forced to sell due to the delicate situation it was going through. "There were many potential buyers, but the fact that GVC had its headquarters in Barcelona greatly favored Gaesco ending up being acquired by us," Vallvé recalled. This is how what we know today as GVC Gaesco was born, an empire that with 150 employees has a portfolio of 30,000 clients and moves almost 6,000 million euros in assets.

1991, Gulf War, Vallvé buys GVC from Garçon and Contreras. 2001, Twin Towers, GVC repurchases from Credit Suïsse. 2008, financial crisis, GVC buys Gaesco. And, to top it off, in the period 2010-2013, in the midst of the banking bailout, a new crisis and the austerity period, GVC Gaesco acquires the stock market part of Bankia, which in turn came from the defunct Caja Madrid. When Maria Àngels Vallvé is asked if there is a pattern between times of crisis and business expansion, she answers bluntly: "that's when you have to buy."

Surely for this reason, thousands of clients trust this company: "others may offer them more margin and higher-risk operations, we offer them trust and honesty." This word, honesty, is the keystone of everything: it is what she demands from her employees, from her management team, but also from clients, whom she always asks what their sleeping point is, that is, what is the risk they are willing to assume with their savings with insomnia as a red line.

Honesty and prudence, the family recipe

Vallvé's clairvoyance was evident throughout the session, but especially when she analyzed the current situation, which combines much international upheaval (such as the war in Iran or Ukraine) with relative tranquility in the stock markets: "this is because one thing goes independently of the other: what would cause a collapse would be a crisis of confidence in the futures market." However, she called for a cautious approach to everything that is happening, among other things because all indices are high and "at some point they will have to go down." Precisely "prudence" and foresight of a downward correction is the method prescribed by Maria Àngels Vallvé's daughter, Carme Hortalà who, along with her brother Joan, attended the True Leaders day in the front row and also spoke at the event, amidst emotion and smiles.

Carme Hortalà is a manager at GVC Gaesco and is the daughter who has organically decided to follow in her parents' footsteps. Not only is she dedicated to finance, but she has also broken glass ceilings by becoming the first woman to chair the Barcelona Financial Cluster and also the economic commission of Futbol Club Barcelona. This incorporation, more than twenty years ago, into the discipline of GVC Gaesco has turned the company into a kind of family business "although it was not born with this purpose," says Vallvé.

Indeed, unlike other firms, which are founded with the vision of passing from parents to children, GVC Gaesco emerged as an autonomous professional office and, with the train already running, incorporated one of its daughters as a director. And it is thus, from woman to woman, how a very important part of the history of finance in Barcelona will experience new chapters yet to be written.