Financial information at the service of image. Financial statements of the spanish bank of San Fernando and its succeeding the Bank of Spain, in the previous stage to the privilege of issuing bank (1847-1873)

Abstract

The Spanish Bank of San Fernando created in 1847, as result of a merge, presented important losses, which were corrected in the last six years of its life. The change of denomination in 1856 adopting the name of Bank of Spain, did not suppose any real variation, because it kept its activity in all significant aspects.

In 1856, the Spanish banking system was radically transformed. The possibility to create local issuing banks was opened, as well as a new type of banking entities, the Credit Societies, similar to the present private banks. All of this enabled competition. Later, many of these institutions failed as a consequence of the crisis of all type that our country underwent in the period examined.

A series of extraordinary facts and circumstances deteriorated as much the public image of the Spanish Bank of San Fernando that it was brought at bankruptcy’s door. Apart from the financial solutions adopted to solve its capital problems, other measures were taken in order to protect its reputation. Among other measures, it was decided to reduce to the minimum the information provided on the Institution situation and its activities. In this sense, the General Meeting of Shareholders was not convened during three years (1848-1851). When the critical situation was overcome, the normality returned and the General Meetings of Shareholders were regularly held and the information reached progressively a normal level.

The analysis is extended until 1873, just before the Bank of Spain became, in a definitive and permanent manner, the only Spanish issuing bank. It was endowed with an extensive national branches net, had a sound solvency, and new operative activities. In any case, it always remained at the service of the State, its principal debtor. To reach such position it had to overcome some moments certainly hazardous.

The aim of this paper is to explain how, after its fall, the reputation of the Bank, this great intangible good, could be reconstructed. This purpose is pursued above all through the examination of the financial statements published in the Annual Report. Thanks to the analysis of the qualitative image transmitted by them,

and its comparison to the real situation of the Entity, in many moments not known by the public opinion, we were able to get an idea of the scene. This was properly so because the information provided by the Annual Reports permitted an analysis far beyond the purely numerical data. Thus by the simple reading of the statements and the study of their evolution, we could obtain material to accomplish our qualitative analysis, quite different from the examination of the purely countable or legal aspects as those and also later times was the use.

In the present world, with the financial statements normalization, this kind of analysis could, in general, not be done. In any case, the image of the entity transmitted by the Annual Reports is subject of careful study, because corporations are fully conscious that it is a basic component of their reputation.