Sareb’s Board of Directors appoints Leopoldo Puig as the company’s new Executive Chairman

Javier Torres steps down from his position due to health reasons and receives the Board’s gratitude for the outstanding work carried out since 2020, when he joined as a board member.

Sareb’s Board of Directors agreed this Monday to appoint Leopoldo Puig as the company’s new Executive Chairman. The decision follows the resignation of Javier Torres for health-related reasons, having served as company Chairman since 2022 and as an external board member since 2020.

The appointment of Puig, until now Sareb CEO, ensures continuity within the company, which is currently engaged in the renewal of its strategic plan, aiming to use its residential portfolio to support the development of the new state-owned portfolio of social and affordable rental housing, while continuing to divest its remaining assets.

Leopoldo Puig combines extensive financial experience within the public sector – given his role as Inspector of Credit Institutions at the Bank of Spain and his previous position as Chief Financial Officer at the FROB – with an in-depth understanding of Sareb’s business, gained through his role as CEO of the company since 2022.

Javier Torres was appointed Chairman of Sareb in April 2022, when the State acquired a majority stake in the company and added the principles of sustainability and social impact to its divestment mandate. Since then, under his leadership, Sareb has significantly advanced its social mission through the creation of a social housing division, which in the last two years alone has approved more than 9,000 social rental agreements for vulnerable families in Spain, and which also offers a social support programme and job placement scheme.  

Also during Javier’s time as Chairman, in addition to launching the Social Rental Housing Programme, Sareb has actively developed other initiatives, such as the assignment of additional housing for social use to public authorities and the sale of homes to regional governments and local councils, with the aim of contributing to the expansion of Spain’s public housing stock. “We would like to thank Javier Torres for the significant contribution he has made to Sareb over these years, during which the company has successfully incorporated the principles of sustainability and social impact into its mandate, while continuing to meet the objectives first set out when it was founded in 2012,” concluded the company’s Board of Directors. Javier Torres, a member of the High Corps of Spanish State Economists and Trade Experts, is stepping down after a career that has spanned more than four decades. From 1986 to 2016, he worked at Banco Santander where he served as Deputy Director General and held various senior positions in business and risk areas. He subsequently served as Director of Resolution at the FROB between 2017 and 2019. In October 2020, he was appointed as an external board member of Sareb, and in April 2022, he was appointed the company’s Chairman.