Founded in 1776 by Jaime Dalmau Batista as
Jaime Dalmau y Cía (Jaime Dalmau and Company), who had a shipping company operating between the
port of
A Coruña and several American ports.
Galician emigrants used to send their savings back to Galicia through the shipping company, hence the need to manage all that
capital. In 1819 José Pastor Taxonera became a partner in the company, and soon took control of the business. He bought it in 1845 and changed its name to
José Pastor. The business was passed down through generations of his descendants, changing its name to
Pastor Hermanos,
José Pastor y Cía. and
Sobrinos de José Pastor successively until 1925, when it became Banco Pastor and became a
Sociedad Anónima. In 1939,
Pedro Barrié de la Maza (one of the principal economic backers of
General Franco's
coup d'état received an economic tzar position in
Galicia in exchange for his support) took full control of the bank and use it as a supporter of Galician business network control. At a national level it cooperated with Astano,
Renfe and
Fenosa, founded in 1943 by Barrié de la Maza. In 1971, following Barrié de la Maza's death, his widow
Carmela Arias y Díaz de Rábago was appointed executive president of the bank, being the first woman to become president of a bank in Spain. In September 2001 she was succeeded by José María Arias Mosquera. In 2011, due to the effects of the
2008 financial crisis, Banco Pastor was one of the few banks that failed the European stress test. On October 10, an agreement was reached for a takeover by
Banco Popular, but to be continued to be run as a separate entity. ==See also==