Miguel Ángel Aguilar is a prestigious journalist with a highly successful career at major media outlets such as El País. He was the director of Agencia EFE and Diario 16 and has also contributed as a columnist and collaborator for La Vanguardia, Cinco Días, Vozpopuli, and 20 Minutos, as well as the television networks Telecinco, TVE, la Sexta, and Antena 3. Moreover, he is a prolific writer with more than eight books to his name.

He welcomes us into his home in the Chamartín neighborhood to share his testimony about Luis Valls, whom he knew for many years. The story begins with him talking about the lunches he and Carlos Ruíz Álvarez had with the banker from Beatriz, lunches they were invited to as representatives of the European Journalists Association. Aguilar said these lunches were “wonderful, calm; there were no mobile phones, and he did not take any calls—it was fantastic.” The journalist highlights that when something they said seemed interesting to Valls, he would take a piece of paper and jot it down.

According to Aguilar, the relationship with Valls was because Valls wanted them to tell him the reality of the streets, what was really happening, something the journalist himself called “immersion journalism.” Valls wanted their detailed version of events.

The renowned reporter recounts the hard times during Franco’s government’s shutdown of the Madrid newspaper around 1971. To help those affected by this dramatic event for the press in general and for the workers in particular, Valls decided to give his shares to those impacted. This was the beginning of the Madrid newspaper Foundation, which, among other assets, has a building on a central street in Madrid and aims to promote the dignity of the journalistic profession.

If there was one thing Valls was not, it was a follower. He had his approach to things and was not influenced by anyone or anything. He approached reality without sectarianism, without being influenced by ideologies or other movements of the time. One of his great battles was to identify the best talent, as Miguel Ángel Aguilar recounts.

Valls’s support for the journalistic profession continued years later, with the European Journalists Association donating a building close to the Congress of Deputies.

Aguilar emphasizes that Valls’s behavior reflected his Christian vision of life in his treatment of others, his discretion, and his generosity. Additionally, he highlights that Luis Valls always understood that the mission of banking was also social; that beyond the legitimate and primary objective of protecting shareholders and employees, banking had to be a driving force to help the prosperity of society as a whole.