Bankia's President Portrays an Upside to a Bailout MADRID (AP) - The troubled Spanish lender Bankia will treat the billions of euros of state aid that it will receive in the country's biggest-ever bank bailout as an investment meant to make a profit for the Spanish government and not as a loan, its president said Sunday. José Ignacio Goirigolzarri, Bankia's president, appeared to be trying to reassure markets after the Spanish media questioned what he had meant by saying a day earlier: "We don't need to talk about giving any of it back." In a statement on Sunday, he said Bankia's obligation is "not to return that capital but to be able to generate value and profitability for that contribution." Mr. Goirigolzarri said the Spanish state would decide "when it deems appropriate, and through the mechanism it chooses," when to sell its stake in Bankia to obtain the highest possible price to benefit taxpayers. On Friday, Bankia sought 19 billion euros ($24 billion) in bailout money from the Spanish government. This comes on top of 4.5 billion euros that it expects to receive in an emergency loan in June. Bankia is stuck with 32 billion euros ($40 billion) in bad assets on its books from loans in the property sector before Spain's real estate bubble burst. The Bank of Spain has estimated that the country's banks are sitting on some 180 billion euros ($225 billion) in tenuous assets. The government fears the cost of rescuing the country's banks could overwhelm its finances, which are strained by a double-dip recession and an unemployment rate of nearly 25 percent.