Articles by Fernando Barciela

About the Author

Fernando Barciela
Fernando Barciela has been a regular collaborator for Spain's leading daily El Pais' business section since 1994. He is also a regular collaborator on foreign policy. For Grupo Consejeros he interviews the top executives of Spain's listed companies. He was a correspondent with Diario de Noticias, Portugal's leading daily newspaper, in 1987-2004. He has a degree in Business Science and Journalism from the Complutense University.
IBEX 35 TC

Non-Financial Ibex Firms Cut Their Leverage In 2015, Despite Earning Less

The 25 non-financial companies listed on the Ibex 35 index have achieved something in 2015 which many considered as impossible: reducing their debt ratio. And they have done this despite the fact that their net income was lower than the previous year. According to BME (Bolsas y Mercados Españoles) their financial debt was 38% of liabilities, compared with 44.3% in 2014.


ReformaLaboralFrancia

Suicide French Style?

F. Barciela / Fran G. Ljubetic | No to reforms. Despite having an unemployment rate of 10%, the French people feel very comfortable in their heavily subsidised State. France continues to atonish most of the world and Europe as its citizens staunchly reject any kind of reform to update working rights and conditions which, where they exist, are hard.


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Google Resists Europe’s Fiscal Pressure

What’s going on with technology giant Google, and other similar firms like Amazon or Apple, is really scandalous. The company with headquarters in Mountain Valley, and now called Alphabet, posted spectacular pretax profits of 19.651 billion dollars (26% of its income of 75 billion). But it hardly paid any tax abroad.


madrid stock exchange

Brexit Is Calling The Shots; PP Victory Leaves The Ibex Fairly Cold

The rise in the Ibex 35 in the first few minutes of Monday’s session, when it rose 3% to over 8,000 points could not last. And it didn’t. Half an hour after the market opened, it began its downward spiral once again towards the 7,700 level. It lost over 2% and stayed there almost until the close, with the fall mirrored in the rest of the European exchanges.


iberdrole

Spanish Electricity Companies, Still Worried Ahead Of 26-J

The three big electricity companies in the Ibex 35 index, Iberdrola, Fenosa Gas Naural and Endesa are holding their breath ahead of the outcome of Sunday’s general elections. The years under the PP government have been overall difficult for them and the group, also called the Oligopoly, has a list of outstanding claims and petitions for which a solution will be difficult to find if Spain’s next government is left-wing.


Spotify made its debut on Wall Street on Tuesday

Spain Does Not Have One Unicorn vs 34 In Europe And 100s In The US

Despite the fact that over the last 10 years there has been a lot of feverish activity promoting technological entrepreneurship and help for startups in Spain, so far we still do not have one company which is worth more than 1 billion dollars, what is referred to as a Unicorn.



Gurria OCDE

The OECD Politely Asks For An End To Austerity

F. Barciela / F.G. Ljubetic |It was well known that the forecasts the OECD were going to present for 2016 and 2017 would be nothing to shout home about. But the figures and the tone of the comments made by Angel Gurria, secretary general of the organisation and Catherine Mann, its chief economist, turned out to be more dismal than expected.


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CoCos May Not Be As Good As They Look…But Investors Don’t Care

The European banks are having nothing but trouble in the last few months. And if they needed something else to further cloud their outlook – negative interest rates, meagre margins, increasing capital demands…- doubts have begun to emerge lately over whether the sector can continue to pay the high interest on the so-called CoCos (Contingent Convertible Capital Instruments), contingent convertible bonds.


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Sicavs Are Starting To Pack And Leave Spain

Fernando Barciela and F.G. Ljubetic | So finally, the urban legend which was created around Spanish Sicavs is beginning to have the results everyone expected; namely that their owners have either begun to close them down, put the brakes on their investments or even consider the possibility of moving to more temperate climes to be found in locations like Luxembourg, Geneva or London.