Unicaja Banco and Liberbank have acknowledged this Wednesday preliminary contacts for a possible corporate operation without, for now, having taken any decision. If the operation is carried out, the resulting bank would be the sixth largest in assets overtaking Bankinter and could achieve cost synergies of around 200 million euros (50% of the base costs of Liberbank in 2018).
At the start of 2018, the different EU countries and European institutions began to negotiate the next EU budget for financing common policies during the period 2021-27. Although the common budget is modest – it represents 2% of the Union’s total public spending andUR 1.03% of the EU’s GNI – it amounts to an expression of the political priorities of the Union, CaixaBank Research says. It will be the first post-Brexit. With the departure of the UK, the EU loses a significant net contributor.
The bad spell began in the middle of October with a profit warning for 2018 and has finished this week with the announcement of its exit from the Ibex35 at the end of the month. Between one event and the other, the company has suspended its dividend for 2019, has reorganised its leadership team, has been downgraded by Moody´s and S&P and has considered closing unprofitable stores in Spain.
At its Governing Council meeting today, the European Central Bank is expected to confirm the termination of the asset purchase programme by the end of December 2018. The expiry date had so far been subject to incoming data and the medium-term inflation outlook. While incoming data in the past weeks has been rather disappointing, economists at Julius Baer see the solid credit activity as a valid reason to stop asset purchases.
Countries in the Declaration of Co-operation (DoC, also known as OPEC) met in Vienna last week and announced a 1.2mn b/d crude production cut from an October 2018 baseline. In the end, OPEC interests came out first, as expected, and the rest of the world came second.
The times of wage containment are beginning to be left behind in Spain. The ILO and the OECD themselves favoured an increase in the minimum wage, basing itself on the slight improvement in productivity over the last two years, but the first question is whether the proposed increase in the minimum wage is possible.
Christmas came early this year in France as President Emmanuel Macron handed out gifts to his constituents like an end of the year bonus and a €100 increase of the minimum wage, explicitly not paid by employers. However, the European Union may not join in the celebrative Christmas conga as this spending spree will send the French budget deficit far north of what European budget rules allow.
The market is speculating that Banco Santander could return to business in Venezuela through the assets of Julius Baer. The Spanish bank has not operated in Venezuela since it sold its shares in Bank of Venezuela to the country’s government for 1.050 billion euros.
Delaying and praying seems to be the right summary of Theresa May’s latest strategy. Before yesterday’s statement there was always a date to look forward to that at least held the potential of bringing progress in Brexit negotiations.