Alphavalue | One might wonder why equity investors bet on being long on oil last week when the Brent was reaching new lows. In fact on Tuesday, Brent prices hit 20-year lows in the $22/barrel range. It could be one of the surprising examples of how much risk can be taken when there is talk about, or hopes for, stimulus. At that point, even the strongest fundamentals tend to be ignored.
At Iberdrola’s Annual General Shareholders’ Meeting last Thursday, Chairman Ignacio Galán announced that, for the time being, he expected Net Attributable Profit to grow at a “high single-digit” rate in 2020, thanks to record investments of over €10 Bn. The firm’s dividend is seen increasing in line with profits, he added. Bankinter analysts believe that Iberdrola’s expectations for 2020 may appear “somewhat optimistic, given the current context of uncertainty about the depth and duration of the Covid-19 crisis”.
Ferrovial, through its UK services arm Amey, has been awarded an eight-year, 452.9 million euros contract to maintain and improve roads in southwest Scotland. The company said there is also an option to extend the contract for a further four years, increasing its value to 781.3 million euro.The divestment process of this subsidiary will continue despite the crisis of the coronavirus, the company said. But it recognizes that it will suffer some delays.
AENA has signed new loans with various financial institutions for a total of 1.075Bn euros. The loans have a maturity of between 1 and 4 years and will boost the firm’s liquidity to 2.425Bn euros (from 1.350Bn previously). AENA also has the possibility of increasing it further with the Euro Commercial Paper (ECP) programme up to 900Mn euros, of which 495Mn are still available. Furthermore, the company expects to close additional loans in the coming weeks.
Pablo Fernández (IESE) | The drop in the Spanish Stock Market in March (up to Friday 27) was 22.9%. It is a significant fall, but there have been (so far) greater ones. Looking at the stock market performance over the last 80 years, it can be verified that the Spanish bourse has already had much bigger declines than those of March 2020.
The number of Aena passengers has fallen by 45.5% so far in March, although it has accelerated to -97% in recent days. Therefore, its traffic forecasts for 2020 are no longer valid (+1.9%). To cushion the impact, Aena has reorganised the activity of its airports with the aim of temporarily reducing costs by approximately 43M euros per month.
In a scenario of oil prices (Brent) at $35 and Gas (Henry Hub) at $1.8, Repsol has drawn up a contingency plan to deal with the impact of COVID-19. This includes cancelling the extra share buyback for 5% of capital due to be executed in May, which, totalled 1Bn euros, but maintaining its dividend at €1 per share. The company also flags that it has sufficient liquidity to deal with this situation at least until 2024.
After announcing that the United States considered it “basic infrastructure” in the coronavirus health emergency, Grifols has signed a multilateral collaboration agreement in that country with the U.S. Advanced Biomedical Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other federal public health agencies. The objective will be to collect plasma from patients who have recovered from Covid-19, process it and produce hyperimmune immunoglobulins.
Spain’s top companies are preparing a joint effort to buy the necessary material for this health crisis, such as respirators or facemasks. Their intention is to coordinate, as best as possible, the donation of essential material, and not duplicate efforts. This important operation is estimated at around 150 million euros, at the rate of over 25 million per firm, according to internal sources who have confirmed it with news agency Colpisa. That said, each company decides on the amount it wants to contribute.
US President Donald Trump has reportedly declared Grifols’ donation centers and fractionation plants to be essential infrastructures. So their activity would be guaranteed in the face of a possible economic slowdown. The US is the country where Grifols has most of its fractionation plants and plasma donation centers (more than 92% of the 300 centers it operates).