First half results from Inditex have once again been record-beating. The company owned by Amancio Ortega, the world’s richest man in 2016 according to Forbes, posted an 8% rise in net profit to 1.256 billion euros in the first half of its 2016-2017 fiscal year (this runs from February 1 to July 31) from a year earlier.
We are updating our target price on Viscofan, with a HOLD recommendation. Viscofan will increase its net cash in 2016e (vs 0,4x DN/EBITDA 2014 and 0x DN/EBITDA 2015), given its strong capacity for cash generation. Viscofan is the only supplier in the world to make artificial casings for meat products in the four commercially available technologies (cellulose, collagen, fibrous and plastic).
Ofelia Marín-Lozano | In the US stock market, the big companies offer a dividend yield of around 2% and the rate of return on their debt with an average maturity of 5 years is also about 2%. In the European stock market, on the other hand, while the dividend yields of the big companies in the eurozone are at record highs (on average over 4%), what they pay on their debt is at minimum levels.
Mari Pinardo / Julia Pastor | At the start of this year, Repsol launched an ambitious Strategic Plan to allow the Company to eliminate its debt and weather the storm of low oil prices. The plan includes: divesting non-core assets for a total of 3.100 billion euros via a series of deals, one of which was the possible sale of its Gas Natural stake. The chance came along and on Monday Repsol announced it has agreed to sell 10% of its stake in the gas company for 1.901 billion euros. The operation has been well received by the markets and by analysts.
Iberdrola’s subsidiary in the UK, Scottish Power, expects to win contracts worth a record 3 billion pounds (3.530 billion euros) in 2016, thanks to an increased interest in investing in renewables, smart meters and electricity networks.
Repsol and La Caixa, via Criteria, have closed the sale of 20% of Gas Natural Fenosa to the US fund Global Infraestructure Partners (GIP) for €3.803 billion. GIP will now become one of the core shareholders of the energy multinational.
The Ferrovial group is a world leader in private transport infrastructure development, not just in terms of the number of projects but also in terms of investment volumes. But with overseas investments of 72 billion euros, and a success story worthy of praise, it has had a setback in the US. This means, in practice, that the Spanish company will have to abandon the SH130 toll highway project (Trans-Texas corridor).
No-one really knows why Mario Draghi said last week that for the time being there are no reasons to increase the ECB’s anti-deflation weaponry beyond March 2017. He said the matter had not even been discussed during the central bank’s Council Meeting on Thursday. The euro has risen and the yield on the German bund as well.
The start of the ECB’s corporate debt purchasing programme has fuelled a significant rise in issuances in the primary market, with a substantial reduction in interest rates in these placements. In this context, the French firm Sanofi and Germany’s Henkel have become the first European companies to place their debt at negative rates.
This week Telefonica has been one of the main protagonists of the Spanish stock market. Firstly, it confirmed to bourse regulator CNMV that it will launch an IPO of between 25% and 50% of its infrastructure affiliate Telxius. And secondly, that it is finalising the partial sale of its UK subsidiary O2.