Fernando Rodriguez | Foreign institutional investors hold 50,2% of the total capital of listed companies on the Spanish Continuous Market, up 12 percentage points in the last 10 years according to the conclusion of the report: Preparing for the 2021 Shareholder Meeting Season, drawn by the law firm Cuatrecasas and the proxy solicitor Georgeson, an annual report now in its tenth year.
Fernando Rodriguez | Spanish companies, banks, autonomous communities and state agencies participated in 40 green, social and sustainable bond issuances in 2020, worth a total of €15,024 million, up 54% since the previous year, according to the 2021 Report of the Spanish Sustainable Finance Observatory (OFISO).
Fernando Rodríguez | Spanish issuers are becoming increasingly active in the global sustainable finance market. State-owned Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO) has joined the Nasdaq Sustainable Bond Network (NSBN), the platform that concentrates relevant information on sustainable bond issuers and transactions from all over the world with the aim of promoting transparency in this market. Iberdrola became the first issuer to join this platform in October last year, and BBVA was the first Spanish bank to do so a month later.
Fernando Rodríguez | “Traditionally, the major correlation in stock markets has been between actual or expected corporate earnings and prices. Right now, for several years, the most direct correlation has been between the stock price of an index and the balance sheet of its respective central (…). Today the market is discounting that there is no limit to this race and futures are assuming a zero rates until 2030. I believe this has a limit and is not what the market thinks about,” explains Juan Carlos Ureta, Chairman of Renta 4.
Fernando Rodríguez | The announced merger between SASB and IIRC, two institutions which set non-financial reporting standards, is a step forward in the convergence towards a single standard. This process began at the end of 2019 when framework- and standard-setting institutions of international significance like SASB and IIRC together with GRI, CPD and CDSB joined efforts and signed: Statement of Intent to Work Together Towards Comprehensive Corporate Reporting.
Fernando Rodriguez | An independent jury selected the companies with best practices in two areas: Corporate Governance and Remuneration. Corporance nominated several Spanish companies for each category, after analysing over 50 meetings in the 2020 season. Both European awards went to Spanish companies: Bankinter won the “General Shareholders’ Meeting 2020” prize and Red Eléctrica Corporación won the “Quality of Remuneration Information” prize.
Fernando Rodriguez | Sustainable investment in Spain amounted to 285,454 million euros in 2019, up 36% on the previous year, according to ‘Spainsif 2020 Study: Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Spain’. The study was prepared with the answers to a questionnaire provided by 76% of Spanish investment companies and 43% of international ones operating in Spain. 72.8% of the total figure – €207,571 million- is managed by Spanish companies, up 9% on the previous year.
Fernando Rodríguez | “All the risk committees of every company list them exhaustively in their reports, and nobody had foreseen the risk of the pandemic. Everything was done by looking at the past. Of course the concept of risk has changed,” explains William Connelly, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of AEGON, Vice Chairman of Amadeus, Director of Société Générale and Singular Bank. “How do you manage that? There are two parts. One is immediate risk. Then the strategic risk”, he adds.
“The pandemic has implied a deep transformation in all aspects and the greater interest in sustainability is one of those changes. In the last months, we have seen inflows and better performance data in ESG funds. The raise of ESG investment will imply a greater pressure on issuers to prove that they are able to manage this type of risks and the opportunities triggered by a situation like this.” says Ana Rivero, Global Head of Investment Content and ESG, Santander Asset Management.
Fernando Rodriguez | Daniel Lozano, Director of Investor Relations and Communications at Grenergy, was the winner in the rising star category at the IR Magazine awards – Europe 2020. Lozano began his career as a financial analyst at Abengoa and was part of the teams that helped MasMovil and more recently Genergy, whose team he led, to move from MAB -now BME Growth- to the Continuous Market; so far, the only companies to do so.