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Articles by The Corner

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The Corner
The Corner has a team of on-the-ground reporters in capital cities ranging from New York to Beijing. Their stories are edited by the teams at the Spanish magazine Consejeros (for members of companies’ boards of directors) and at the stock market news site Consenso Del Mercado (market consensus). They have worked in economics and communication for over 25 years.
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Markets 16th March 2012

Bank deleverage to open €700bn finance gap in commercial real estate sector

MADRID | Morgan Stanley published a report that analyses the implications of the banking deleveraging process for the commercial real estate sector in Europe. The bottom line is that it will generate a gap in financing estimated in €400 to €700 billion during the coming years and that this is a structural trend. “We believe that the winners may be the venture capitalists. In our view, Blackstone and Partners Group are well positioned to step in that section of business once banks leave. Financing activity in commercial real estate has an…

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Spanish economy 15th March 2012

Austerity romance: two towns merge in Spain seeking savings breakthrough

MADRID | Cesuras and Oza agreed this week the first merger between towns in Spain. The villages will become one local authority in a decision that was pushed by the need of public spending rationalisation, and that is likely to trigger a municipal restructuring in the region of Galicia. In fact, the president of Galicia’s province of A Coruña, Diego Calvo, admitted there are at least nine other towns currently…

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Markets 15th March 2012

Spanish Treasury: yields still falling despite scuffle with Brussels

By Tania Suárez, in Madrid | The new deficit targets established by Brussels left unmoved the Spanish Treasury issuance performance. It has placed €3,009.29 million in bonds and debentures at lower interests, few days after the Spanish government set up a higher deficit target for 201 and after Brussels mended it to a final 5.3% from an initial 4.4%. Specifically, the Treasury has placed €976.18 million of the €4,031.18 million…

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Spanish economy 14th March 2012

Bidders welcome Madrid’s push for privatisation of water services

MADRID | Privatisation of Canal de Isabel II, the company that manages water services in the autonomous region of Madrid, attracted this week one more potential investor. Insurance firm Mutua Madrileña has expressed its intention to officially bid for the water company. The insurer, chaired by Ignacio Garralda, has confided in Mediobanca to advise on the operation. Esperanza Aguirre, president of the Community of Madrid, and the Spanish capital’s mayor Ana Botella have…

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Markets 14th March 2012

Madrid’s financial City doubts the Spanish risk premium can fall below 300bp

By Tania Suárez, in Madrid | Even though the Spanish risk premium on Wednesday morning dropped to 328 basis points, financial analysts in Madrid are split up about its evolution. 50% of the analysts consulted by Consenso consider reasonable a fall below 300bp before the end of 2012. Most of them clarify that the risk premium will decrease, but depending on economic developments in the international economic context. Also, some of…

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Interviews 14th March 2012

More Anglo-Saxon bankers should go to jail, says OECD’s William White

MADRID | Former colleagues at the Bank of England will read with some sense of shock what William White told the Spanish financial newspaper Expansión during an interview with one of its editors, Miquel Roig. Or perhaps not. After all, as Roig points out in today’s edition, “‘Central bankers are a strong brotherhood of mutual admiration,’ former ECB president Jean Claude Trichet used to say. William White was the one who dared…

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In Europe 14th March 2012

Portugal behaves

By Carlos Díaz Güell, in Madrid | Portugal has gained the confidence of the Troika (staffers from the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank), as one could infer after reading the note published at the end of their visit last week to Lisbon for the third quarterly review of the adjustment programme. The group acknowledged the progress in correcting imbalances and gave the approval for disbursement of the fourth…

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Spanish economy 13th March 2012

“Stake prices in Spanish companies have dropped from 6 to 9 times ebitda”

By Fernando Rodríguez, in Madrid | Maite Ballester is president at the Spanish Venture Capital Association ASCRI, which is a non profit entity born in 1986 to develop and promote temporal investment in private companies. She also is managing director at 3i. In what way will Spain’s venture capital sector be affected by the financial system reform and more stringent rules on bank capital reserves? In the short term, these two factors will mean less…

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Interviews 13th March 2012

The cheek of Mario Draghi with private investors!

By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | The Greek restructuring has been a most impressive achievement. But it has fallen only on private investors’ heads. Public bondholders, like the European Central Bank (ECB), refused to take in their share of losses as everyone else did. When the EBC’s governor Mario Draghi was asked about the ECB’s special protection, turning the central bank into a super-privileged investor, he replied: “I can answer…

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Spanish economy 12th March 2012

Don’t blame Spain’s public sector payroll: it’s 6pc smaller than the EU average

Catalan economist Vicenç Navarro delivers view points whose argument sounds completely contrarian at this stage. While austerity may be debated over –at which degree should it be imposed and how quickly, so further spikes in sovereign debt can be avoided?–, the consensus bears little doubt: public investment must be dramatically lowered. It is the right medicine. But confronted with an increasingly stalled productivity and a disquieting unemployment rate, those of…