Stephanie Laiser via The Conversation | President Joe Biden just proposed a roughly US$2 trillion infrastructure plan, which he ambitiously compared to the interstate highway system and the space race. He aims to pay for it solely by taxing companies more, including the first increase in the corporate tax rate since the 1960s.
Anirundha Dutta and Brad Freer (Capital Group) | After a slowdown in 2019 and a harsh lockdown in 2020, India may be poised to regain its place among the fastest-growing emerging markets. From e-commerce to banks to real estate, we look at some of the key sectors that could drive the recovery, and where the opportunities may lie for equity investors.
Aberdeen Standard Investments| There There’s growing appreciation among Chinese companies of the value that ESG policies can bring. Here we outline five firms setting the standards for domestic peers to follow. As a global investor, we carry out environment, social and governance (ESG) analysis when we research companies for two reasons: (1) not to lose money; (2) to make money. We believe selecting firms with strong ESG standards improves our chance of avoiding loss-making corporate failures and scandals.
Felix Haas | Partially through his role with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates came to learn more about the causes and effects of climate change, which was contributing to and exacerbating many of the problems he and his wife were looking to remedy. In his latest book, Bill Gates has done what many political leaders have not: clearly defined and communicated a roadmap that leads us to a net-zero carbon future.
Fedea has published a study analysing the evolution of the working conditions of young Spaniards over the last thirty years and documents their continuous deterioration. In each recession there is a setback in the employment situation of this group. And this does not fully recover in the subsequent expansion, causing a negative trend in the initial employment conditions of successive groups of young people.
President Biden is set to announce his plan for additional fiscal stimulus today. Previous reports suggest that the new US stimulus package to be proposed by President Joe Biden calls for $3 trillion in new spending, although reports in the Washington Post raise the figure in Biden’s proposal to $4 trillion, which would be funded by tax increases of $3 trillion, up from the $1 trillion initially estimated.
Fluidra has signed an agreement to convert a 130 million euros syndicated credit line subscribed in 2018 into ‘green’ financing. BBVA acted as a sustainable coordinator for the process. So from now on, the conditions of this financing are subject to the company’s performance in environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters. This is the first sustainable financing formalised by a company in the sector and will be used to cover the firm’s working capital needs.
Gemma Cairó i Céspedes (University of Barcelona) | A few weeks ago, a group of prestigious economists addressed a proposal to the ECB. In it, they called for the restructuring of the Eurozone countries’ public debt and proposed the need for the ECB to write off their public debt (or swap it for perpetual debt). Although it is true the Treaty of the European Union explicitly forbids the ECB from financing governments, it does not express explicitly that debt restructuring is not possible.
Crédito y Caución (Atradius) | The government and the Central Bank returned to more orthodox economic policies in H2 of 2020. Between September and December 2020 the Central Bank tightened the benchmark interest rate several times, by 875 basis points in total, to 17%. Despite this hike, inflation remains stubbornly high (15.6% in February 2021), and is expected to only gradually decrease in the coming months, due to persistent expectations of high inflation and ongoing price pressure triggered by a weak lira exchange rate. In mid-March 2021, the benchmark interest rate was raised again, by 200 basis points, to 19%. However, President Erdogan dismissed the governor of the Central Bank immediately after – the third dismissal of a governor in less than two years.
Cellnex Telecom CEO, Tobías Martínez, assured on Monday at the 2021 General Shareholders’ Meeting that the telecoms company will grow by 21% annually until 2025, when it is expected to reach a turnover of between 4.1 and 4.3 billion euros. In this context, the company has announced the terms of the capital increase of 7 billion euros. The capital increase will mean the issue of 192,619,055 new shares at a unit price of 36.33 euros. This implies a discount of 22% compared to yesterday’s closing price.