A recent report published jointly by ICEX-Invest in Spain, Multinationals for Spain Brand and the International Center for Competitiveness said foreign companies’ evaluation of the business climate in 2017 has seen a further improvement compared to a year ago.
Hotel chain Barceló has proposed a merger deal with NH Hoteles whereby it would own 60% of the new group. The tie-up of the two chains would create a sector leader in Spain and the third biggest hotel chain in Europe.
The Public Works Ministry has approved a plan to optimise the value of 2000 hectares of land around Aena’s airports. The sale of these lands should provide substantial capital gains and/or rental revenues in a favourable real estate cycle.
Caixabank Research | Globalisation, technological changes and migration are rapidly transforming the production processes and labour markets of Europe’s economies. Although benefitting society as a whole, they are also increasing inequality and the number of people at risk of social exclusion.
Asia has been the best performing region globally this year because of China being the best performing market and tech being the best performing sector. In Hong Kong in particular the impact of Tencent has been extra-ordinary as the largest stock in the market with a current weighting of almost 12%.
In Spain there are currently 428,000 millionaires with over 1 million dollars compared with 370.000 in 2016, according to a report by Credit Suisse published this week.
Most G10 currencies declined further against US dollar ( USD) . However, analysts from AXA IM remind that “the greenback has lost some steam”, appreciating just 0.5% over the past month.
Before the crisis, Spain’s financial system passed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stress tests which included a 30% drop in property prices, according to Pedro Pablo Villasante, former managing director of Supervision at the Bank of Spain between 2000 and 2006.
French government has recently announced that they will temporarily raise taxes to the main national companies in order to finance the payback of tax paid on dividends, which was in force since 2012 but has been considered an illegal charge by the country’s Constitutional Court. Societé Generale strategists explain how that payback is going to be implemented as well as who will be the most benefited and affected. Furthermore, analysts focus on the impact of the tax raise itself.
Iberdrola has asked the Energy Minister to authorise the closure of its thermal power plants in Lada, Asturias and Velilla in Palencia, the only two operational coal power plants the group has left. With their closure, it will conclude the process of shutting down its thermal plants across the globe.