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Articles by Victor Jimenez

About the Author

Victor Jimenez
London contributor at thecorner.eu, reporting about the City and the Eurozone economies. He regularly writes for Spanish newspaper group Prensa Ibérica--some of his features include shared work with journalists of The Daily Telegraph and the BBC.
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Interviews 8th May 2012

Former Telefonica’s CEO Juan Villalonga enters board of Virgin Mobile LatAm

Virgin Mobile Latin America VMLA, a portfolio company of ePlanet Capital, closed April with a round of extra finance of $26.5 million in new equity financing, the company announced in its latest public communication. The funds will go toward developing regional businesses and launch services in Chile. Investors include the Virgin Group and ePlanet Capital, CANEPA, Souter Investments and Hermes Growth Partners, headed by former Telefonica’s CEO Juan Villalonga. VMLA is a telecommunications operator established…

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In Europe 7th May 2012

The euro area will survive current austerity, NIESR forecasts

LONDON | The National Institute of Economic and Social Research in London said the European Monetary Union will take a long year and a mild recession before finding its way towards growth. The UK’s economy would evolve along the same path. In a prospect note, analysts at the NIESR indicated that their baseline forecast is for global growth of 3.7 percent in 2012. Growth will accelerate to 4 percent in 2013. “We…

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World economy 3rd May 2012

Thursday’s graphs: Spanish energy consumption shows recovery

Energy consumption in Spain during the past four weeks brought gas demand back to positive figures and stopped further falls in electricity. Red Eléctrica and Enagás released electricity and gas demand data in April and analysts in the financial City of Madrid welcomed the better-than expected news. Electricity demand was slightly on the recovery path with a -0.9 percent and a -1.8 percent annually accumulated decrease. As for electricity generated…

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Markets 2nd May 2012

The Ibex’s diem horribilis

The major European markets closed Wednesday in the negative, with losses of -0.93% for London and -0.78% for Frankfurt, while Paris scored +0.42%. But Milan with -2.6% and Madrid suffered the biggest falls. The Spanish stock market dropped 2.55% today and recorded a new annual minimum (6831.9 points) hurt by the slowdown in industrial activity in Europe, weak job creation in the United States and the decline of the banking sector. The hit could have been worse as during the session the index came to be over -3%, that is approaching…

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Markets 2nd May 2012

Most Europe investment managers optimistic on the long term

LONDON | The majority of asset managers working on the European markets agree that there are opportunities to invest despite fragility of the single currency. The UK’s Association of Investment Companies (AIC) published this week the results after having polled Europe managers to gauge opinion on what may be in store for the region. Whilst managers expect pain in the short-term, and do not see miracles happening overnight, over the longer-term they…

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Spanish economy 27th April 2012

Friday’s chart: Spanish advertising cares about the Internet

Infoadex published this week the advertising investment data in media in Spain during the first quarter of 2012. To most financial analysts, the figures are in line with their estimates about advertisement spending in general television broadcasters and continue registering massive drops in the daily press and radio stations. It surely is the consequence of a depressed domestic market and the country’s economic travails. But on a more contextualising note,…

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Markets 27th April 2012

S&P, Pain, Spain, Spanic

The housing bubble, like the turbid monster of an old movie, blows in time and again. Didn’t Spain’s president Mariano Rajoy see it coming? Standard & Poor’s Rating Services might have opened his eyes when it lowered its long-term sovereign credit rating. The Kingdom of Spain woke up on Friday under the ‘BBB+’ tag from the previous ‘A’. The risk agency did not just cut down the short-term sovereign credit rating to…

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Spanish economy 25th April 2012

Spain’s best-selling newspaper El País to cut jobs

The financial City of Madrid welcomed El País’ redundancy plans to improve the balance sheet of the best-selling newspaper in Spain. Investor reports on Wednesday warned that the adjustment in personnel could affect a sizeable number of jobs, but it was necessary to confront the loss of 51pc of accumulated advertising income since 2007. In 2011, the drop in advertisement contracts was of -15pc. Analysts at ACF remarked that the company…

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In Europe 25th April 2012

The euro claims another victim: the UK

LONDON | Already in the mood to dismiss 2012 as a lost year for the UK economy? Analysts in the City of London waived as a non-event the preliminary GDP estimate of this year’s first quarter, released Wednesday by the office of national statistics, which showed that the British economy had contracted by -0.2%. The negative figure added up to a -0.3% fall in the economy in the final three months…

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In Europe 24th April 2012

Brussels orders austerity, Europe returns economic contraction

Awaiting the government’s official figures, which will be released next 30 April, the forecast published this week by the Bank of Spain should be taken as a telling sign of the success that austerity budgets throughout euro peripheral State members are enjoying. The Spanish central bank said that it expects the country’s economic activity to fall by 0.4pc during the first quarter of 2012, a one-tenth down from 2011’s last…