These branches, which have already received the relevant opening authorisations, are part of BBVA USA’s five-year strategic plan announced a few months ago. “Although the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the migration of operations from branches to digital channels, in the short term and perhaps beyond, the truth is that banking is a people business,” said Larry Franco, head of retail banking for BBVA USA.
The market capitalisation of Spain’s six leading banks has slumped by approximately 53.11 billion euros. All the lenders recorded declines in their share prices, which ranged from 39.3% for CaixaBank to 54.9% for Banco Sabadell. The combined market capitalization of the six banks at the end of the first half was 76.398 billion euros, compared to 129.509 billion end-2019.
Amadeus continues to raise financing in the current difficult situation. The EIB’s loan’s principal will be used to finance research and development activities for a variety of new technology solutions for airlines, airports, travel agencies and railways. The company will carry out this R&D in 2020-2021.
Santander Corporate & Investment | The launch of the MSCI ESG Screened Europe iTraxx Index, based on the MSCI iTraxx Europe Series 33 Index and the application of three MSCI filters, took place with great fanfare on June 21. Enel and Iberdrola have AAA ratings from MSCI for their ESG (environmental, social and governance) characteristics, but they have presumably been excluded from the index because of their involvement in nuclear and coal-fired energy production.
The main reasons for the downgrade are the economic deterioration in the regions where the bank is present, especially Mexico and Spain. However, it also flags that even after losing a rating notch, BBVA has sufficient financial cushion, geographical diversification and a good competitive position in its reference markets to avoid being affected by new downward revisions in the short term.
Through one of its subsidiaries, Siemens Gamesa has received a conditional order from Innogy SE for the supply of 100 units of the SG 14-222 DD offshore wind turbine. The order, with a total potential of 1.4 GW, is for the Sofia wind farm, located 195 km off the UK’s northeast coast. The deal also includes a service and maintenance contract. The order represents 4.9% of Siemens Gamesa’s portfolio at end-March.
Prointec, Indra’s civil engineering subsidiary, will participate in the largest railway infrastructure project in Europe, Rail Baltica. This is a rail network for passengers and goods linking the Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-t). In consortium with German engineering consultancy Obermeyer Planen + Beraten GmbH, it will design a 93.5 km section of the works for a total of €10.8 M.
This figure is the result of a corporate reorganization undertaken by the lender in recent months. The bank bought 25% of the capital of Santander Consumer Finance which it did not control directly from one of its subsidiaries. This stake has been valued at 3.193 billion euros which means valuing 100% of the subsidiary at nearly 12.8 billion.
Renta 4 | Iberdrola has announced a takeover bid for 100% of the Australian renewables company Infigen Energy at a price of AUD 0.86$ per share. This is in line with Infigen Energy’s current stock price, but 6% higher than the offer made by UAL Energy on 9 June. It values Infigen at AUD 841 M (510 million euros approximately, 0.7% of Iberdrola’s market cap), with an EV/EBITDA multiple of 8.2x (vs 10x at Iberdrola’s current price).
The Spanish oil and gas group has announced an agreement with Saudi state oil company Aramco for the development of synthetic fuels. The agreement begins with an industrial conversion project in the Petronor factory (Basque Country) and would later be transferred to the rest of Repsol’s facilities globally. Repsol will invest 80M euros to modify some of Petronor’s production processes via two projects.