The Gallegan fashion retailer never fails to amaze us with its growth capacity, which is also healthy. As of now, it is not just the leading Spanish company in stock market terms but also one of the three or four in the Eurostoxx 50 worth over 100 billion euros.
The Eurozone’s second largest lender confirms plans to increase Earnings Per Share (EPS) in 2016 and 2017, reaching double digits by 2018, and grow Dividend Per Share (DPS) and Tangible Net Asset Value (TNAV) Per Share every year.
These are not good times for IPOs. Telefónica has been obliged to cancel the IPO of its infrastructure affiliate Telxius, with the agreement of the placement banks. With the stock market listing, Telefonica had hoped to reduce its hefty debt pile of over 52 billion euros. But market pressure has forced it to backtrack. Telefónica’s shares opened down 4% on Friday. So far this year, the shares have still lost over 8%.
On Wednesday during its Investor Day in London, Prosegur announced a restructuring, aimed at changing its management model, as well as the possible IPO of its Cash in Transit (CIT) business. This is slated to take place in the first half of 2017.
If a slowdown started in the Spanish economy for 2017, this would find Spain’s private companies in a healthy situation with regard to their debt: at end-2015, this was below the eurozone average (106.4% of GDP).
When the former CEO of BBVA, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri (62) arrived at Bankia in 2012, the most critical year for the bank (19.2 billion euros of losses), everyone celebrated his appointment. They saw it as a guarantee that Bankia would succeed in getting back on its feet within the expected timeframe, not only in terms of its business but also terms of its stock market valuation.
UBS | Once CaixaBank gained further clarity around BPI’s deal’s viability, it announced a placement of its own treasury shares near Thursday’s market close. This sale amounts to the 585m shares (9.9% of capital) which CaixaBank received as a result of the asset swap (involving BEA/Inbursa stakes) with Criteria in December last year.
BoAML | Almost as soon as the Bank of Japan had announced its yield-target strategy, there has been investor interest in whether the ECB could follow the same policy approach soon. In our view, such read-across is not evident, however.
Philippe Waechter, chief economist at Natixis AM explains the current structure of US prices showing that housing market contributes to more than 60% of the inflation rate.
Banco Popular has had no other option but to take drastic measures to get itself out of a jam. The huge amount of impaired property assets on its balance sheet has forced the bank to make two capital hikes worth 5 billion euros, restructure the organisation, which includes the appointment of a new CEO and announce that it will lay off 3,000 employees and close 300 branches.