NEW YORK | Because “there’s good pay and there’s obscene pay”. That’s why Brian Wenzinger, who manages more than 5 million shares of Citigroup, voted against the $15 million pay package for chief executive Vikram S. Pandit, says the New York Times. Like his firm, 55 percent of the bank shareholders rejected the company’s pay plan on Tuesday, marking the first time in Wall Street history that stock owners rebuke…
NEW YORK | Amid a fresh gust of optimism as Spain raised more money than anticipated in a pair of short-term bond auctions and after a solid round of U.S. corporate earnings reports, stock markets rallied on Tuesday. However, shares of Spanish oil group Repsol tumbled more than 6% in the wake of the Argentine government’s move to nationalize Repsol’s part of YPF without saying anything about compensation. Repsol’s share…
LONDON | A study by The Share Centre revealed that there is a clear rejection among institutional investors with companies with director-level remuneration that often bears no relevance to the business model or the strategy of the organisation. The Accountability in Business report, which provides an inside-look at corporate governance amongst specialists and fund managers, highlighted this week a widespread belief that executive pay has become disproportionate to performance. Over 95% of…
By Alberto Valverde (http://www.capitalmadrid.com) in Madrid | In 1999, Alfonso Cortina, Repsol’s president sworn in by the grace of the then president José María Aznar, accorded the acquisition as a majority shareholder of Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF) at a price that president of Argentina Carlos Menem took no time in accepting. The late Nestor Kirchner, married to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is now Argentina’s president since succeeding her husband in…
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | Spain is the word. Everybody looks at Spain with suspicion because it could be the source, not the cause, of the next and penultimate euro crisis. The premium risk goes up, Argentina prepares a takeover on YPF, and the King breaks his hip and his grandson shoots himself in the foot. The rumours I hear tell me that the nation’s government does not expect any help…
Spain feels overwhelmed, to say the least, about the fact that it is these days referred to in countless headlines, euro zone leaders’ comments and foreign market participant analyses. The view from Madrid is that those portraits do not always mix the most accurate data with the intention of extracting a sentenced-to-bailout picture, in most cases. Of course, this is a biased impression, although the Spanish government and the financial industry…
Too true. Undeniably, this was the frightening scene on Friday, which heated the discussion about what’s next for the Kingdom of Spain, with even some Greek bouzouki music on the background. But. Analysts at Sabadell Bolsa reminded the markets of a few facts, probably compelled by the amount of fog gathered during the last days over the state of the Spanish finances and its economic prospects. Although acknowledging that domestic imbalances…
MADRID | Analysts at Barclays in Spain felt so shocked by how little knowledge some market participants can display about the actual situation of the Spanish economy, that decided to act. Why Spain does so poorly compared to the rest of Europe? Well, does it? This is the quick note they wrote on Friday aimed at lending a hand to “some brokers and fund managers, mostly foreign, [who] seem to…
LONDON | Skandia Investment Group believes equities will go higher in 2012 despite their already record performance in the first quarter. Equities would be set to rally again once profit taking comes to an end, SIG told investors Friday in a note. Analysts pointed out that global equities had their strongest quarter in over 10 years on the back of strong economic data and hopes that the European debt crisis was past…
MADRID | Berlin is utterly bewildered, according to official sources, by the clumsy way Madrid is running its current crisis. A high ranking government representative stunned his German counterparts by openly declaring that Spain would be ready to find its way out of the euro if that was the prize to avoid intervention. He wasn’t bluffing. On Monday this week he presented PM Rajoy and ministers in charge of economic matters…