Pablo Fernández (IESE) | The drop in the Spanish Stock Market in March (up to Friday 27) was 22.9%. It is a significant fall, but there have been (so far) greater ones. Looking at the stock market performance over the last 80 years, it can be verified that the Spanish bourse has already had much bigger declines than those of March 2020.
Spanish watchdog CNMV considers that the terms of SIX’s takeover bid for BME have been adapted to current standards, while the contents of the prospectus submitted, after the latest amendments on 25 March 2020, are sufficient. SIX is offering €33.4 per share. The acceptance period is 43 calendar days from the business day following the publication of the takeover announcement. One of the major new features of the transaction is SIX’s commitment to maintaining BME’s activities and locations in Spain for 10 years, as opposed to the initial four years.
The number of Aena passengers has fallen by 45.5% so far in March, although it has accelerated to -97% in recent days. Therefore, its traffic forecasts for 2020 are no longer valid (+1.9%). To cushion the impact, Aena has reorganised the activity of its airports with the aim of temporarily reducing costs by approximately 43M euros per month.
In a scenario of oil prices (Brent) at $35 and Gas (Henry Hub) at $1.8, Repsol has drawn up a contingency plan to deal with the impact of COVID-19. This includes cancelling the extra share buyback for 5% of capital due to be executed in May, which, totalled 1Bn euros, but maintaining its dividend at €1 per share. The company also flags that it has sufficient liquidity to deal with this situation at least until 2024.
After announcing that the United States considered it “basic infrastructure” in the coronavirus health emergency, Grifols has signed a multilateral collaboration agreement in that country with the U.S. Advanced Biomedical Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other federal public health agencies. The objective will be to collect plasma from patients who have recovered from Covid-19, process it and produce hyperimmune immunoglobulins.
Spain’s top companies are preparing a joint effort to buy the necessary material for this health crisis, such as respirators or facemasks. Their intention is to coordinate, as best as possible, the donation of essential material, and not duplicate efforts. This important operation is estimated at around 150 million euros, at the rate of over 25 million per firm, according to internal sources who have confirmed it with news agency Colpisa. That said, each company decides on the amount it wants to contribute.
US President Donald Trump has reportedly declared Grifols’ donation centers and fractionation plants to be essential infrastructures. So their activity would be guaranteed in the face of a possible economic slowdown. The US is the country where Grifols has most of its fractionation plants and plasma donation centers (more than 92% of the 300 centers it operates).
Boris Johnson’s government would be looking for ways to take a stake in UK airlines such as Virgin, Easyjet or British Airways.The British government wouild intend to inject millions of pounds in exchange for shares in the companies, reported FT. These would later be sold to private investors. The main problem is that British Airways is part of the IAG group, based in Spain.
Telefónica’s business is responding very positively to the exceptional situation we are experiencing in three of its four main markets (Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom) according to data compiled by Renta4 analysts. As the telecoms sector is a defensive one, the analysts believe its results should hold up better than those of most sectors. Particularly given that the government considers it a “basic service”.
Santander has became the first Ibex-35 company to quantify a preliminary impact on its accounts due to the effect of the coronavirus.In a statement to the Spanish Watchdog CNMV, the banking group said it expects no effect on its first quarter figures. But in a scenario of rapid recovery or “V”, the crisis will trim 5% off full-year 2020 profits, it added.