Procurement of civil works by the Ministries of Transport and Ecological Transition fell last year by 57%, bringing it back to 2015 levels. The company which benefitted most was ACS, which topped the rankings of both ministries, with a total portfolio of €279Mn. The low activity led a non-civil construction company such as Siemens to take second place (€133Mn), thanks to a railway signaling contract.
Ofelia Marín Lozano | A business with a positive operating result is viable in the long run, even with a lot of debt. So is a country with a primary surplus. Spain has not achieved this since 2007, with the real estate bubble. But the different behaviour of countries in an ordinary, normal situation (their higher or lower deficits, their surpluses or not in good times) can mark a very different future evolution, which is not evident at first sight. These notable differences are well exemplified by a comparison between Italy and Spain.
Iberdrola has agreed a public-private partnership with Seat and the Spanish government to build a battery factory for the electric car in Catalonia, specifically in the city of Martorell, where the automaker has its factory. However, this alliance could be open to other partners. The sources quoted in some media suggest that the investment would be around €6.8 Bn and that the project is likely to receive part of the resources from the European recovery fund.
Last Tuesday, the Spanish Council of Ministers gave the green light to the general guidelines of its Sustainable Development Strategy for 2030. The document stated that “the required regulatory changes for the reform of the electricity market should be addressed, putting an end to the extra compensation that certain technologies receive”. Implicitly, this refers to nuclear and hydraulic energies. However, the government has little control to make such modifications as the wholesale electricity market is under the umbrella of European regulations.
Upon completion of the transaction, Telefónica and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec will each hold 50% in FiBrasil under a co-control governance model. Telefónica Group’s 50% participation will be held through Telefônica Brazil (“Vivo”) and Telefónica Infra, the infrastructure arm of Telefónica Group, each holding a stake of 25%. Operating as a neutral wholesale company, FiBrasil is set to deploy and operate fibre-optic networks in selected mid-sized cities across Brazil outside the state of Sao Paulo.
In 2020 there were 95 active Sovereign Wealth Funds managing, for the first time, more than $9 trillion around the world, which means a growth of 8% over the previous year, says the latest SWFs 2020 Report elaborated by IE University in collaboration with ICEX-Invest in Spain. At least 67 countries have a sovereign wealth fund, two more than in the 2019 study
Spanish mutual funds has a high degree of liquidity, says the CNMV after analyzing the mutual funds in a statistical exercise that puts these in a potential scenario of “large-scale shock” and with a “very low probability of occurrence” to see what could happen in the event of participants requesting massive redemptions for a crisis such as the Covid19 one . The exercise shows that only eight Spanish mutual funds could present problems. The total number of existing mutual funds is 2,700 according to the latest report by Pablo Fernandez (IESE).
Miguel Navascués | In a paper entitled Recent Developments in the Spanish Economy, Policy & Funding, the Spanish government explains how the €140 Bn from the European Recovery Fund will be allocated to obtain the best result: a solid rebound of the economy with permanent fundamentals. According to the government, it is expected these €140 Bn to have a multiplier effect of about €500 Bn, i.e. a not inconsiderable multiplier of 3.6 euros for each spent. Is it reasonable to expect such an amount?
The IBEX-35 companies have registered a historic milestone by finally reaching the 30% target set by the CNMV recommendation for 2020, according to the latest edition of the report ‘Women on the Boards of listed companies’, prepared annually by ATREVIA and IESE. The presence of women in the index grew 3.9 percentage points, to occupy 31.2% of the seats. This progress, however, has not been able to compensate for the sluggish growth of the rest of the continuous market, which only advanced 2 points (22.9%) last year.
Randstad Research | Unemployment in Spain increased by 44,436 people in the month of February compared to January thus raising the number of jobless people to 4,008,789, a barrier not surpassed since April 2016, reflecting the restrictions impossed to deal with the third wave of the pandemic. Similarly, ther was an increases of 160,000 people in the number of furloughed employees, bringing the total to 899,383.