Banco Sabadell has proposed a redundancy plan for 1,900 employees to the trade unions, which could mean the closure of between 230 and 300 branches. It should help the bank to improve its low profitability, ROE, of 3.1% on equity, far from the cost of capital (which can be up to three times higher). It is also way off the profitability obtained by its Spanish competitors (Santander and BBVA have…
Last August, in an interview with the Times, Telefónica’s chairman, José María Álvarez-Pallete, urged the United Kingdom to follow Spain’s example in fiber optics so as not to miss out on the digital revolution. Pallete remarked that in Spain there is more fiber optic than in the UK, France, Germany and Portugal together, with a penetration of 70%, compared to only 3% in the UK. Yesterday it was learned that…
Fernando González Urbaneja | Prime Minister Sánchez made another celebrity appearance for what they call the opening of the political year (yet more posturing nonsense) with economic content centred on the SMI (Minimum Interprofessional Wage). One of the news items of the event was the absence of the CEOE (Spanish Confederation of Business Organisations) from the session, which highlights how trivial and insignficant the session was. What difference does the…
The fall in unemployment, -2.4%, is the largest ever for the month of August, marking the sixth month of falling unemployment in Spain. In the last 6 months, unemployment in Spain has fallen by 675,000 people and, at the end of August, stands at 3,333,915 people. Nevertheless, Social Security lost an average of 118,004 contributors in August compared to July, bringing the total number of employed people to 19,473,724 contributors,…
J.P. Marín Arrese | Ms Ribera, the Spanish Minister in charge of energy and environment, has warned electricity companies that lack of empathy towards their clients may undermine their stock performance as markets price-in such conduct. It wasn’t just a personal comment. She delivered it in the Parliamentary debate over the upsurge in the price of electricity providing no clue on how empathy-driven markets might work. Yet, one has the…
The consumer price index (CPI) in Spain rose by 0.4% in August to 3.3% year-on-year, the highest rate since October 2012, as a result of higher electricity prices according to the CPI leading indicator published on Monday by the National Statistics Institute (INE). This advanced indicator, if confirmed, would represent an increase of four tenths of a percentage point compared with the year-on-year rate recorded in July (2.9%) and would…
Mapfre Insurance – which serves customers in 13 US states, the largest auto and home insurer in Massachusetts and the 21st largest private personal auto insurer in the US – and AAA Washington – which offers its 1.2 million members exclusive benefits including roadside assistance, discounts, maps and personalised travel planning – have entered into an agreement to create a joint venture dedicated to the co-marketing of auto and home…
With one in four Spanish companies in insolvency – according to estimates from the Bank of Spain – the government is set to raise the minimum wage – standing at 950 euros – again, after increasing it by 31% since 2018. Employers are opposed, and point out that according to studies by the Bank of Spain, the sharp rise in 2019 must have led to the loss of 180,000 jobs.
Non-performing loans granted by credit institutions to companies and individuals fell to 4.4% in June, compared with 4.55% in May and 4.67% a year earlier, according to provisional data from the Bank of Spain. This is its lowest level since April 2009, when the NPL ratio began its climb – which reached 13% in 2014 – as a result of the financial crisis. Total credit to the private sector increased…
Repsol has produced, at its Petronor Industrial Complex in Bilbao Spain, the first batch of aviation biojet fuel, a sustainable fuel obtained from waste. This important milestone in the production of fuels with a low carbon footprint represents an evolution in the decarbonisation of air transport fuels, a segment where electrification is not viable at the moment. The batch consists of 5,300 tonnes of sustainable fuel, the use of which…