Fernando Rodríguez| Sovereign funds have invested 28.3 billion euros in Spanish companies in the period 2011-2016. Norway’s sovereign fund GPFG alone closed last year with a portfolio of over 12 billion euros in Spain, with shares in 75 companies and over 3.5 billion euros in government debt.
Goldman Sachs has reached an agreement to sell its Spanish energy business Redexis to a consortium formed by First State and CPPIB for 2 billion euros. Corporate transactions in Spain’s gas sector have been in focus over the last few months, benefiting Gas Natural’s share price.
The European bail-out of our banking system saved its skin. Now, a decade later, parliament and the Bank of Spain are investigating what happened.
Mari Pinardo | Spain has the capacity to produce much more electric energy than we can consume. On average we use 35,000 megawats and have 100,000 installed. So why is our electricity bill higher than our European partners?
Over the last few weeks, Spanish businessmen’s concern has increased over the fact Spanish ports are becoming less effective due to the stevedore’s work-to-rule. According to business sources, currently it’s taking almost twice the amount of time to arrange a ship’s entrance into port, which also has direct consequences on the transport service.
Fernando Rodriguez | Francisco García-Paramés is an asset manager who has made ‘Value Investing’ popular in Spain thanks to the good results obtained during the last 20 years. He is Spain’s Warren Buffet.
International organisations and the leading research departments are revising their growth forecasts upwards for the Spanish economy for this year and 2018. But at the same time, they note that Spain’s recovery is not reaching most wage earners.
There are still opportunities in office buildings but investors need to be very selective. And it’s important to add value to the property, for example through refurbishment, according to Eduardo Fernández-Cuesta who worked for 25 years in CBRE.
The leading research departments have begun to make upward revisions to their forecasts for the Spanish economy in 2017 and 2018. The GDP figures confirm that our economy did not lose momentum in the final part of 2016 (in the end GDP grew 3.2% for the year as a whole). And the indicators on activity and confidence at the start of 2017 show a slight acceleration. The good performance from the labour market, and Spain’s competitive exports, will be key growth drivers.
The eternal debate as to whether Spain has a quality democracy, with a level of legal security on a par with Europe, has recently become topical again following the courts’ decisions in the cases of Urdangarin and the “black” credit cards. Weeks before legal security also appeared because of the courts’ ruling related to the floor clauses.