By Julia Pastor, in Madrid.- El Corte Inglés, the well-known Spanish department stores brand has had no alternative but to cut its food, drugs and perfumery products prices by 20%. Since the crisis began, their most direct competitors in this segment, the Valencia-based supermarket Mercadona and the French chain Carrefour have entered into a price war in which the retail company was out by their own choice. Now things have…
What To Say Through Text To Get Your Ev Back By valenciaplaza.com, in Valencia | José Carrasco is private banking director at Banco Madrid in Valencia. Carrasco believes the European Central Bank buying Spanish bonds would reassure investors and negative headlines would then recede allowing foreign capital to go back to the country's market, where good value still abounds. What is your view on the European stock markets? With France…
Divorce Advice How To Get Over Your Ex During the 15 years of real state boom, prices and salaries in Spain rose drastically, causing a strong loss of national companies' competitiveness. In the last four years, the country has regained 13 of 16 points, which means a 70% of the total, largely because of lower unit labour costs, the financial newspaper Cinco Días said in its Thursday edition. The Bank of Spain competitiviness…
By Julia Pastor, in Madrid | The solution proposed by the Spanish president Mariano Rajoy to inject capital directly into troubled entities, with no need of intervening the whole of the countries' economy is gaining momentum. It was the International Monetary Fund the first organisation which gave a boost to the idea when its managing director, Christine Lagarde, assured that Spain did not require a rescue. Last week, Mario Draghi’s…
MADRID | We have a case for demanding some support in resisting the current run on us, our most solid argument being that something nasty might happen to the euro should we fall in the abyss. The one based on the merits of performing our homework seems less convincing. For all the reforms undertaken, we still have a long way to go in redressing a dismal record. Sheer lack of money…
MADRID | The turnover of audit firms in Spain increased by 2.2% in 2011 to over 2.8 billion, thus extending the trend of steady moderate growth in the previous two years. Tax and legal advice, and corporate finance experienced a more dynamic activity level, while the audit and consulting areas grew by 1%. A study of the sector published by DBK showed that audit firms managed to increase its sales in 2011,…
VALENCIAPLAZA.COM | Víctor Alvargonzález is executive director at financial advisor firm Profim. Alvargonzález points at the root of all Bankia’s problems: in his opinion, a bank managed was destined to become a systemic disaster waiting to happen. He believes Spain’s finances hurt more from lack of credibility than soundness, though. Is it time to avoid the Ibex for a while? We have been sort of avoiding the Spanish market for over…
By Julia Pastor, in Madrid | Contrary to what might be assumed, on Wednesday Spanish politics answer to the EU was strong despite the severe turbulences affecting the country’s financial system: the argument is that it does not need to rescued, but its debt needs to be guaranteed. President Mariano Rajoy and the opposition leader, the Socialist Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, agreed to hold this position together in order to “defend the…
MADRID | Bankia’s Chairman brilliant performance in transforming the hole he found in his company as an opportunity to ransack the public coffers, has turned him in government’s shadow financial policy maker. His recipe to cure banking ills will receive little praise in economic circles. But it sounds extremely simple and effective. Writing down bad loans resorting to taxpayers’ money amounts to a rather dull endeavour. Bur indulging in such…
By Julia Pastor, in Madrid | Report and counter-report, this seems to be the general trend in talking about the Spanish economy’s health. Wednesday it was the CEEC’s occasion to present a report. The nation-wide competitiveness council integrated by presidents of the big Spanish multinationals assured that “expected losses in the the banking sector are limited. Since 2007, the industry has assumed €190 billion of them, including implications from last…