Fernando Rodríguez | 96.3% of the outstanding volume of Spanish fixed income with rating – 1.76 trillion euros – was Investment Grade, BBB or higher – at the end of 2020. This is only three tenths of a percentage point lower than in March of the same year, according to a study included in the CNMV Bulletin for the first quarter of this year, published recently. The supervisor’s study concludes…
T.C. | Of the 67 projects submitted in the first call for proposals for the Spanish sandbox – the testing ground for financial innovation – 18, one in four, have received the green light. Spain wants to promote the digital transformation of the financial system with a testing environment, allowing trials to be carried out without the rigid regulatory restrictions. But with strict supervision by the Bank of Spain, the…
Javier Ibáñez de Aldecoa Fuster (CaixaBank Research) | 2020 has now been left behind; a year that will be remembered in the tourism industry as the toughest in recent history. In 2021, the fight against the pandemic continues and restrictions on movement and trade are still preventing normal economic activity, hitting tourism-dependent businesses particularly hard. However, the roll-out of the vaccines will provide a turning point once immunity is achieved among the population most at risk. Our projections point to a strong recovery in the sector during the second half of the year, resulting in tourism GDP growing by 80% annually, once again becoming one of the driving forces for the Spanish economy.
Juan Pedro Marín Arrese | The European plan is still sleeping the sleep of the just. The first consignments are expected after the summer if there are no setbacks and delays. A common occurrence, judging by experience. This delay contrasts with the huge injections of spending on the other side of the Atlantic. Jerome Powell’s tussle with the markets illustrates the extent to which activity has regained its pulse. Once…
The number of new companies registered its highest year-on-year increase in March since 1995, when the historical series began, with growth of 61.8%, to a total of 10,968 new firms. This is the highest figure in almost 13 years, according to data released by the National Statistics Institute (INE). With this year-on-year increase in March, the number of new companies created has now been positive for two consecutive months, after having risen by 3.1% in February.
According to the Governor of the Bank of Spain, Pablo Hernández de Cos, NGEU funds may be used to facilitate the approval of structural reforms The setting up of a capitalisation fund for each employee to finance part of their severance pay in the event of dismissal is an example of a reform that is desirable for the economy as a whole, but costly for certain agents in the short run.
Telefonica presented today its results for the first quarter of the year: revenues fell by -9% to 10.34 billion, as did EBITDA, which fell to 3.417 billion (-9.1%), which did not prevent it from doubling net profit, which rose 116% to 886 million (FacSet analysts’ consensus expected 500 million in profit), representing a margin of 8.6% vs. the 3.6% margin in the first quarter of last year.
Miguel Cardoso (BBVA Research) | The financial burden is currently approximately 2% of GDP. This means that, with a debt level of 120% of GDP, the government is paying an implied interest rate of 1.7%: a historic low. If the aim is to stabilize public debt at near-current levels, and assuming that both the primary structural deficit and economic growth remain constant, the interest rate would need to remain at approximately 1%. Although this is the current situation, it is temporary.
ACS has been won, in consortium with the British company Mace, a contract valued at €660 M for the construction of a new high-speed train station in Birmingham (United Kingdom), which will not produce any polluting emissions once it comes into operation. Ferrovial is also present in HS2 after it took a 15% stake in the consortium led by France’s Eiffage in April last year, which has been awarded the construction of one of the sections of the line, a contract worth around €2.6 Bn.
T.C. | In Spain, 2,086 companies declared insolvency between January and April this year, an increase of 71% compared to 1,217 a year earlier, according to data published in the Official State Gazette and analysed by Iberinform. The strongest growth was in April, when 552 insolvencies were declared, compared to 41 in April last year, when the legal moratorium and confinement began, exempting administrators from filing for insolvency proceedings. The…