Spain’s top five banks posted a combined net profit of 7.989 billion euros in the first half of 2015, up 48 percent from a year earlier, thanks to the improving economic situation and a decline in bad loans provisions.
The Corner | July 27, 2015 | Spain’s bailed-out lender Bankia saw its first-half profit rose 11.5 percent from a year ago, as it reported on Monday. Net profit rose 10.3 per cent to €311m, versus a consensus of analysts’ expectations of €277.8m. Charges against bad debts fell and offset weaker revenue from lending.
MADRID | April 24, 2015 | By Fernando G. Urbaneja | Bankia held its general meeting in Valencia (headquarters of one of the integrated in the brand new boxes) this week to approve its 2014 results –the year of the firm’s regeneration– and design its future roadmap. One of its non-explicit goals is to accelerate the partial and progressive privatization of the entity before November general elections in Spain.
MADRID | April 1, 2015 | By Fernando Barciela | The Corner caught up with Luis Iturbe, a board member with Spanish insurance giant, Mapfre. He emphasises the improving health of the Spanish banking sector, but says that the capital increases by lenders, notably Santander, have prevented the Spanish stock market to reach the same revaluations as its peers. He also states that markets in London and New York dished out an unreasonable level of punishment to the euro and Greece.
MADRID| Sean Duffy | Judge´s ruling piles pressure on former executives of Bankia, including former IMF Managing Director Rodrigo Rato.
MADRID | By J.P. Marín Arrese | The Spanish Justice Department has launched a thorough investigation into the accounts which were submitted prior to the original BANKIA share issuance back in 2011. Experts from the Bank of Spain have delivered a devastating report implying these accounts did not provide a fair elucidation of the balance sheet. Should the final ruling follow that line, it could open the way for multi-billion euro claims from investors. Even though BANKIA has announced it can cope with such losses, with taxpayers footing two-thirds of the bill, the impact on Spanish financial market credibility could wreak havoc.
MADRID | By Francisco López | For a few, Bankia has quickly accomplished the miracle of the loaves and fish thanks to a faultless management. For many others, the bank achieved to improve its results in the last two years “thanks to the King’s gunpowder” – an old Spanish idiom meaning one takes advantages of others’ resources but doesn’t value them –. Taxpayers paid €22.4bn, an amount far higher than the lender’s financial gap, which has given back a tiny amount so far. At least, it has overhauled its budget.
MADRID | By Francisco López | The sale of Catalunya Banc to BBVA practically closed the restructuring of the Spanish banking system, which was launched in 2009 at the height of the crisis, and that has reduced to less than a third the number of players in the sector.
MADRID | By Jaime Santisteban | M&A is getting really hot: Pfizer and AstraZeneca are forging the largest all-time merger in the pharmaceutical sector for $101bn, an operation that is stirring up investors. Apple turned to the bond market to fund its capital repurchase program again (it did the same one year ago). A 17bn blockbuster corporate bond debt sale that could the 2nd largest in History.
MADRID | By Jaime Santisteban | After the storm always comes the calm, and the dividend. Bankia’s Chairman José Ignacio Goirigolzarri revealed in the General Shareholders Assembly on Friday when first dividend will be distributed, probably in 2015. Restructuring plan (in record-breaking time) prevented the bank from doing so in 2014 and 2014. Reward wouldn’t just benefit small stockholders but also the State, that would get back part of the €22.4bn disbursed for BFA-Bankia bailout.