The European Commission authorise the merger in Holland between Tele2 and Deutsche Telekom without preconditions , which drove the European teleco sector yesterday. Until now the Commission had shown itself radically opposed to allowing corporate operations which imply a reduction from four to three in the number of operators in a country.
In this new binary world where China is bad and the US is good, there is a great danger of over-looking the very real structural risks in the west at the moment. As told by Mark Tinker, AXA strategist in Asia, one of the current amusing party games might be to play ‘substitute the words US for China in different bearish economic projection’ and see if it worries you more or less.
The EC found yesterday that Italy is in breach of the European Union’s debt criterion, with a debt/GDP ratio of 131.2% for 2017, significantly above the EU’s threshold of 60%. According to the firm Julius Baer, it is obviou the 60% target introduced in the Maastricht Treaty in the early 1990s cannot be binding anymore, given the elevated debt levels across European countries.
Neil Dwane (Allianz) | The response of central banks to the financial crisis 10 years ago may have saved the world from a devastating depression, but it also created a host of unforeseen effects – from more indebtedness to more economic inequality. Looking back at what we got right – and what went wrong – what lessons can we take away for the future?
The biggest challenges facing the U.S. are deep and seriously jeopardize Americans’ future prosperity. Namely, soaring national debt, Social Security’s solvency and the lack of affordable health care. The official debt is $21.7 trillion
Telefonica posted a profit of €2,721 M in the first nine months of the year, which represents an improvement of 11.6% compared to the same period a year ago.Net debt reduced for the sixth consecutive quarter and stood at €42,636m at the end of September. This fall represents a reduction of nearly 10% year-on-year.
Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist, is the favourite candite to become Brazil’s next president against Fernando Haddad, the nominee of the Workers’ Party. Polls point Bolsonaro is ahead by 11 points. In this context, Brazilian public debt is at 77% at present. This is what analysts at AXA IM say about Brazilian’s “explosive” public debt issue.
The deficit of Spain´s public administrations was 3.1% of GDP last year, the highest in the European Union, above the 3% registered by Portugal, and followed by Rumania (-2.9%), France (-2.7%) and Italy (-2.4%). This is according to the data published by the European Statistics Office, Eurostat, which has downgraded by two points Spain´s public debt to 98.1% of GDP.
According to the company´s report to the regulator (CNMV), Gestamp had net profits of 163 million euros up to September, which is a 7% increase on the same period in 2017. The company had an income of 6.15 billion euros between January and September, 2.5% more than in the first nine months of last year, and 8.9% at constant currency rate.
J.L.M. Campuzano (Spanish Banking Association) | The ratio of company debt in Q2 was 94.9% of GDP, and that of families 60.8%. In the case of company debt, the rate falls to 76.3% if inter-company loans are excluded. In both cases, the levels are already close to the European average.