NEW YORK | Because “there’s good pay and there’s obscene pay”. That’s why Brian Wenzinger, who manages more than 5 million shares of Citigroup, voted against the $15 million pay package for chief executive Vikram S. Pandit, says the New York Times. Like his firm, 55 percent of the bank shareholders rejected the company’s pay plan on Tuesday, marking the first time in Wall Street history that stock owners rebuke…
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | Spain is the word. Everybody looks at Spain with suspicion because it could be the source, not the cause, of the next and penultimate euro crisis. The premium risk goes up, Argentina prepares a takeover on YPF, and the King breaks his hip and his grandson shoots himself in the foot. The rumours I hear tell me that the nation’s government does not expect any help…
MADRID | The US market once again knocked on the doors of the Spanish railway equipment manufacturer CAF. The company, based in Guipuzcoa (Basque Country) will supply trains for the rail project in the city of Cincinnati, in the State of Ohio. In an initial phase, the company will manufacture a small number of vehicles, which it will also keep updated. So far, CAF has been chosen as preferred supplier and will now negotiate…
LONDON | Standard Life Investments, the global investment manager, said on Thursday that the debt deleveraging cycle was showing signs of improvement, especially in the US, while admitting that the process remains a long and complex one after such a major financial crisis. In the latest edition of Global Outlook, Standard Life Investments highlighted that one of the key features differentiating this business cycle from most of its predecessors was…
By Carlos Días Guell, in Madrid | In the Middle East, drums of war have for months now been sounding and this has triggered potential risks that could push oil prices higher than ever seen before. The worst scenario, though the least likely, would be one in which the tensions between Iran and the West rise to such an extent that the Strait of Hormuz is closed and oil supplies cut. The last…
NEW YORK | It’s been a bad day for Spain in Wall Street’s most read media. The tepid bond auction is to blame: Spain sold a total of $3.43 billion in bonds with maturities between 2015 and 2020, near the bottom of its target volume. Spain expected to sell between $3,28 billion and a planned maximum of $4,6 billion. There was a weaker demand and therefore it had to pay…
LONDON | Another day spent with the euro area teasing markets’ anxieties, another voice in the background alerting of a wall of trouble building up on the other side of the Atlantic. The US budget deficit is reaching a size many feel uncomfortable about: in Wednesday’s fundamentals briefing, Legal & General Investment LGIM suggested that the outlook for US debt is actually worse than most people currently believe. “Not many…
By Tania Suárez, in Madrid | Manuel Sousa Andrade is head of investment services and trading at Saxo Bank. Sousa proposes that if we want to get out of the current crisis, it’s necessary to get rid of the wrongs of the past and to change investors’ habits. Regarding the public debt, you say that investors want to ‘protect themselves’ and that’s why they ask for ever higher yields. Can…
LONDON | Jobless rates gave Monday a nasty reminder of an ongoing credit crisis whose effects seem to have depressed further the economies in the developed countries. The euro area (EA17) seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 10.8% in February 2012, compared with 10.7% a month earlier. It was 10.0% in February 2011. The EU27 unemployment rate was 10.2% in February 2012, compared with 10.1% in January. It was 9.5% in February 2011. The statistical…
NEW YORK | Yields on Greek bonds are the highest ever. Spanish and Italians are pretty good also. If they pay back, it could be a very sweet deal for every savvy investor. And private assets are on sale too. In 2010, Apollo Global Management bought a portfolio of distressed property loans owned by Credit Suisse for about $1.2 billion, a roughly 50 percent discount to the face value, according…