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April 15th, 2010
A price war for deposits between Spanish lenders could be the catalyst for mass failure of the country's struggling savings bank system, according to bankers and analysts. Troubles for the regional savings banks, or cajas, may even trigger sovereign debt problems in the eurozone's fourth-biggest economy. BBVA, Spain's number two private ...
Continue reading Spanish Banks Face Price War
March 5th, 2010
The idea that Spain could become a target of the world’s markets, an economic basket case weighing down the euro, is a preposterous notion, but not an unthinkable one. It’s preposterous in the sense that this is a great, energetic, creative and competent nation that in about 25 years shed a ...
Continue reading Spanish Economy on the Edge
March 4th, 2010
The Ministry of Development has just released some statistics that help illustrate the severity of Spain’s construction boom and bust. What is worse, there is no quick solution as much of the trouble is stored up in a new homes glut that will take years for the market to digest. The ...
Continue reading Spanish Property Boom & Bust
February 26th, 2010
The Bank of Spain is expected to increase the provisions it demands of Spanish lenders to cover property bought from struggling real estate developers. The central bank’s move would further dent bank profits already hit by economic recession, according to financial sources and bank analysts. In November, the central bank raised its ...
Continue reading Spanish Banks Face Higher Provisions
February 15th, 2010
The number of houses sold in Spain fell 0.3 percent in December from a year earlier, the 24th straight month of declines, the National Statistics Institute said on Wednesday. The drop compared to an annual fall of 2.6 percent in November and a record slide of 47.6 percent in April. The ...
Continue reading Two Years of Declining Spanish Property Sales
December 31st, 2009
Spanish savings banks have begun selling off the large property portfolios they acquired as collateral from loan defaults, in an effort to improve solvency ratios, a move that risks further falls in property values that could impair the value of their asset books. In Spain, the global financial crisis that erupted ...
Continue reading Spanish Banks Saddled With Property Debt
December 30th, 2009
Unless it turns out to be a false dawn, the housing markets in the UK and the US may be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Can the same be said for Spain? Spanish housing market experts can’t agree on the answer, according to an article online at ...
Continue reading Experts Disagree Over Spanish Property Market
December 18th, 2009
Residential property in Spain is still 27% over-valued, despite the property market crash, claims a new report from Aguirre Newman, a real estate consultancy. A big part of the problem is Spain’s glut of unsold homes, argues the report. Aguirre Newman estimate there are 1.5 million homes on the market today, ...
Continue reading Spanish Property Still Overpriced
November 6th, 2009
The latest figures for planning approvals show that for the residential construction sector there is still plenty of bad news out there. Bank of Spain to double provisions in move that may drive property prices down. The depressing news for anyone who makes a living building homes in Spain is that ...
Continue reading Spanish Property Swings & Roundabouts
October 27th, 2009
I am constantly frustrated by Spanish bureaucracy and how it negatively affects Spain's ability to compete in business internationally. However, this week, I caught sight of an article about Community Enterprise which praises Spain for its commercial initiatives in the 1950's: "The Mondragón cooperatives in the Basque region of Spain are perhaps ...
Continue reading Spain: Volatility & Opportunity in Equal Measure
October 19th, 2009
Fitch Ratings says in a report published today that the Spanish banking system has weathered the global financial crisis successfully to date with no need for capital support from the state. This is due to its retail banking focus, prudent regulation and limited exposure to structured products and complex instruments. However, ...
Continue reading Fitch: Major Spanish Banks Sound Despite Challenges
September 17th, 2009
When Santander launched its mammoth E7.2bn rights issue last year, rivals rushed to deny they needed to follow suit. Yet for the last six months, they have all been quietly raising their capital ratios – through asset sales, repurchase of their own bonds at a discount and the sale and ...
Continue reading Spanish Banks in Search of Capital
September 1st, 2009
When France and Germany reported strong GDP figures, some economists declared the end of the recession, and blue skies ahead. Others pointed out that, as none of the fundamental contributors to economic wealth have improved, its very unlikely that we're witnessing the end of the recession. If anything, they commented, ...
Continue reading Spain: There May be (more) Trouble Ahead ..
August 10th, 2009
Spanish banks have been doing their best to shield themselves from the bursting of the country’s property bubble. By buying properties before the loans on them go bad, lenders can mask their worst bets. Restructuring loans has the same effect. Help is now at hand from an unlikely source: the normally ...
Continue reading Spanish Property Tricks and Mortar
August 7th, 2009
Spain's Santander, the eurozone's largest bank, reported a first-half net profit of EUR 4.51 billion, down 4.5 percent from last year. For the three months to June, it had a net profit of EUR 2.42 billion, down 4.0 percent but still the second highest quarterly profit in its history, following that ...
Continue reading Spain's Santander Bank Profit Down 4.5%
