Spain Business Brief - Tuesday October 20 2009

Spain Business Brief - Tuesday October 20 2009
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By h.b. - Oct 20, 2009 - 1:22 PM
A new logo and slogan for Ferrovial

Ferrovial new logo

The giant Spanish infrastructure company Ferrovial is facing a new era, and a new logo and slogan, following its fusion with Cintra.
The company with Rafael del Pino as Chairman, says the new logo will be used in all their business areas and across all their brands’. The slogan reads in English, ‘Engineering human progress. The main objective of the fusion with their motorway company is to refinance a debt which stands at 23 billion. It could collect in 1.64 billion by the sale of Gatwick Airport, according to city estimates.

The PP Regional President of Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre, has launched her candidate, Ignacio González, as the new chairman of the Caja Madrid savings bank.
The control of the bank has been the subject of a political fight inside the Partido Popular, and Aguirre’s choice is different from that of party leader Mariano Rajoy who is said to favour the ex Minister, Rodrigo Rato, or Luis de Guindos who has denied receiving any offers.
Aguirre claims that there is consensus across the Socialists, IU left wingers and the Unions UGT and CCOO for her candidate.
Meanwhile Caja Madrid has announced a 45% fall in profits for the year to September compared to a year ago. It made 622 million over the nine months, but saw its bad debt rate fall by 0.17% in the third quarter to stand at 5.38%. Sources in the company said that next year would be complicated, but that the bank was prepared. They consider that there are no certain signs of an economic recovery.

As we reported yesterday strike action is being planned at the Spanish Opel factory at Figueruelas, in protest at the plans for 1,332 redundancies by the new owners Manga. The workers committee have now announced that the stoppage will be for four days; the 28th and 30th of October and the 3rd and 5th of November. A statement from the CCOO union said that the stoppages would affect all three shifts at the plant.

News has emerged that the Government has written to the main organizations which represent the self-employed saying that their last offer is to give them the right to six months unemployment pay. The amount is seen by Lorenzo Amor, the President of the ATA Autonomos Association as discriminatory, given that salaried workers are entitled to upto two years dole. They have also pointed out other problems, such as the self employed person having to pay more for insurance cover for accidents in the workplace.

UGT union leader, Cándido Méndez, has become the latest to criticize the Government’s plans to increase IVA to 18% from July next year. He said the Government’s budget for 2010 had light and shade. The light was the social policy and the payments to civil servants, the shade was the planned tax increases.

The number of foreigners affiliated to the Spanish Social Security System has fallen for the second consecutive month. A reduction of 6,733 was seen over September to stand at 1,908,595. The number is 8.62% lower than that seen for the same month a year ago. The largest number of foreigners paying into the system are from Romania, at 277,151, followed by Morocco with 227,964, followed by Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. Foreigners now make up 10.64% of the registered workforce in Spain.
681,423 of those affiliated are from other EU countries.

And finally
Campofrio Food Group has announced the emission of simple bonds worth 500 million €, informing the National Commission for Market Values of plans for the bonds to mature in 2016. The company thus wants to extend its debt beyond 2013.

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