Big-name bidders are circling a $640 million portfolio of soured Spanish commercial-real-estate loans, the latest sign of how private-equity firms are still trying to take advantage of the property bust even as the global economy recovers, The Wall Street Journal reported. Morgan Stanley, which is handling the sale for Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, received a handful of initial proposals at the end of last week, a person familiar with the situation said Tuesday.

Banco Financiero y de Ahorros SA, Spain's third-largest bank by assets, will set aside €9.2 billion ($12.52 billion) to cover loan losses and write down the value of its real-estate holdings, illustrating the ongoing fallout from the country's property bust, The Wall Street Journal reported.

A second group of Spanish savings banks says it has begun work to merge operations and establish a new bank following pressure from the government for the troubled sector to raise more capital and reveal its exposure to bad debt with greater transparency, Bloomberg reported on an Associated Press story. Unnim, a Catalan-based group formed by Caixa Manlleu, Caixa Sabadell and Caixa Terrassa — all savings banks or "cajas" — said in a statement late Friday its board has agreed to begin the process of creating a listed bank.

Spain's unemployment rate soared back above 20% in the last three months of 2010 as more than 138,000 jobs were lost, casting doubts about the strength of the ongoing recovery in the euro zone's fourth-largest economy, data released Friday by the country's statistics institute INE shows. Fourth-quarter unemployment stood at 20.3%, up from 19.8% in the third quarter, and the highest level since the second quarter of 1997, when it was at 20.7%. The third-quarter decline had been the first since the rate started a continued rise in the second quarter of 2007, from well below 10%.

Spanish savings bank La Caixa plans to transfer its banking business to listed unit Criteria CaixaCorp SA, in a restructuring effort to improve management and its access to capital markets, The Wall Street Journal reported. Such a move by Barcelona-based La Caixa, the biggest and healthiest of the large savings banks, could set an example for other cajas to follow, analysts say.

A court ruling that could ban Banco Santander SA's chief executive from the banking industry has thrown a spotlight on succession strategy at the Spanish lender, already in disarray after the departure of one rising star last year, The Wall Street Journal reported. Alfredo Sáenz, who has been chief executive of the bank since 2002, is expected to be banned from running banks in coming weeks by Spain's Supreme Court after he was found guilty of making false criminal accusations in a 17-year-old case during his tenure at the helm of Banco Español de Crédito SA, known as Banesto.

Promotora de Informaciones SA said Tuesday it will cut its workforce by 18% through an estimated 2,500 layoffs, as part of the cash-strapped company's ongoing restructuring process, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. In a regulatory filing, Prisa, as the company is commonly known, said the financial cost of the move will depend on planned discussions with trade unions and workers' representatives.

Spain will overhaul its bank regulations to allow the partial nationalization of its ailing savings banks and enable the injection of fresh capital into them, in an attempt to calm investor concerns over the health of the country's financial system, The Wall Street Journal reported. The change in regulation would allow Spain's state-backed Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring, or FROB, to acquire direct equity stakes in the cajas for up to five years, Finance Minister Elena Salgado said at a news conference Monday.

As neighboring Portugal seems to move inexorably toward requesting a bailout, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero pledged to accelerate the cleanup of his country's opaque network of savings banks known as cajas, The Wall Street Journal reported. This means the cajas for the first time will disclose the extent of their exposure to troubled real-estate and construction loans, a move that could trigger injections of government funds into some of the banks. The cleanup effort is part of Spain's attempt to convince investors it isn't another Portugal or Ireland.

China's Vice Premier Li Keqiang said China will sign $7.3 billion worth of deals with Spain on Wednesday, according to a Spanish official, after reiterating Beijing's pledge to back the crisis-ridden European nation's austerity measures and offer of potential support for Spain's future fundraising, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr.