Spain

Consumer prices rose at their fastest level since 2012 in Spain, marking a fresh four-year high for the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy, the Financial Times reported. Rises in transport and housing pushed Spain’s harmonized index of consumer prices up to 3 per cent in February from the same period the previous year. On a monthly basis, prices fell 0.3 per cent compared to January. Both figures were in line with initial estimates from Spain’s statistics office at the end of February.

Spain’s inflation rate has been confirmed at a more than four year high of 2.9 per cent in January, coming in just below a 3 per cent initial estimate but still underscoring the diverging inflationary performances of countries in the Eurozone, the Financial Times reported. EU-harmonised consumer prices in the eurozone’s fourth largest economy leapt from 1.6 per cent in December, pushed up by the cost of housing and electricity. The 2.9 per cent reading is the highest since December 2012.

Spain’s highest criminal court has launched a probe against the former heads of the central bank and the stock market regulator, declaring them formal suspects over their failure to stop the ill-fated flotation of Bankia, the Financial Times reported. The bailout and nationalisation of Bankia marked the nadir of Spain’s 2012 financial crisis and forced the government to request financial aid from its EU partners. The sprawling savings bank went on to absorb more than €20bn in state support and posted the biggest loss in Spanish corporate history.

Santander is considering ways to issue a new type of senior bond well in advance of the requisite legislation being passed, allowing it to chip away at an approximate 30bn issuance target over the next two years, Reuters reported. The Spanish bank said on Wednesday that it will issue 16bn-20bn in 2017 and another 12bn-15.5bn in 2018 of so-called senior non-preferred, set to become a major new asset class as European banks respond to regulatory demands to beef up their loss absorbing buffers.

Spain has won praise from the International Monetary Fund for its “impressive” economic recovery, in a report that offered strong backing for the political measures taken by prime minister Mariano Rajoy at the height of the recent crisis. “The Spanish economy has continued its impressive recovery and strong job creation. Earlier reforms and confidence-enhancing measures have paid off, and combined with external tailwinds and fiscal loosening fuelled the strong economic rebound of the past two years,” the IMF said in its annual country assessment on Tuesday.

The Spanish government may to have to take over several bankrupt toll roads, the minister for public works said on Monday, adding that the state's chances of reaching a rescue deal involving the motorways' bank lenders was slim. The government has been trying for the past three years to negotiate some arrangement with creditors to help prop up nine struggling toll roads while also avoiding saddling the state deficit with several billions euros of debt. The deal would have involved steep losses for lenders - one plan envisage a 50 percent writedown on the debt - alongside an aid package.

A U.S. subsidiary of Spanish renewable energy firm Abengoa SA pressed a judge on Tuesday to approve its plan to exit bankruptcy over objections from a holdout creditor, who said the plan violated U.S. law by favoring the company's foreign parent, Reuters reported. After more than three hours of testimony and arguments, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey in Wilmington, Delaware, said he wanted additional written submissions from the parties. He did not say when he would rule. Abeinsa Holding Inc is one of dozens of global Abengoa subsidiaries that filed for U.S.

A Chapter 11 bankruptcy exit plan by Abengoa SA's main U.S. subsidiary, Abeinsa Holding Inc, violates the law by shielding the Spanish renewable energy parent from lawsuits, according to the U.S. government's bankruptcy watchdog, Reuters reported. The objection by the U.S. Trustee, which typically oversees the administration of bankruptcy cases and polices them for conflicts, threatens to derail Abengoa's high-stakes debt restructuring plan to avoid its own bankruptcy in Spain.

A German MEP has accused Ireland of “tax dumping” after it was revealed that Real Madrid football star Cristiano Ronaldo has used an Irish company for many of his commercial contracts, instead of a company in higher-tax Spain, the Irish Times reported. The footballer appears to have used a Dublin image rights company, Multisports Image Management (MIM), to conclude many of his contracts, including deals with mobile phone companies and sportswear manufacturers.

Spanish renewable energy and engineering firm Abengoa SA has asked a U.S. bankruptcy court to enjoin legal action and future claims by creditors who are unsatisfied with a high-stakes plan to restructure $10 billion of debt, Reuters reported. Abengoa, a Sevilla-based company with a global renewable energy footprint, put its U.S. subsidiaries in Chapter 11 protection this year and filed for Chapter 15 protection from creditors of non-U.S. businesses while it thrashed out a refinancing deal to avoid becoming Spain's largest-ever corporate failure.