Spain

Christie's has withdrawn 85 artworks by Spanish surrealist Joan Miró from its auctions in London this week, after an uproar in Portugal over the government's move to sell the works in an attempt to cut its debt, The Wall Street Journal reported. The decision, announced on Tuesday just hours before the Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist evening sale, represents a blow to Portugal's coffers—as well as an embarrassment for one of the world's largest auction houses during the most important time of year for the London art market.

Spain is preparing to start selling down its stake in Bankia SA, the bailed-out lender said yesterday, marking another milestone in the recovery from financial crisis of both the bank and the country, the Irish Times reported. Bankia, which returned to profit in 2013, said it had already held informal talks over the disposal of the government’s stake and its shares were attracting strong interest from foreign investors.

Less than two years ago, Bankia looked like a Spanish version of Lehman Brothers: a big, troubled institution whose collapse threatened to take down a country’s financial system, The International New York Times reported. Only after a government takeover of Bankia, at the time one of Spain’s biggest mortgage lenders, and an international bailout of the Spanish banking system did the crisis subside.

Codere SA, the Spanish gaming company in talks to restructure 1.1 billion euros ($1.5 billion) of debt, won’t make an interest payment on its bonds, according to a filing, BloombergBusinessweek reported. The company had 30 days grace period to make a 31 million-euro interest payment on its 8.25 percent bonds initially due Dec. 15. A default on the 760 million euros of bonds may give holders the right to demand immediate repayment. Codere continues negotiations with bondholders to restructure its debt, the Madrid-based company said in the statement.

Spain’s property sector is still struggling to recover from a half-decade downturn, according to figures showing that home sales dropped by 16 per cent in November compared with the same month in 2012, the Irish Times reported. Just under 22,000 homes were sold during that month, the National Statistics Institute (INE) reported yesterday, the second-biggest year-on-year dip since the economic crisis started to bite in 2008. It was also 4.1 per cent fewer homes than the previous month.

As Spain's economy begins to recover from a near-fatal crisis, Latin American companies and entrepreneurs are ahead of the pack in gaining a foothold from which they can grab a share of the spoils, Reuters reported. Mexicans, Venezuelans and others have moved into areas such as banking, travel, food and other consumer-orientated sectors. Investors from Spain's former colonies are also snapping up financially strained firms in "the Mother County" in need of liquidity boosts.

GSO Capital Partners LP and Canyon Capital Partners LLC agreed to allow Codere SA to miss a loan repayment deadline as the Spanish gaming company continues talks to restructure 1.1 billion euros ($1.5 billion) of debt, Bloomberg News reported. The company has been given 30 days to repay 127.1 million euros of loans, Madrid-based Codere said in a statement. If the company manages to reach an agreement with creditors within the next month, the loan will be extended until April 15, the company said.

Spanish gaming group Codere said on Thursday it is seeking protection from creditors and starting talks to avoid insolvency, after struggling to keep up with debt payments in recent months because of higher tax bills and other costs, Reuters reported. The company is the latest in Spanish to run into trouble even as the country slowly emerges from recession, with bankruptcies handled in court in 2013 up 15 percent from the year before, according to official data. Codere's problems, however, stem mainly from its overseas businesses.

The Spanish government is hoping to put the country’s creaking pension system back on sounder financial footing this week, with the launch of a pension reform that places tight curbs on how far payments to Spain’s 9m elderly people can rise in the coming years and decades, the Financial Times reported. The reform, due to enter into force on January 1, forms a key plank in the broader structural reform programme that has dominated Mariano Rajoy’s first two years as prime minister.

As mortgage defaults rise, lenders will have to set aside money to cover losses, hurting profits, according to Juan Villen, head of mortgages at Spanish property web site Idealista.com, Bloomberg reported. Spanish banks absorbed 87 billion euros ($120 billion) of impairment charges last year after Economy Minister Luis de Guindos forced them to record more defaults on loans to developers. The government took 41 billion euros in European assistance to shore up its failing lenders.