Shares in Bankia tumbled by as much as half yesterday as the final steps of the largest bank rescue in Spanish history crystallises a near total loss for its shareholders less than two years after it listed on the Madrid stock exchange, the Irish Times reported. Bankia shares, which were listed in summer 2011 at €3.75 in a sale marketed to hundreds of thousands of retail investors and deposit holders, opened down more than 50 per cent at €0.12. They closed down 41.4 per cent at €0.14.

Spanish property firm Renta Corporacion said on Tuesday it would file for insolvency, the latest real estate company to struggle to make debt payments as a prolonged downturn hits business and prices, Reuters reported. Creditors for the company - with debt of 162 million euros ($210 million) - include Banco Popular, ING Real Estate Finance, Deutsche Bank, Caixabank, SAE, Banco Caixa Geral and Sareb, the holding set up by the government to handle soured property assets, the company said in a statement.

A ruling from the European Union's top court will force Spain to make it easier for mortgage holders to escape foreclosure by challenging onerous mortgage terms in court, The Wall Street Journal reported. Thursday's decision from the EU Court of Justice could open the door for thousands of Spaniards to renegotiate tough mortgages, but risks hurting Spain's efforts to fix a broken banking sector. Madrid already has asked other euro-zone countries for some €40 billion ($51.8 billion) in loans to prop up local lenders that had bet big on real estate during a decadelong economic boom.

Spanish fishing company Pescanova said on Tuesday it had found discrepancies between its accounts and its bank debt, Reuters reported. Pescanova's statement comes a day after the stock market regulator opened an investigation into the company for possible market abuse. Galicia-based Pescanova, which catches, processes and packages fish on factory ships, said in a statement to the stock exchange that its auditor, BDO Auditores, was looking into the issue.

Bondholders who snubbed an aggressive tender offer from Santander last year have been rewarded, following a more generous and investor-friendly approach for the same bonds from the Spanish bank, Reuters reported. Santander on Wednesday launched an any-and-all buyback offer for a maximum of just over USD12bn in subordinated bonds as it seeks to boost its capital ratios. "Bondholders that balked at Santander's unmodified Dutch auction liability are now being offered a more straightforward offer with a higher premium," said a banker.

The number of registered unemployed in Spain rose beyond the 5m mark for the first time, but the relatively modest month-on-month increase raised fresh hopes that the country’s economic crisis may be starting to recede, the Financial Times reported. According to labour ministry data, almost 60,000 more people registered as unemployed in February than in the previous month, an increase of 1.2 per cent.

Pescanova SA, Europe’s second- biggest fish processor, plunged 60 percent after it started the initial phase of seeking creditors’ protection and delayed results pending asset sales and a debt renegotiation, Bloomberg reported. The shares tumbled to 6.96 euros in Madrid, or 60 percent lower than its previous close at 17.40 euros on Feb. 28, a day before it was suspended from trading by stock market regulator CNMV. The one-day decline was the most since at least 1994, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Spanish retail bank Caixabank SA said Monday it plans to cut 3,000 jobs as it adapts to a deep economic downturn and the recent takeovers of two smaller rivals, Dow Jones reported. The Barcelona bank said in a press release that it has started a negotiation period with labor unions on how to carry out the cuts, which it said are "necessary to adapt to the current environment and improve efficiency." Spain's banking sector has been shrinking for the past two years in the wake of the bust of a massive real estate bubble.

Reyal Urbis SA, a real-estate firm that became a stock-market darling before Spain's property boom went bust, said it would file for bankruptcy protection in what could become the second-largest default in Spanish corporate history, The Wall Street Journal reported. The firm, born of the merger of Inmobiliaria Urbis and Construcciones Reyal a year before the real estate crash of 2008, said in a statement Tuesday that it expects to reach an agreement with its creditors.

Small retail clients who invested in Spain's nationalised Bankia face substantial losses, with the bank's shares temporarily suspended on the Madrid stock exchange on Thursday morning amid rumours that existing stock would be declared almost worthless, The Guardian reported. The Frob, the country's bank restructuring fund, was forced to admit that the price it will set for swapping debt into shares at the bailed-out bank would be low – but denied reports that it would value shares at just 1 euro cent each.