Castle Asia Share Discussion Threads

[miata] 16/12/2010 10:44

Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged that no euro member would be "left on their own", but dug in her heels against the creation of eurobonds and demands to boost the EU's €440bn (£372bn) bail-out fund. "We must not make the mistake of thinking that collectivising risk is the answer," she told a stormy session of the Bundestag.

The defiant stand came as Moody's issued a downgrade warning on Spain owing to "high refinancing needs in 2011" and the risk of further bank bail-outs. It said central and regional governments must finance €200bn next year. Spanish lenders have to roll over a further €90bn. "These needs are now rendered more challenging by the fragile confidence of international capital markets. Foreign investors have typically funded around 5pc of Spain's funding requirements. They may be less willing to do so in the immediate future given recent speculation about the treatment of bondholders should Spain be pushed to seek support from the EU/IMF," it said.
Moody's said Spain may need to inject €80bn of fresh capital into the banks under a "stressed scenario". The agency said Madrid seems unable to control the debts of regional juntas. There appear to be "no policy initiatives" to discipline health and education spending.
Merrill Lynch said in its global outlook that Spain's public debt is "under control" but bank woes could yet entangle the state, forcing Madrid to seek a rescue.

The Spanish government on Thursday sold 2.4 billion euros worth of bonds.

1.782 billion euros of 10-year bonds, with the marginal yield jumping to 5.485% from 4.632% in a previous sale of the same issue on Nov. 18.

618 million euros worth of 15-year bonds, with the yield rising to 5.986% versus a previous 4.552% at an Oct. 21 sale.

Bond traders say the country may have trouble raising funds until it becomes clear whether the European Central Bank will buy Spanish debt.

[praipus] 16/12/2010 10:32

SVM MF selling Weiss buying

[waldron] 28/11/2010 07:50

cheers miata

it almost convinces to buy another home in Spain

[miata] 25/11/2010 12:53

Foreclosed homes for sale in Spain may triple in number in 2011 owing to new accounting rules that push banks to shed depreciating assets more quickly, according to a report.

Fernando Acuna, the co-founder of Pisos Embargoes de Bancos, which advertises repossessed properties, made the comment in an interview with Bloomberg News. He said about 100,000 repossessed houses and apartments are now on the market, with a quarter of them listed on his website, on behalf of 25 banks.

In September, the Bank of Spain began requiring banks to account for a fall in property values of at least 30% if they keep those assets more than two years.

[waldron] 24/10/2010 11:34

One firm reclaims £10m tax for 730 Brits
Finanical Mail on Sunday
24 October 2010
Spanish lawyers have successfully claimed almost £10m for 730 British property owners who were illegally charged 35% tax when they sold their homes.






WANT TO KNOW MORE?Pitfalls of buying and living in Spain


They believe thousands more will miss out on Christmas bonanzas of around £15,000 each - unless they stake claims for the return of overpaid capital gains tax within the next couple of weeks.
The Spanish tax authorities have reluctantly coughed up after the European Court of Justice rapped them for charging the inflated tax, which should have been 15%, the same as for Spanish nationals on sales between 1996 and 2006.

Barrie and Pat Tracey from Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, last week got a refund of almost £10,000 - after a long campaign for justice.

Mr Tracey said: 'When we sold up in October 2005 we were shocked when our solicitor told us we had to pay 35%. We knew it was illegal. But he told us that he was required by the law to withhold the money from the sale and would be in serious trouble if he didn't.

'Our early protests were ridiculed and rebuffed by the authorities. Even when the European courts ruled in our favour, they were reluctant to admit they were wrong. We eventually joined a class action launched by a law firm in Barcelona. They take 35%. But without them we wouldn't have had a chance.'


Patricia added: 'I am delighted. To be honest I had written it off. Even when the European court ruled it was illegal our lawyer felt there was little chance of ever seeing the overpayment.

'I knew the chances of recovering the overpayment were practically zilch. But when the Barcelona lawyers seemed confident to offer a no win no fee deal I felt we had nothing to lose. It was all very simple.

'All we had to do was provide a copy of our original tax receipt and sign a limited power of attorney. The lawyers have been brilliant keeping us fully informed at every step of the way. The tax authorities even paid interest.'

Lawyer Emilio Alvarez, of Costa, Alvarez, Manglano said: 'We've had a 100% success rate and we estimate that hundreds, maybe thousands of others could get back overpaid tax. But to be safe they really need to claim before November 1 - to give time to get documents processed.'

It is a last minute dash but Barcelona lawyers Alvarez Manglano and Associates of Barcelona say they are confident they can get a settlement if they get instructions by November 1.

Senior partner Emilio Alvarez explained: 'We can handle everything electronically. Although the cut-off date is November 18 we can, in the event of any delays or problems, make a provisional claim giving us an extra 30 days.'

All anyone who believes they qualify has to do is to contact the firm. Everything is done by email and phone with English or English speaking lawyers. Contact [e-mail] or call 0845 680 3849.



Read more:

[praipus] 21/10/2010 12:20

More institutional holding RNS.

[praipus] 20/10/2010 15:54

NAV 104.75

[praipus] 20/10/2010 15:18

Weiss holding increased again.

[praipus] 14/10/2010 09:34

Estimated NAV 103.69

[praipus] 14/10/2010 09:33

Noticed the recent volume, price action and Weiss investment.



Seeks long term capital appreciation through investment in a diversified multi-manager, multi-strategy portfolio of hedge funds investing in Asia.

[miata] 01/7/2010 07:47

Notes including NHS entitlement on return to the UK.

[miata] 12/5/2010 15:23

Spain will slash public spending by €6bn and cut civil servants' by 5pc salaries this year as part of a plan to ease fears the country could slide into a debt crisis like that of Greece.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the prime minister, on Wednesday outlined a series of measures that will include a suspension in automatic increases to retirement pensions, a drop in overseas aid and a reduction in government investment.

He said 13,000 civil service jobs would be cut in 2010, with public sector wages frozen in 2011.

[miata] 01/1/2010 11:07

Feliz año nuevo.

[miata] 15/10/2009 09:26

House prices in Spain fell 7.8% in the third quarter, versus the same period a year ago, the Ministerio de Vivienda said on Thursday. That compares to a fall of 8.3% in the second quarter. From the second to the third quarter, prices fell 0.9%, against a 1.9% fall between the first and second quarter of this year.

[jonno1] 04/10/2009 13:29

whitehotproperty.co.uk

That website has been down for the last week

[ariane] 04/10/2009 10:09

interesting miata

enjoy your weekend

[miata] 04/10/2009 10:05

Banks bought about 110,000 homes to keep losses off their books as Spain's property bubble burst, according to real estate researcher RR de Acuna & Asociados in Madrid. Now they're using strategies reminiscent of the boom times -- 100 percent mortgages, low interest rates and free cars -- to sell homes, potentially slowing a drop in prices that's needed to spur recovery from Spain's worst recession in 60 years.

"Maybe you can create some accounting value with all these tricks, but in the end it doesn't make the situation any better and in the long term makes it worse," said Luis Garicano, a professor of economics and strategy at the London School of Economics, in a phone interview.

Spanish lenders acquired at least 20 billion euros ($29 billion) of real estate in the past 18 months, according to data compiled by analysts at Zurich-based Credit Suisse Group AG. There are as many as 1.6 million empty homes in Spain, an overhang that may take seven years to clear with annual demand running at about 218,500 units, Acuna & Asociados estimates.

Instead of cutting prices, banks are offering more generous financing terms for their own properties than those being sold by third parties, said Fernando Rodriguez de Acuna, president of Acuna & Asociados.

"The banks are reducing financing costs to get rid of their housing stock, but this solution has its limits," he said in an interview. "The only way banks will be able to sell homes they haven't sold in the mid-term will be to do so at a loss."

Santander, Spain's biggest lender, has acquired more than 4 billion euros of real estate and is selling homes through Altamira Santander Real Estate, its property arm.

Altamira offers clients variable-rate mortgages at the one- year euro interbank offered rate plus 0.4 percent, according to its Web site. That's 1.64 percent at current rates. Santander offers a variable rate mortgage at Euribor plus 1 percent, according to data published by El Pais newspaper.

The bank also offers 100 percent financing, mortgage insurance and aid to buyers of holiday homes, according to the Web site. Altamira said in August that it had sold at least 1,100 of the 2,550 newly built properties it had on sale.

Banco Popular Espanol SA, Spain's third-biggest commercial bank, bought 2.3 billion euros of property and is selling homes through its Aliseda Gestion Inmobiliaria unit. La Caixa, Spain's biggest savings bank, throws in a free car for anyone under 35 who buys an apartment through its property company.

Banco Popular has no intention of selling homes for less than the bank thinks they're worth because low interest rates mean the cost of holding them is comparatively cheap, Chief Financial Officer Jacobo Gonzalez-Robatto said in July. "We don't have any timetable," he said at the bank's earnings press conference.

The tactics employed by banks mean house prices are adjusting more slowly in Spain than other countries, said the LSE's Garicano.

Spanish home prices have declined 8.3 percent from their peak in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the National Statistics Institute. That compares with a 25 percent drop in Ireland, a report by Irish Life & Permanent Plc shows. The decline is 12 percent in the U.K., according to Hometrack Ltd.

By other measures, Spain has been harder hit by the global recession than other European countries.

Eurostat data show that Spain has the highest unemployment rate in Europe at 18.5 percent, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development forecasts the economy will continue to shrink next year as other European nations start to recover. The Spanish economy may contract 0.9 percent next year, making it the worst performer in the 30-nation OECD after Hungary and Ireland, the Paris-based group forecast in June.

Developers say they now have to compete with banks, as well as each other, to shift stocks of unsold property.

"Sometimes that competition is unfair in that they can offer better financing," said Ignacio Iglesias, a spokesman for Nozar SA, a closely held developer that filed for protection from creditors in September.

Spanish banks acquired homes from developers to cushion the impact of a property crash that increased loan-loss provisions by 70 percent to 9.7 billion euros in the first half, according to central bank data. Bad loans as a proportion of lending rose to a 13-year high of 4.73 percent in July and may exceed 8 percent over the next year, Credit Suisse estimated last month.

The problem is that banks may have taken real estate onto their books using valuations that don't describe their true value, said the LSE's Garicano. In a market where transactions have collapsed and some appraisals are based on sellers' asking prices, valuations may bear little relation to what buyers are prepared to pay, he said.

While the Bank of Spain requires lenders to set aside a provision equal to 10 percent of a property's balance sheet value, they may be forced to report additional losses if asset values drop below the amount of the original debt.

"Some banks won't let prices fall because they don't want to recognize their losses," said Pedro de Churruca, general director for Spain of property broker Jones Lang LaSalle in Madrid. "Significant losses would emerge if they did that."

"Prices haven't dropped and buyers won't return to the market until they do," Cano said.

[miata] 26/9/2009 08:57

The online property company, whitehotproperty.co.uk, is currently marketing around 4,000 distressed properties in the popular Spanish tourist destinations with – in some cases – sizeable discounts. In one example, a four-bed, two-bathroom duplex apartment in Torrevieja has been reduced to €118.400 (£102,068), a 27 per cent discount on the original asking price.

Similarly, a three-bedroom villa with a pool in a tourist hotspot such as the Costas can be bought for €400,000. It would have cost around €650,000 at the height of the market three years ago.

[grupo] 23/9/2009 11:04

UPDATE: Cement Cos In Spain Face Antitrust Probe (Holcim Ltd)





(Adds company name.)

BRUSSELS -(Dow Jones)- European Union antitrust officials carried out surprise inspections at the premises of companies producing cement and related building products in Spain, the European Commission, the E.U.'s executive arm, said Wednesday.

The commission said the companies are suspected of having taken part in price fixing cartels or of using their dominant position in the market to squeeze out competitors.

The inspections are the first step in an E.U. antitrust investigation.

Swiss cement company Holcim Ltd. (HOLN.VX) Wednesday confirmed its offices in Spain have been searched, adding it is fully cooperating with authorities.

-By Carolyn Henson, Dow Jones Newswires; [phone]; [e-mail] (Martin Gelnar in Zurich contributed to the article.)