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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: smolejv@gmx.net who wrote (27417)	1/6/2008 7:00:23 PM
From: Snowshoe	Respond to of 219779

>>I am rather concerned by the level of interest seen here as regards food<< The food obsession? Elmat in Iran got homesick for churrasco de gato, i.e. "cat barbecue"... Message 23695466 Message 23697224 Message 24108362

To: smolejv@gmx.net who wrote (27417)	1/7/2008 8:48:59 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 219779

perhaps an appetizing starter position of short spanish banks? this just in in-tray QUOTE And why I am short Spanish Banks...... Mac FT.com Spain's house of cards has started tumbling down Thursday January 3, 3:40 pm ET By Paul Betts Last spring, the Spanish property developer Astroc started the ball rolling. Its debt servicing problems triggered the first serious plunge in the shares of Spain's financially over-stretched property and construction companies. Before crashing, Astroc shares had increased 10-fold since first listing in 2006. Its chairman, Enrique Banuela, who had been catapulted into the Fortune 100 list of the world's richest tycoons, was also forced to step down. Then, in the autumn, it was the turn of Llanera to bite the dust. During a short six-year period, this Valencia property group had grown ferociously amid the Spanish property boom. Both cases badly shook the property and construction sector, although many in the industry suggested Llanera and Astroc were special cases. Now, it is Colonial, another small property fish that has grown by aggressive debt-financed acquisition into the country's second biggest property group, to be affected by the combination of the international liquidity squeeze, a cooling Spanish property market and rising interest rates. This triple whammy now affects even a company such as Colonial, which is not exposed to the riskier residential property market and earns a steady flow of income from its office buildings in Spain and France. Luis Portillo, its chairman and largest shareholder, has been sacked. The company is selling assets to cut its huge debt burden accumulated during the heady years of expansion and to reassure investors who have seen the value of their Colonial holdings crumble during the New Year festivities. Again some argue Colonial is another special case due to its former chairman's own heavily indebted position, and should not be taken as a sign of a general financial meltdown in the Spanish property and construction sector. That may indeed be so. But after three serious collapses all occurring at three month intervals, it is difficult not to jump to obvious conclusions. It has become clear the heavily indebted business model behind the spectacular rise in Spanish property companies will simply cease to function in the current environment. The problem in Spain is all the greater given that the country during the past five years or so has been building about 800,000 homes a year - that is the combined annual total of France, Britain and Germany. The Spanish building industry now expects the number to fall to about 450,000 a year until 2013. As a result, it also warns of some 400,000 job cuts in the sector that has accounted in the recent past for about 7.5 per cent of Spanish gross domestic product. As for house prices, these have increased by a whopping 280 per cent between 1997 and 2006 and are now starting to fall back for the first time in a decade. So it is not surprising the banks, themselves heavily exposed to the sector, are closing their credit taps. All this must worry the Zapatero administration acutely. Spain holds elections in March, which most people consider are too close to call. If the Socialist government is still claiming a short lead, it could easily be wiped out if Spain's house of cards keeps tumbling down. UNQUOTE