©Reuters. Listed companies increase debt issuance to the detriment of bank credit
Madrid, Aug 13 (.).- Spanish companies listed on the stock market are choosing to go to the debt markets to finance themselves to the detriment of bank credit, which between 2010 and 2021 has halved its weight in the liabilities of the big companies.
In the last decade, the bank financing of companies in the has gone from 49.6% to 26.3%, while that represented in debt securities has risen from 39.7% to 54.9%, points out in a study the Spanish Stock Exchange and Market Studies Service (BME:).
This more diversified financial structure favors the resistance of companies to financial tensions and contagion from the crisis of the banking system to the rest of the economy, points out the BME.
According to the document, the volume of private debt issued and admitted in regulated markets amounted to 113,124 million euros in all of 2021, of which 37,603 million correspond to medium and long-term debt issues, which grow 85% as a result of favorable market conditions.
Among the companies that make up the national selective, the large listed companies go to the market more for financing than SMEs, which continue to use bank credit to a greater extent.
The three IBEX 35 companies with the most debt obtained with market instruments at the end of 2021 were Amadeus IT (BME:), Cellnex (BME:) and Telefónica (BME:), all of them with a percentage of over 80% and with the common denominator of belonging to “highly intensive” sectors in technological investment.
Looking ahead to 2022, the report indicates that the rating agencies foresee a fall in the issuance of debt instruments due to the rise in interest rates by central banks.
Despite this, the liquidity buffers and the “greater robustness” of the balance sheets, together with the fact that a large part of the debt is long-term, are sufficient reasons, according to the BME, for the Spanish listed companies to weather the uncertainty scenario.
With the good results obtained in 2021 after the lockdowns of the previous year, the IBEX 35 companies increased their liquidity by 45% compared to 2019, an increase in cash that, in the case of non-financial companies, has allowed them to reduce net debt by 3.34% and place it at pre-pandemic levels.
The relationship between financial debt and assets is at levels prior to 2008 and represents 22.9% of its balance sheet.
The reduction, clarifies the report, occurred across the board and across the board, with the exception of the consumer services sector, most affected by the drop in tourism and mobility restrictions.
Likewise, this improvement in solvency has also produced a recovery in net worth, which grew by 21.83% compared to 2020 thanks to the profits obtained and the capital increases carried out.