MADRID, 20 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Ibex 35 was trading at 9,972.10 points in the mid-session, 0.27% above Monday’s close, after having registered a 0.06% drop at the opening, in a day marked by the return to activity on Wall Street, which was closed this Monday for ‘Presidents’ Day’.

In the Spanish market, this day the bearish firm Gotham City Research has once again gained prominence, which has launched a new report raising new questions about the relationship between the pharmaceutical company Grifols and Scranton, a ‘family office’ in which the Grifols family participates.

After being pleased that his previous complaints have motivated changes in the corporate governance of Grifols, which have resulted in the separation of family members from the management of the blood products company, Gotham focuses his new battery of questions on the role of Scranton in the firm’s operations.

The listed Spanish company has issued a statement in which it alleges that it has already answered “each of their malicious and misleading questions” from Gotham.

In the rest of the business field, Enagás has informed the market that it obtained a net profit of 342.5 million euros in 2023, which represents a drop of 8.8% compared to the 375.8 million euros of the year. previous, although it allows the group to smash the annual objective that had been established in a range of 310-320 million euros.

For its part, Banco Santander will begin this Tuesday to execute the share repurchase program for an amount of 1,459 million euros announced yesterday by the entity after obtaining the relevant regulatory authorization.

In this way, in the middle section of the negotiation, Meliá was the listed company that advanced the most of the entire selective, with 10.62%. On Monday it was known that Banco Santander had reached an agreement with the hotel company to acquire a 38.2% stake in the share capital of a subsidiary, owned by three hotel establishments, for 300 million euros.

Behind were ACS (1.59%), Acciona (1.40%), Redeia (0.94%), Amadeus (0.69%) and Iberdrola (0.65%).

On the opposite side, Grifols led the falls in the selective (-3.10%), ahead of ArcerlorMittal (-1.39%), Acerinox (-1.02%), Indra (-0.57%), Cellnex (- -0.51%) and Repsol (-0.40%).

The evolution was positive in the rest of the main European stock markets, except Frankfurt (-0.29%). London advanced 0.04%; Paris 0.20%; and Milan, 0.04%.

In the raw materials market, a barrel of Brent fell 0.85%, to $82.85, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) stood at $78.88, 0.39% less.

For its part, the yield on the Spanish bond with a 10-year maturity fell to 3.285% in the mid-session, compared to 3.316% on Monday. In this way, the risk premium on German debt rose two tenths, to 90.7 basis points.

In the foreign exchange market, the euro appreciated 0.20% against the dollar, until trading at an exchange rate of 1.0799 ‘greenbacks’ for each unit of the community currency.