Corporate finance: Brufau steers Repsol away from risk

In the first of a series of interviews for 2009 with some of the world’s leading corporate chief executives, boss Antonio Brufau talks to Laurence Neville about his strategy for keeping a top-10 energy company on track in challenging times.

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Antonio Brufau: Biography

Antonio Brufau, Repsol

“Even before the crisis, Repsol didn’t anticipate a need for financing from the markets – and I certainly couldn’t contemplate turning to the markets now”

Antonio Brufau, Repsol

SPAIN’S ECONOMY HAS been transformed in the past decade as a result of liberalization, globalization, a surging real estate sector and a massive credit boom. Inevitably, the good times – as elsewhere in Europe – have come to an end. Debt defaults rose 203% in Spain in the third quarter of 2008 compared with a year earlier, according to Spain’s Official State Bulletin, and the European Commission said that it expected Spain to enter its first recession in 15 years by the year-end.

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