Quotes of the month

“I feel very comfortable with the fact that Spanish banks have a lot of retail clients in their shareholder base; I’ve never been bothered by that”

José María Roldán at the European Banking Federation may be comfortable with retail ownership of banks, but not everyone agrees with him

“Executives do not want to lose control of the strategic narrative. They want to get on the front foot and stay ahead of the activists”

David Lomer, co-head of European M&A at JPMorgan, reckons that many corporate executives want to get on with M&A rather than wait to be pushed into it

“We want to be in a liquid credit market.