Market suspects these listed firms could trigger the next crisis

Listed companies at risk of crisis

The next crisis already has a list of suspects. No investment bank issued it: a series of accounts from 2027 to 2033 place several Spanish and European listed companies at the edge of the precipice if the cycle turns. The list mixes banks, builders, airlines, and tech firms, starting with a name trading higher than ever: Banco Santander.

The starting point is an uncomfortable suspicion: that easy money in recent years has masked balances that would not withstand a sustained rise in debt costs. The debate is not just theoretical. Some argue Santander should be the first target for a government of a different political leaning, while others dismiss this as political desire rather than analysis.

From Santander to Solaria: the list of suspects

Names fall without much order. Banco Santander, Solaria, Airbus, Nike, El Corte Inglés, United Wholesale Mortgage, Take Two Interactive. The mix is revealing: no single sector, but an intuition that the problem is cross-sectoral. And underlying it, a repeating pattern: companies that grew on cheap debt and now face unforeseen financing costs.

The case of Airbus deserves its own section. The circulating thesis is not that the company is poorly managed, but that materials will become scarce and expensive, making part of its production unviable. If true, this would drag down the entire supply chain. The parallel with Boeing —"are they the next Boeing?"— is not casual: Boeing fell due to one disaster after another.

Why construction is back on everyone’s list

One sector appears by allusion and name: construction. Among the suspects is a company named Obras Nuevas de Edificación 2000, a name suggesting a short-cycle developer and summarizing the Spanish property problem: companies born in a bubble that have known nothing else. If credit closes, there is no Plan B.

The other side is financial. United Wholesale Mortgage appears as an example of a mortgage model that only works with low rates. And Solaria, in the energy sector, represents companies that leveraged up to build renewable capacity, betting on stable electricity prices and low borrowing costs. Neither is guaranteed.

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The state also enters the equation

One rarely discussed derivative: if the crisis hits, the public sector will have no room to bail anyone out. The phrase summarizing the mood is that Spain is already bankrupt, because it spends more than it earns. With this starting point, any corporate bailout would be politically toxic and financially impossible. This is the fundamental difference with 2008: then there was room; now, on paper, there is none.

The debate moves to the labor market. Talk of engineers being laid off and early retirements at 70% pension at age 55 appears as a plausible scenario if the adjustment hits the industrial sector. It is not a prediction, but a antiestéticar repeating the structure of fifteen years ago. And that repetition, more than the specific data, is what should worry.

What no one can answer

The floating question is simple and has no answer: why these and not others? The list of suspects could be twice as long. What it reveals is not so much rigorous analysis as a state of mind: the feeling that the current cycle is unsustainable and that the adjustment, when it comes, will catch the most leveraged companies with their guard down.

The prediction, with all due reservations, is that the next crisis will not take down the largest firms. It will take those that grew too fast on too cheap money. And those, in Spain, have names and surnames.