BBVA Research, headed by Jorge Sicilia, is structured into five major units designed to adapt our economic analysis to the needs of an increasingly international banking group and to respond to the challenge of assessing increasingly globalized economies.

Of the five Units, three are geographic,one is cross-disciplinary and another one deals with Market Analysis. Beginning with the geographical units:

- The goal of the Spain and Europe Unit, with Rafael Doménech as chief economist, is to reinforce the analysis of the European economy and to study the Spanish economy in what is an increasingly relevant European context.The BBVA Research has been a pioneer in analysis of the Spanish economy and continuing this tradition is one of its priorities.The best way of achieving this is to conduct research that reflects Spain's growing integration within Europe.


This Unit comprises:

• The Spain Unit  headed by Miguel Cardoso, whose main job is to focus on the overall structure of the Spanish economy and its main economic sectors of interest to the BBVA Group.The unit’s publications include “Spain Economic Outlook”, “Catalonia Economic Outlook” and “Real Estate Outlook”.

• The European Unit, headed by Miguel Jiménez, is responsible for the analysis of the Euro zone, with  particular emphasis on the European Central Bank's monetary policy.Noteworthy publications by this unit include “Europe Economic Outlook” and the reports monitoring the ECB.

- The Mexico and United States Unit is headed from Mexico City by Jorge Sicilia.The aim of this unit is to conduct an exhaustive monitoring of both countries and their interrelation, placing particular emphasis on the structural and cyclical analysis of both economies, including regional and sector analysis as well as monetary policy developments.

This unit comprises:

• The United States Unit, headed by Nathaniel Karp in Houston, which focuses its research on analysis of the U.S. economy and Federal Reserve monetary policy. In macroeconomic analysis, this team pays particular attention to the regional perspective, analysis of the different sectors, the real estate market, and the banking sector and its regulation, working together with the Financial and Regulatory Scenarios Unit.Noteworthy publications include “Fed Watch” and “US Economic Outlook”, which analyze in depth a number of economic subjects, as well as "observatories” and publications such as “U.S. Regional Outlook”, which analyzes the performance of and perspectives for U.S. state economies, focusing on the states where BBVA is present and "US Real Estate Outlook".

• The Mexico Unit, headed by Adolfo Albo from Mexico City, which carries out a comprehensive monitoring of the country's economy.It provides an in-depth analysis by sector and region, with particular focus on the banking and real estate sectors, and on the analysis of pensions and immigration.Its coverage of these topics analyzes the current situation and activity, savings and financing forecasts, as well as studies of structural aspects on which it bases its proposals for improving the regulatory framework. Publications include “Mexico Real Estate Outlook”, “Regional Sectorial Outlook” and the recent “Mexico Migration Outlook”, as well as occasional ad-hoc reports.

• Second, the Mexico Macroeconomic Analysis Unit, headed by Julián Cubero, also from Mexico City, deals with monitoring, analysis and forecasts of macroeconomic aspects of the Mexican economy, both current and structural, its variables in terms of activity, demand and prices, and financial data such as interest rates and the exchange rate.The team of Mexican economist pays special attention to public policies and their evaluation.As well as various situation reports and monetary policy and market analysis, "Mexico Economic Outlook" regularly includes an analysis of the situation and the economic perspectives for the country.

- The Emerging Economies Unit, headed by Alicia García Herrero, aims to consolidate the research carried out by the BBVA Research in emerging economies, with particular emphasis on South America and Asia, followed in importance by the emerging regions of Europe and, finally, the Middle East.This Unit will analyze the situation of the pensions systems, with a particular focus on Latin America.

This unit comprises four areas:

• The South America Sub-Unit, headed by Joaquín Vial and based in Chile, aims to consolidate the research carried out by the BBVA Research on the South American economies by extending its cross-regional analysis.This sub-unit is made up of the BBVA Research of Argentina (chief economist: Gloria Sorensen), Colombia (chief economist: Juana Téllez), Chile (chief economist: Alejandro Puente), Peru (chief economist: Hugo Perea) and Venezuela (chief economist: Oswaldo López).

• The Asia Sub-Unit is headed by Stephen Schwartz, Asia Chief Economist in Hong Kong, together with Daxue Wang, China Chief Economist in Beijing. This unit comprises a team of economists based in Hong-Kong. The team specifically monitors China and Hong Kong, as well as Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.

• The Madrid Sub-Unit, headed by Daniel Navia coordinates the cross-market analysis of emerging   economies, while monitoring the leading  emerging economies outside of Asia and Latin America.
  The main publications issued by the Emerging Economies Unit are: "Latin Economic Outlook", "Emerging Markets Economic Watch", "China Economic Outlook", "Asia Economic Outlook" real-estate reports for South American countries and China and Country Reports and “Pension Watch”.

• Finally, the Pensions Sub-Unit, headed by David Tuesta, analyzes the viability of pension systems, studies reforms introduced and suggests possible future systems based on demographic and economic trends.It has a team of economists specializing in pensions who work in coordination with BBVA's Pensions and Insurance Americas Unit.
   

- The Economic and Financial Scenarios Unit, whose chief economist is Mayte Ledo, is responsible for the consistent analysis of real and financial variables, modeling the probability of various scenarios. Some of their publications are "Global Economic Outlook" and "Regulatory Outlook".

This unit comprises:

• The Financial Systems Unit, headed by Ana Rubio, which analyses the trends of the financial system in the different geographical areas to detect common elements, risks and opportunities.This unit is responsible for modeling the variables of the financial system.

• The Financial Scenarios Unit,  led by Sonsoles Castillo generates short and medium-term forecasts for a broad range of financial variables. This provides an overall coherency to the macroeconomic information from the various units in the BBVA Research.These scenarios are used as a reference for several of the BBVA Group activities.The unit also undertakes interdisciplinary coordination of research work.

• The Economic Scenarios Unit. This Unit analyzes the determining factors of the global economic scenario by integrating all the elements of analysis of the other units and defining the agenda for research on global issues.

• The Regulation and Public Policies Unit. This Unit was created to address the need for analysis of new  proposals in the sphere of global regulation and monitoring and, especially, to analyze their impact on the financial system.Regulatory changes are large-scale and have very significant repercussions; therefore, coordinating all efforts is essential.For this reason, BBVA has created a top-level Regulatory Committee to anticipate these changes. 

- The Market & Client Strategy unit, headed by Antonio Pulido, comprises the following business areas:

• The Global Credit and Equity unit, headed by Ana Munera, carries out research and issues on opinions on equity and credit underlyings, focusing on Europe and Lat America. A sector approach is used to take advantage of all research synergies (economic scenario, earnings outlook, cash-flow analysis, valuation, profitability and financial risk) and provide a global vision of companies and sectors as the basis of our investment recommendations and recommendations strategy.  This unit comprises the credit and equity research departments: 
   

• The Credit Research department assesses the creditworthiness of companies and monitors significant trends in the primary and secondary credit markets.  The objective is to provide investment ideas and financial advice to clients with a focus on Europe and Latin America.

• European Credit Research, headed by Javier Serna, is organised by sector, specializing in the following areas: Financials, Non  Financials, Public Sector and Covered  Bonds, with a focus on Spain and southern Europe.

• Latam Credit Research is  organized by country to take advantage of local expertise but also has a sector and regional focus.

- The Equity Research department analyses the business models of companies and draws up financial estimates to assess their potential profitability and issue market recommendations. The objective is to issue investment recommendations with a focus on Iberian and Latin American stocks.

• Equity  Research Iberia, headed by Ivón Leal as Project manager, is organized by sector: Financials, TMTs, Utilities, Pharmaceuticals, Retail and Industrials, with a special focus on Small Caps.

• Equity Research Latam,  headed by  Rodrigo Ortega,   is organized by country to take advantage of local expertise, but also makes use of synergies existing with other departments and has an extensive knowledge of sectors in the region.

- The Sector Business Strategy unit, headed by Alfredo Echevarría, is tasked with channelling the knowledge and services offered by BBVA Research to the corporate and investment banking unit (C&IB) of WB&AM, to which it will dedicate 100% of its time.  This unit is organised by sector and has a global focus. Its objective is to promote strategic dialogue between the bank and its corporate clients, generating business opportunities for C&IB. The main sectors under coverage are: TMTs, Energy, Construction and Infrastructure, Retail, Industrials, Raw Materials and Pharmaceuticals. Senior managers will be appointed for each sector with local support in geographical regions where services must be provided for local bankers.

- The Global Fixed Income Strategy unit, headed by Luis Enrique Rodríguez, offers a global view of interest rates, currencies and commodities while at the same time taking local trends into account.  This unit has operations in Madrid, Mexico DF, Lima, Santiago de Chile, Bogotá and Hong Kong. It has three global subdivisions: currencies (Pablo Zaragoza), interest rates and commodities with managers in Latin America for currencies (Moisés Junca) and interest rates (David Franco); and a team leader in Asia (Richard Li).