Spain is awash with credit, and businesses are lapping it up. Some borrowing is being used wisely, to renew capital and equipment. Yet more money is being borrowed to finance an acquisition spree, at home and abroad.

The trend that most worries analysts, however, is the increasingly fashionable practice among construction groups of taking highly-leveraged stakes in listed companies, particularly in the Spanish energy sector. In effect, the borrowings are financing speculative bets on consolidation among Europe’s energy companies.