Portrait of Francisco Couto

Francisco Couto : Consultant

Francisco is a member of Oxera’s Finance & Valuation team, with experience working in regulatory finance, state aid, and commercial disputes. Francisco has worked on cases across a wide range of sectors, including transport, energy, agriculture, payments, capital markets and telecommunications. Francisco was seconded into NATS En Route Ltd (NERL) to provide day-to-day support on regulatory and business planning matters during the preparation of its business plan for the NR23 price control (2023–27).

Francisco holds an MA in Economics and Finance from the University of Edinburgh, and an MSc in Economics and Finance from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics. In both degrees, Francisco worked extensively with large datasets and financial models, developing strong Excel and Stata skills. Before joining Oxera, he was a trainee at the European Central Bank’s Monetary Policy division, focusing on money markets and short-term rates.

Francisco speaks English, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Tel: +32 (0) 2 793 07 04

Francisco's specialisms include:

Selected
professional experience

  • Advising a large European manufacturing firm regarding its application for regional state aid to build an innovative production plant in Eastern Europe, including quantifying the profitability of the project in different possible sites (2022–)

  • Critically assessing the methodology used by the central bank of a Central American country to set caps on card payment fees (2022–)

  • Assessing the impact of the removal of ownership and control restrictions on the ability of European airlines to raise additional equity and quantifying the direct and indirect economic impact (2022–)

  • Undertaking a cost of capital assessment for NATS (En Route) for its NR23 price control period (2021–22)

  • Quantifying damages suffered by a small co-operative due to improper government conduct in a southern European country (2021–22)

  • Quantifying damages due to a cartel under-charge in a southern European country (2021–22)

Qualifications

  • CFA Level 2 candidate, having passed Level 1 in August 2021

  • MSc Economics and Finance, Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, Spain

  • MA Economics and Finance, University of Edinburgh, UK

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