Like other Spanish builders, Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas, or F.C.C., had struggled to convince investors that it could extract itself from Spain’s housing market quagmire In the past six months, the management of F.C.C. was on an almost continual investor road show in the world’s financial capitals. The campaign finally yielded fruit Oct. 21, when the company announced the sale of 6 percent of its equity to Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, for 113.5 million euros, or $154 million. Two days after Mr. Gates’s purchase, as it happens, the Bank of Spain said the country had pulled out of recession and ... (full story)