Business and Finance roundup for Spain and the UK « Euro Weekly News

Postal workers’ agreement ROYAL MAIL employees accepted an offer that ends their ongoing dispute over pay, jobs and working conditions.

Almost 76 per cent of Communication Workers Union (CWU) members voted for a 10 per cent increase spread over three years, plus a £500 (€584) lump sum.

The ballot result ended disagreements that culminated in stoppages by more than 115,000 workers at the end of last year.

“This has been the most challenging period in the history of the union and the company, and I want to thank every single member who has voted in this ballot,” the CWU’s general secretary Dave Ward said

At the same time, the below-inflation agreement will leave some Royal Mail employees worse off than a previously-rebuffed offer of 9 per cent over a year and a half.

Cryptic clues A STUDY by cryptocurrency experts CryptoGambling.tv named Slovenia as Europe’s most “crypto-obsessed” country.

Analysis revealed that approximately 100,000 internet searches each month were linked to cryptocurrency, averaging out at 4,789 crypto-related searches for information per every 100,000 people.

Spain, with a monthly 907,000 searches was ranked sixth, with around 1,927 searchers for every 100,000 inhabitants.

Luxembourg was the second-most interested country with a monthly average of 2,634 searches, ahead of the Netherlands which sees  2,608 cryptocurrency searches for every 100,000 people although Holland is one of the few countries worldwide which taxes unrealised gains.

Finland (2,446 searches) was ranked fourth, followed by Turkey (2,277 searches).

Naturgy surprise IGNACIO GUTIERREZ-ORRANTIA will not, after all, be moving to the Spanish gas and electricity company, Naturgy.

Gutierrez-Orrantia has informed Citigroup that he plans to remain at the bank in his current role as the London-based head of the Banking, Capital Markets and Advisory Division for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Gutierriez-Orrantias’s decision, announced by Bloomburg on July 11, was met with generalised surprise as his move to Naturgy as chief executive, where he was to have shared executive powers with company president Francisco Reynes, was regarded as a certainty.

Ugly but profitable BIRKENSTOCK sandals, once dismissed as ugly but comfortable, are still ugly but are now fashionable.

The brand founded in 1774 is contemplating a $6 billion (€5.39 billion) stock market listing, two years after selling a majority stake to consumer-focused private equity firm L Catterton in a deal that valued the company at €4.9 billion.

Brothers Christian and Alex Birkenstock, who are still involved with the brand, are each believed to be worth around $1.7 billion (€1.54 billion) after selling to L Catterton, which has backing from Bernard Arnault, chief executive of LVMH and the world’s second-richest man after Elon Musk.

Indian owner for Pacha INDIAN businessman Kabir Mulchandini’s is buying Pacha nightclubs and hotels through his Five company.

The nightlife and tourism group, based in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, will pay a little over €320 million according to reports published in Diario de Ibiza on July 12.

Initially, the Trilantic, GPF and MCH private equity funds, which owned the discos and hotels, had asked for more than €500 million, before accepting a significantly lower amount.

Trilantic, GPF and MCH, which entered Ibiza’s nightlife sector in 2017, are divesting themselves of Pacha after having survived Covid-19 thanks to a bailout using public money.

Schools of thought IF Labour carries through plans to strip independent schools of their charitable status, thousands of children would have to leave their current schools.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) thinktank calculated that parents would remove around 40,000 children from paying schools.  These would then enter the UK’s state system, costing the taxpayer another £300 million (€350 million) annually.

The IFS also warned that the proposed tax raid could encourage tax avoidance as schools and families looked for loopholes that would enable them to cut bills.

Accentuating technology KUTZABANK has engaged 94 professionals on permanent contracts, with more appointments expected before the end of the year.

Anton Arriola, chairman of the Bilbao-based bank, announced that more than half of the new employees will be assigned to the group’s network of branches to improve levels of personalised services for customers.

As with earlier recruitment drives, the majority – in this case 65 per cent – of the new workers are women.

When further staff are taken on later this year, they will have a “more technological profile”, the bank explained, to meet digital transformation objectives set out in the government’s Acelera plan.

This will involve a €30 million investment in “first-rate digital solutions for customers.”