BBVA and Turkey

TURKEY’s disastrous double earthquake puts more pressure on BBVA’s investments there.

BBVA is the owner of Turkey’s largest bank, Garanti, which has 972 branches and more than 21,000 employees.

Adversely affected by galloping inflation and the weak Turkish lira over the past 12 months, Garanti had a bad start to 2023 with shares devalued by 31.2 per cent since January 1. They fell by 6.57 per cent on the

Istanbul stock exchange the day after the earthquake.

Garanti is proving a headache for BBVA and in the 2022 financial year its Turkish subsidiary had a €324 million impact on results owing to hyper­inflation that had reached 64 per cent by the end of December. BBVA was counting on Garanti to generate neither profits nor losses for the group, but instead the bank improved on forecasts, with benefits of €509 million.

Fish on the menu

FISHING plays a minor part in the UK economy but featured prominently in the Brexit campaign to regain control of British waters.

In 2020, when Boris Johnson announced details of his new Brexit trade agreement with the European Union, he promised that Britain would catch and eat “quite prodigious quantities of extra fish.”

Fisheries minister Mark Spencer told

MPs in December 2022 that the country was 30,000 tons better off now that it was outside the EU, although fisheries biologist Dr Bryce Stewart from York University maintained that the government had overestimated the long­term impact.

Much of the benefit arrived in 2021 when 15 per cent of the EU’s overall 25 per cent share was transferred to Britain, with much smaller transfers due between now and 2026, Dr Stewart said.

THE Women Matter España survey by McKinsey & Company, found that women occupied few senior executive posts in Spain. After studying more than 45 companies with approximately 300,000 employees between them, the international management consultants found that the glass ceiling remained relatively intact.

Only 6 per cent of director general positions were filled by women in 2022, compared with the European Union’s 8 per cent.

On the other hand, Spanish companies had more female board members, with an average of 33 per cent against 31 per cent in the EU.

Nice earner

THE UK’s 4,185 speed cameras cost almost £29 million (€32.7 million) in maintenance over the last five years.

They also brought in £391 million (€441.7 million) in fines, according to research by the new and used­car comparison site Carwow.

Councils spent £3.2 million (€3.6 million) between 2018 to 2022, police forces paid £4.6 million (€5.2 million), and transport authorities, including Transport for London, spent a hefty £20.9 million (€23.6 million).

Many authorities willingly shared their costs for running their speed cameras with Carwow but others declined, claiming that this could affect maintenance negotiation in future.

Some police forces also preferred not to divulge speed camera numbers, citing crime prevention.