Airports group flies high

AENA reported a net profit of €133.6 million for the first quarter of 2023, compared with losses of €41.7 million during the same period in 2022.

The total number of pas‐sengers in Spain, Luton and airports in northeast Brazil recovered 100 per cent of their pre‐pandemic levels, state‐owned Aena an‐nounced on April 26.

Traffic volume at Aena’s Spanish airports reached 53.6 million in the first three months of the year, a 41.6

Barça deal

FC BARCELONA finally secured funds for the Espai Barça pro‐ject which includes renovating the Camp Nou stadium.

The club has now signed a €1.45 billion agreement with 20 investors, although this is €50 million less than it original‐ly hoped for.

It has taken the club almost two months to obtain suffi‐cient financial backing to start work at the Camp Nou ground. Setbacks that coincided with club president Joan Laporta’s funding mission included the scandal over Barça’s payments to football referee José María Enríquez Negreira and the hike in interest rates, followed the Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse banking crises.

per cent increase on the same period last year and 1.6 per cent higher than dur‐ing the first quarter of 2019.

Commercial sales showed a 12 per cent improvement on their pre‐pandemic lev‐ els,. Total consolidated rev‐enue for the first quarter of 2023 increased to €1.03 bil‐lion, 34.3 per cent up on the first quarter of 2022. Aeronautical revenue of €523 million was 26 per cent

Salmon tax

THE price of Norway’s farmed salmon could rise by up to 10 per cent, industry insiders warned.

Norway produces more than 1.5 million tons of salmon each year and the Oslo gov‐ernment now intends to slap a 35 per cent tax on their profits.

As a result, consumer prices are expected to rise by as much as 10 per cent or even more.

“We all know it is coming,” said Lance Forman, owner of London‐based H Forman and Sons, which supplies leading restau‐rants and Harrods.

After fossil fuels, salmon farming is the country’s largest source of national income. It is also very lucrative, with operating prof‐it margins of around 45 per cent.

Despite the salmon farmers’ efforts, the Norwegian parliament is expected to ap‐prove the measure in the coming weeks.

TELEFONICA has strengthened its position in the UK with a partner‐ship between its strategic digital business subsidiary, Tech&I, and Virgin Media 02 Business.

Virgin’s customers can now be supported by Telefonica Tech’s cloud team of professional and managed services. Based in the UK this company currently employs more than 1,000 technology pro‐fessionals following its takeover of CancomUK&I and Incremental.

This will enable Virgin Media O2 Business to offer enhanced ser‐vices to medium and large organi‐sations. These will range from local authorities wanting to unify data and processes, healthcare providers migrating sensitive data to the cloud and retailers looking to evolve e‐commerce opportunities in the cloud.

higher than in 2022 while commercial revenue ‐ again surpassing 2019 levels ‐reached €337.9 million, 40.1 per cent more than during the first three months of 2022. “The performance of commercial activity in the first quarter of the year is noteworthy, where pre‐pan‐demic activity levels im‐proved markedly,” Aena said. Aena’s gross operating result between January and March of this year rose to €368.6 million, representing growth of 153.2 per cent.

Light fantastic

NATIONAL POWER, owner of the Drax power station in Selby (York‐shire), reported its highest ever an‐nual profits.

Shareholders in the FTSE 250 company can look forward to a £150 million (€169 million) wind‐fall, thanks to record electricity prices following the Russian inva‐sion of Ukraine.

This had helped to increase the group’s annual profits for 2022 to £731 million (€824.7 million), up from £398 million (€499 million) in 2021.

Drax also announced that in the meantime it was putting on hold its much ‐ debated £50 million (€56.4 million) carbon capture pro‐ject, as it awaited details from the government regarding a possible subsidy.

Turned off

NETFLIX lost more than one million Spanish viewers in the first quarter of this year, consultancy company Kantar found.

Vetoing shared accounts was re‐sponsible for the plunge and the future looks even bleaker now that 10 per cent of current subscribers plan to leave Netflix within the next three months.

“Losing some users was to be expected,” said Mayte Gonzalez, from Kantar’s Worldpanel division. “But losing more than one mil‐lion in so little time has major con‐sequences for Netflix and will influ‐ence its decision to continue with this measure worldwide.”

Loud and clear

MARSHALL GROUP is more likely to increase its commitment to Britain than leave, its new owners said.

The family‐owned amplifiers firm was bought by Swedish com‐pany, Zound Industries, which makes Bluetooth speakers, in a deal that valued the combined group at £325 million (€367 mil‐lion).

All Marshall brands were ac‐quired by Zound, for an undis‐closed amount.

“We will preserve and probably enhance our UK presence even more, because it is so important to who we are,” said Jeremy de Mail‐lard, who heads the new business.

Dow Jones

Family affair

SPAIN’S National High Court in Madrid is investigating Santiago Alarco, the former brother‐in‐law of ex‐Cabinet minister Rodrigo Rato, for hiding money abroad. Alar‐co has been summonsed to give evidence on May 24 to answer charges of money laundering and creating a fi‐nancial network to keep cash out of the reach of Spain’s tax authorities.

Deaf ears

HSBC’s biggest sharehold‐er said that it was “ex ‐tremely disappointed” in the bank’s refusal to con‐sider splitting up and sepa‐rating its Asia business, criticising its inflexibility to‐wards restructuring pro‐posals. Ping An Asset Man‐agement, which has an 8 per cent holding in the banking giant, would pre‐fer to see a separate Hong‐listed business headquar‐tered in Asia.