54 EWN 22 - 28 June 2023
NATIONAL GRID is in talks with power generation group Drax over bringing two coalfired units at its Sel by (North Yorkshire) plant out of retirement. ESO, the grid’s system operator, has discussed restarting the units, shut down this year after 50 years of coalfired power generation, to pre vent power cuts in winter.
Prove it SPAIN’S Supreme Court ruled temporary publicsec tor employees who are not covered by the 2021 Em ployment Stability Act and sacked after working for sev eral years, are not automati cally entitled to compensa tion. Instead, they must demonstrate that dismissal has caused them significant ‘moral or financial’ damage.
Pigging out SWIZZELS, which also makes Refreshers and Parma Vio lets, will redesign the Pig Mugs it has sold since 1996, after M &S argued they were too similar to their own product. M & S sells 271 bags a minute of Percy Pig fruit gums since their 1993 launch, generating a £131.7 million (€153.9m) turnover since then.
Des res ANA GAMAZO HOHENLO HE, who is the wife of Juan Abello, one of Spain’s richest businessmen, intends to sell one of her properties in Calle Padilla in Madrid’s Salaman ca district, equivalent to Lon don’s Mayfair. The sale of the 8,500sqm fivestorey building is expected to raise around €80 million.
Ashes to ashes ALASDAIR WARREN, WE So da’s chief executive, said New York could eventually be a “credible alternative” for a stock market flotation. The world’s principal natural soda ash producer aban doned plans to list in Lon don, claiming valuations were “unrealistically low.”
HORSE, the new Renault company, will be based in Madrid. Romania, which produces the Da cia range, was competing with Spain to be chosen by the joint venture ini tiative between Renault and the Chi nese automotive company Geely. In stead, the June 14 announcement has underlined Renault’s commit ment to Spain, its secondmost im portant industrial hub after France. The new company, Horse, will fo cus on developing internal combus tion engines, hybrids and new tech nologies including efuels, although the announcement will not have im mediate investment repercussions. Nevertheless, the presence of Horse in Madrid will put Spain at an advantage regarding decisionmaking by a company that foresees an annu
RENAULT HORSE: Madrid, CEO Luca de Meo announced.
al turnover of €15 billion for its 15 production plants worldwide. Renault’s currently operates a gearbox factory in Sevilla and an en gine factory in Valladolid, both of
which will become Horse assets. While the future Renault spinoff Ampere will focus on electric vehi cles, Horse represents Renault’s en deavours to continue producing com bustion engine vehicles using less polluting technologies both in Europe and outside it. The company believes that syn thetic fuels will prolong the combus tion engine’s life inside Europe, al though the European Commission is banning the sale of polluting vehicles, including hybrids, from 2035 on wards. While Italy totally opposes the ban, Germany is calling for an exemption for vehicles that use climateneutral synthetic fuels, although at present these are exceptionally expensive compared with petrol or diesel.
SPANISH engineering and con struction company Elecnor will cede a controlling interest in its wind power subsidiary, Enerfín. It no longer seeks a financial partner to take a ‘relevant but not majority stake’ in Enerfin, as it did a year ago. Until now Elecnor has been able to finance growth and pay shareholders dividends of €31 million last year and €29 mil lion in 2021, but now requires more cash to maintain commit ments. Parallel to the Enerfin opera tion, Elecnor, worth an estimat ed €1 billion, has launched a new programme to place €400 million in promissory notes. This will finance multiple pro jects in Spain and international ly, the company announced.
Inflation’s toll on salaries Top secret PAY in the UK has fallen once it has been adjusted for inflation, even though most salaries have in creased. Global employee pay company, CloudPay, warned that more sustain able benefits packages needed to be adopted to offset this problem. “It’s clear that the rising cost of living is continuing to put significant pressure on businesses as staff and potential recruits seek higher pay packages in what remains a tough eco nomic climate,” Cloud Pay’s John Pearce said. Inflation had created a scenario where salary rises were having little or no im pact on household bud gets and firms seemingly faced an unsustainable level of demand for more increases, he added. “The challenge, of course, is that employers are already struggling with skills shortages, meaning that many are having to use pay inflation as an at traction and retention tool,” Pearce said said. “But this can only be sustained for so long and businesses will need to find an alternative soon,” he warned. Benefits packages, which were more costef fective longterm for busi nesses, would be increas
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PAY INFLATION: More pressure on businesses and staff.
ingly relied on, CloudPay foresaw. “That includes flexibility around pay solutions al lowing individuals to con trol when and how often they access their pay to help mitigate against some of the budget challenges that the UK population is facing,” Pearce said.
5G comes in to land AIRPORTS group Aena and Cellnex Telecom are launch ing the first private network based on 5G technology at Spanish airports. The pilot project at San Sebastian airport in the north of Spain is one of the first at a European airport, Aena announced. The agreement with Ae na will takes Cellnex a step
forward in developing a strategy based on organic growth within the company rather than the multimillion acquisition of telecommuni cations infrastructure it has made recent years. Aena regards 5G as a key technology in its digital transformation process, a source at the stateowned company explained.
THE UK’s Competition and Markets Au thority (CMA) has rebuked Sainsbury’s and Asda for irregular land agreements that hindered rival chains from opening up nearby. It had found a total of 32 examples where the chains had placed restrictions on land agreements which, the regulator said, were anticompetitive. Sainsbury’s and Asda respectively hold the second and third highest market shares in the UK, but both had breached the Groceries Market Investigation (Con trolled Land) Order 2010, the CMA said. This had been brought in precisely to
Connectivity at its airports has existed for years, but the new technology would enable the development of applications in important fields, Aena said. These included the ad vancement of the internet of things (IoT), which con nects and exchanges data with other devices and sys tems via the internet.
Big players’ stitch-up stop supermarkets imposing new restric tions to stop rivals from opening com peting stores nearby. “By ensuring that supermarkets can compete freely, the CMA is ensuring that shoppers have more choice and so bene fit from a wider range of groceries and access to cheaper prices,” the watchdog said.
TUFAN ERGINBILGIC, chief execu tive who took over £12 billion (€14 billion) engineering company Rolls Royce in January, has joint British and Turkish citizenship. Owing to his dual nationality, Erginbilgic cannot access top secret UK government documents relat ing to its submarines business, Rolls Royce sources told the Guardian. RollsRoyce’s submarines divi sion builds the nuclear reactors powering Britain’s submarines, in cluding the Vanguard armed with nuclear warheads, and Whitehall security protocols prevent him from viewing ‘UK eyes only’ docu ments. Chris Cholerton, the group’s president since March, has instead been given responsibility for han dling sensitive information.
Pilot scheme SPAIN’S BBVA bank is trialling a scheme to close lessused urban branches for two or three days each week. This does not affect staff, who provide support for busier branches in the same locality, BB VA sources explained. The pilot scheme is currently operating at 12 branches in Valen cia, according to unions quoted in financial daily, Expansion. The bank ‘constantly’ tries out new projects, it insisted, adding that the current trial did not entail staff reductions or branch clo sures. Neither did it mean that BBVA would leave more towns in future.
