BUSINESS EXTRA

Booted out

EDINBURGH­BASED Hunter, maker of wellingtons worn by royalty, celebs and festival goers, went into administration with debts of more than £100 million (€115.8 million). Problems began after production moved to China, with devotees claiming that the quality and durability of the boots immediately plummeted.

Up and down

LOW productivity, a large external debt and public sector indebtedness were the Spanish economy’s principal weaknesses at present, the Spain’s General Council of Economists said. The country’s strengths included the competitiveness of the foreign sector and the “relative health” of the economy’s private sector, the experts said.

Not Brexit

COVID and not Brexit was to blame for the inflation crisis said Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, in a sideswipe at his predecessor Mark Carney’s theory. Bailey pinpointed the pandemic as the key problem, as workers who left the jobs market had apparently not returned, shrinking the UK’s labour force.

Legal drama

A BARCELONA court ordered the Ministry of Justice and Catalonia’s regional government to pay a court employee €46,581 in compensation for work­related stress. She had suffered for years owing to lack of coordination caused by ongoing confrontation between a judge and the clerk of the court, the tribunal ruled.

Stores closing

BOOTS will close 300 stores across the UK over the next year as conjecture grows regarding a possible break­up by its US owner. The retailer said it intends to reduce its stores from approximately 2,200 to around 1,900 although insiders said that the retailer did not foresee making any redundancies.

Linda Hall

JEREMY HUNT, Chancellor of the Exchequer, signed an agreement on financial services regulations with the EU’s Financial Services commissioner Mairead McGuinness on Tuesday June 27.

“This will help to establish a constructive, mutually beneficial relationship between the UK and the EU in financial services,” the Treasury announced.

The Memorandum of Understanding was an important step in post­Brexit relations as around 44 per cent of the £11 trillion (€12.7 trillion) of assets managed in the UK in 2020 related to international investors, including the EU.

Hunt’s was the first visit

STAT OF WEEK €1.67 billion

went to Endesa shareholders who received €1.6 per share pre-tax, although the largest dividend went to Italian power company Enel which owns 70 per cent of the company.