The Volkswagen Group aims to close down SEAT, Spain’s only automotive brand, by the end of 2029. This move would involve phasing out the brand to focus exclusively on the premium Cupra brand, although the group does not appear to intend to close its Spanish subsidiary or the Martorell plant, which employs around 12,000 people. This was reported by the German business magazine WirtschaftsWoche, ahead of the Volkswagen Group Supervisory…
Read More
According to analysis by Morgan Stanley, share buybacks in Europe reached approximately $17 billion in August, making it the highest August on record (+14% year-on-year). Year-to-date cumulative buybacks in Europe have now risen to ~$170 billion, an all-time high and 12% above the previous record. Measured in U.S. dollars, the largest programs include: Shell: program exceeding $7 billionNovartis: over $6 billionBP: over $3.5 billionUBS, TotalEnergies, and SAP: over $3 billion…
Read More
Solar power has become the leading source of installed electricity capacity in China, surpassing coal for the first time in a major milestone for the Asian giant’s energy transition, according to information reported by Bloomberg. As of the end of July, China reached 1,286 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity, accounting for 31.5% of its total generation capacity—just one month after solar was still 1 GW behind coal. According to the…
Read More
Rosa Mª García Piñeiro, board member at Caixabank, Acerinox, and Ence—serving as chair of the sustainability committee for the latter two and as a committee member at Caixabank—explains that “the directive does not set the materiality threshold. The company decides it based on its own criteria. There is nothing in the legislation that prescribes what is material and what is not. The auditor-verifier may have one opinion, the company may…
Read More
Says Antonio Bonet, president of the Club of Spanish Exporters and Investors. He points out that “Europe has a single tariff applied by all member states, but the U.S. applies a tariff to each country, meaning it can decide that the tariff applied to Spanish black olives is higher than that for Italian olives, as it did at one point. So there is a part of the negotiation between Europe…
Read More
