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☆ Exclusive: EU wants details of Big Tech, telcos investment plans - source
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Foo Yun Chee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BRUSSELS, Jan 10 (Reuters) - The European Commission wants to ask Big Tech and European Union telecoms providers about their investment outlays and cloud infrastructure plans before tabling legislation that could make the former pay for network costs, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The Commission plans to launch a public consultation with a lengthy questionnaire next week, although the timing may still change, the person said. It will likely last about 12 weeks before the Commission drafts legislation that EU countries and EU lawmakers will need to thrash out before it can become law. The Commission will ask Big Tech and telecoms what they are investing in, how this will evolve and whether there is an investment gap, the person said. Regulators also want to know about the relationship between Big Tech and telecoms providers.

☆ Banks will pump H2O to top of climate agenda
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Antony Currie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

That’s when the United Nations’ first water confab in almost five decades starts in New York. Achieving that globally requires spending $1 trillion a year on the sustainable provision of drinking water and sanitation, and preparing for floods, scarcity and pollution, per the World Resources Institute. And 90% of climate change’s effects manifest through water, as recent floods and scarcity demonstrate. Knowing when to turn off the funding tap is important, too, just as many banks won’t back Arctic drilling or new coal mines. With some financial groups distancing themselves from umbrella climate change bodies, it’s a challenging time to make this case.

☆ Chevron to send 500,000-barrel cargo of Venezuelan oil to its Pascagoula refinery
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

HOUSTON, Jan 3 (Reuters) - U.S. oil producer Chevron Corp (CVX.N) plans to export this month its first cargo of Venezuelan crude to its Pascagoula, Mississippi refinery following a U.S. license granted last year, according to shipping documents seen by Reuters on Tuesday. The 500,000-barrel cargo of Hamaca heavy crude, to be loaded at state-run PDVSA's Jose port, comes from the Petropiar oil joint venture operated by both companies. As of Tuesday, the tanker scheduled to carry the shipment, the Bahamas-flagged Caribbean Voyager, was waiting to load near Jose, Refinitiv Eikon data showed. Chevron declined to comment on Tuesday and PDVSA did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Washington had previously authorized Italy's Eni (ENI.MI) and Spain's Repsol (REP.MC) to recoup pending debts in Venezuela by taking Venezuelan crude for refining in Europe.

☆ Ferrovial to build data centre for Microsoft in Madrid - Cinco Dias
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Jan 3 (Reuters) - U.S. tech giant Microsoft (MSFT.O) has commissioned Spain-based infrastructure company Ferrovial (FER.MC) to build a data centre near the Spanish capital, the Cinco Dias newspaper reported on Tuesday. While the amount has not been disclosed, Cinco Dias cited unidentified sources close to the matter as saying the contract could be worth several hundred million euros, as Microsoft plans a number of investments worth more than 12 billion euros ($12.75 billion) across 17 regions in Europe. The data centre is set to be built in San Sebastian de los Reyes, a city with a population of about 90,000 some 20 km (12 miles) north of Madrid. Microsoft is planning another two projects in the Madrid region with the aim of developing cloud services such as Azure, Power Platform, Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365, Cinco Dias said. ($1 = 0.9410 euros)Reporting by Jakub Olesiuk; Editing by David Latona, Robert BirselOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ DeSantis casts himself as a national leader at his inauguration amid 2024 speculation, promising Florida will 'carry the torch' of freedom and fight 'woke'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Florida Gov. The Florida inauguration offered a split screen from the national conversation back in Washington, DC, where Republicans performed poorly in the midterms. Florida Gov. Zackary Atkins hangs a street sign with the name of Florida Gov. Retired broadcaster Gene Deckerhoff, who was the voice of the Florida State Seminoles for 43 years, was the MC for the event.

☆ Zara shopworkers call off strikes in company's hometown after 25% pay rise - union
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MADRID, Dec 23 (Reuters) - A union representing shop assistants at fashion retailer Zara has called off planned strikes in the company's hometown in northern Spain following an agreement on a 25% pay rise, a union leader said on Friday. "Our salaries as shop assistants will go up by 25% from January in A Coruña," Naveiro said. The deal also includes future pay increases of 20 euros in November 2023 and 40 euros in 2024, she added. Zara shop assistants' monthly salaries currently range between 1,058 euros and 1,400 euros in the city, the union leader said. CIG had pushed for a bigger pay rise after rejecting a hike of 200 euros in monthly salaries by 2024.

☆ Zara shopworkers call off strikes in company's hometown after pay rise deal - union
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MADRID, Dec 23 (Reuters) - A union representing shop assistants at fashion retailer Zara has called off planned strikes in the company's hometown in northern Spain following an agreement on a pay rise, a union leader said on Friday. Around 1,000 workers at Zara shops and other Inditex (ITX.MC) fashion brands had announced they would strike on Dec. 23 and Jan. 7 to demand higher wage increases after rejecting the company's previous offer. CIG had pushed for a bigger pay rise after rejecting a hike of 200 euros in monthly salaries by 2024. The company will start to pay the newly agreed wages in January, Naveiro said. ($1 = 0.9432 euros)Reporting by Corina Pons; Editing by David Latona and Kenneth MaxwellOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[1/2] People visit a retail store during the holiday season in New York City, U.S., December 15, 2022. So far, shopper visits to many retail segments, including apparel and electronics, are down year-over-year, according to foot-traffic data from Placer.AI. Zara, the fast-fashion chain, aggressively raised prices this year without turning off shoppers, while dollar stores including Dollar General (DG.N) expanded their array of merchandise. Dollar stores have also shown momentum as more consumers traded down. Discount and dollar stores saw visits up 1.1% year-over-year, and up 7.8% compared to Super Saturday 2019, according to Placer.AI foot-traffic data.

☆ H&M agrees to pay a 500 euro bonus to 4,000 workers in January
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MADRID, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Swedish fashion retailer H&M (HMb.ST) agreed to pay a 500 euro ($530) bonus to some 4,000 shop workers in Spain in January, two unions said on Wednesday, after its arch-rival Inditex (ITX.MC) offered 1,000 euros to its home country shop assistants. The world's biggest fashion retailers are responding to demands from their workers for higher pay to offset soaring consumer prices. The Sweden-based fashion retailer will pay 500 euros to all its shop workers who have been employed in Spain at least since January 2022. The company will pay 250 euros to those who have worked at least six months. Soaring consumer prices have pushed unions in Spain to press sometimes reluctant employers for pay raises.

☆ How Ana Botín can defeat the Santander sceptics
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Liam Proud | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

LONDON, Dec 21 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Investors aren’t buying what Ana Botín is selling. That’s striking because analysts expect Santander to earn a respectable 11% return on tangible equity (ROTE) over the next 12 months. One way to express the dissonance between those numbers is to infer the return investors require to hold the bank’s shares. To shed that discount, Botín must prove Santander is the best owner of its component bits. The group generated an annualised return on tangible equity of almost 14% in the first nine months of 2022.

☆ Siemens Gamesa names Luijendijk CEO of onshore wind unit
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Andres Gonzalez | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Companies Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA FollowLONDON, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Wind turbine maker Siemens Gamesa (SGREN.MC) has appointed its Asia Pacific boss Richard Luijendijk as chief executive of its onshore unit as it seeks to turn around the business, a memo signed by Siemens Gamesa CEO Jochen Eickholt showed. Luijendijk will replace Lars Bondo Krogsgaard, whose departure was announced in October, with the company saying in an email to staff it needed a "change due to the losses in the onshore business and the continuous underperformance." A Siemens Gamesa spokesperson declined to comment. "I want us to move away from silo thinking and for us to believe in the turnaround", Luijendijk said in the memo. ($1 = 0.9420 euros)Reporting by Andres Gonzalez, editing by Pamela Barbaglia and Barbara LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

LONDON/MADRID, Dec 20 (Reuters) - British lender TSB has been fined 48.65 million pounds ($59.1 million) over a botched IT platform migration in 2018, UK regulators said on Tuesday. The regulators found that TSB failed to organise and control the migration adequately, and failed to manage operational risks from its IT outsourcing setup. TSB was fined 29.75 million pounds by the FCA and 18.9 million pounds by the PRA, receiving a 30% discount by agreeing to settle the issue, the statement said. In a statement, TSB CEO Robin Bulloch apologised to consumers hit by problems during the upgrade. "Over the past four years, we have harnessed our technology to deliver new products and better services for TSB customers."

☆ H&M shares drop as Sept-Nov sales fail to impress
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Stine Jacobsen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

H&M, which has struggled to keep up with bigger rival Zara, last month became the first big European retailer to lay off staff in response to the cost-of-living crisis as it tries to save 2 billion Swedish crowns ($196 million) a year. Net sales for September-November, H&M's fiscal fourth quarter, rose 10% to 62.5 billion Swedish crowns ($6.1 billion), up from 56.8 billion crowns a year ago. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had on average forecast 62.17 billion crowns. H&M said it had wound up its operations in Russia and Belarus during the quarter with the last stores having closed on Nov. 30. "During the quarter around 25–50 stores in China were temporarily closed due to new COVID outbreaks," it said in a statement.

☆ Fashion retailer H&M's Sept-Nov sales beat forecast
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Stine Jacobsen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

COPENHAGEN, Dec 15 (Reuters) - H&M (HMb.ST), the world's second-biggest fashion retailer, reported on Thursday a 10% increase year-on-year in September-November net sales, slightly exceeding market expectations of a 9.5% rise. Net sales for September-November, H&M's fiscal fourth quarter, stood at 62.5 billion crowns ($6.13 billion), up from 56.8 billion crowns a year ago, while analysts polled by Refinitiv had on average forecast 62.17 billion crowns. "During the quarter around 25–50 stores in China were temporarily closed due to new COVID outbreaks." Measured in local currencies, sales in the quarter were unchanged, it said. ($1 = 10.2119 Swedish crowns)Reporting by Stine Jacobsen; editing by Terje Solsvik and Jason NeelyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Zara founder buys Seattle skyscraper for $323 million
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MADRID, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Spanish billionaire and Zara founder Amancio Ortega has bought a residential skyscraper in Seattle for $323 million, his private firm Pontegadea said on Thursday. Ortega, the main shareholder of fashion giant Inditex (ITX.MC) and one of the world's 30 wealthiest entrepreneurs, signed the deal yesterday through his family office, Pontegadea added. Kiara tower, located in Seattle's South Lake Union neighbourhood in the United States, has 461 luxury apartments and is 133 metres tall. The purchase follows a $500-million investment in a 64-floor skyscraper of luxury apartments in New York's Financial District. Just this year, Ortega's investment vehicle also bought Royal Bank Plaza, a landmark skyscraper in Toronto, and one of the largest single-office buildings in Scotland.

☆ Did That Hit Arrive in 2022 or 1987? This Year, It Was Hard to Tell.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Jon Caramanica | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +12 min

Turns out it’s the same sample, a sleight of ear designed to trigger warm nostalgia, and also maybe a little confusion. Even its video is optimized for recognition, with Santana doing the same stomp Beyoncé does in hers, in an almost identical outfit. Throughout 2022, that gambit has been deployed again and again — by pop singers and rappers, established stars and newbies. Here, old songs — hip-hop classics, pop novelties and more — are scrunched and stretched sometimes to the point of absurdity. These songs are concessions that say the quiet part out loud — everyone has always been borrowing voraciously, from everyone else, constantly.

SummarySummary Companies Maersk needed 'new energy' in CEO position - chairmanClerc takes over as shipping boom comes to an endImportant to keep costs down amid high growth - ClercCOPENHAGEN, Dec 12 (Reuters) - A.P. Moller-Maersk (MAERSKb.CO) said on Monday it had appointed company veteran Vincent Clerc as its new chief executive to lead the shipping giant through a period of slowing container demand. "The strong tail winds that benefited the supply chain industries during the pandemic are coming to an end," Maersk Chairman Robert Maersk Uggla told a press conference at the company's headquarters in Copenhagen. Shares in Maersk have roughly doubled since Skou took over as CEO in 2016. Copenhagen-based Maersk is one of the world's biggest shipping and logistics companies, handling supply chains for large customers like Walmart and Nike.

BROOKLYN—I heard the MC call my name and felt my legs carry me toward the stage. I’d never competed in a pun contest, much less in front of hundreds of people at an event considered the Roman Colosseum of punditry. My stage presence could be described as lacking. I had done basically no preparation. I did, however, have one thing going for me: I was actually a robot.

In one of TikTok's latest trends, the Brazilian team's love of dancing, flair and adoration of funk carioca, also known as favela funk or baile funk, has inspired a new generation of listeners on the platform. Funk carioca is a hip-hop subgenre that draws on an array of international music genres including Afrobeat, samba, Miami bass and electro, among others. Funk music group Os Quebradeiras dance on a street decorated for the Qatar 2022 World Cup at Tijuca neighborhood, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Dec. 8, 2022. Mauro Pimentel / AFP - Getty ImagesVideos with the hashtags Brazilian funk have gathered more than 94.7 million views; Brazilian music has reached more than 46.9 million views; and Brazilian dance has received more than 121.8 million. The hashtag funk carioca has more than 540 million views by itself.

REUTERS/Violeta Santos MouraCompanies Enagas SA FollowBARCELONA/LISBON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - An underwater pipeline to carry green hydrogen between Barcelona and Marseille will cost around 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion), according to preliminary estimates of the project agreed between Spain, Portugal and France, two sources told Reuters. Spain and Portugal aim to become clean hydrogen hubs and net energy exporters, causing tensions with France which plans to produce its own hydrogen using nuclear energy. The pipeline will only carry hydrogen in order to meet EU funding criteria, though "improvements" could be made in future to allow for some gas, a Spanish government source said. As a result, the industry source said, they have pushed their four grid operators to "speed up technical studies, potential pipeline layouts and cost assessments". "If you already have an overland pipeline why build an undersea pipeline?"

LONDON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Britain's Financial Conduct Authority said it had fined Santander (SAN.MC) 107.7 million pounds ($132 million) for "serious and persistent" gaps in the Spanish bank's anti-money laundering controls for more than 560,000 business customers. The FCA said on Friday that between Dec. 31 2012 and Oct. 18 2017, Santander's UK arm failed to properly oversee and manage its anti-money laundering systems. Santander UK said it accepted the FCA's civil regulatory findings in relation to anti-money laundering controls in its business banking division. The FCA has stepped up action against failings in bank money laundering controls in recent years. The FCA has also fined Standard Chartered and HSBC in the last three years for anti-money laundering breaches.

☆ Factbox: FACTBOX European companies cut jobs as economy sputters
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

REUTERS/Evgenia NovozheninaDec 7 (Reuters) - Decades-high inflation and the impact of war in Ukraine have forced companies across Europe into lay-offs or hiring freezes. * FINNAIR (FIA1S.HE): the Finnish airline will cut about 150 jobs, of which 90 are in its home country, as part of a plan to return to profitability. * MICHELIN (MICP.PA): the tyre maker plans to cut up to 1,600 jobs in France, fewer than the 2,300 estimated in its initial voluntary redundancy plan as it seeks to safeguard production. * HUSQVARNA (HUSQb.ST): the garden equipment and tools maker will cut 1,000 jobs, the vast majority of them related to the shift from petrol to battery-powered tools. * H&M (HMb.ST): the Swedish fashion giant, which employs roughly 155,000 people, will cut some 1,500 jobs as part of a 2 billion crown ($189.5 million) savings drive.

☆ Factbox: European companies cuts jobs as economy sputters
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Forrest said in a statement Squadron had acquired CWP Renewables but did not disclose the price. And the more we create and deploy new renewable energy, the cheaper it becomes for every Australian and the world," Forrest told Reuters after the announcement. With CWP Renewables, Squadron would have the scale it needs to meet demand from large commercial and industrial customers for reliable green energy in eastern Australia, he said. Willoughby said CWP aimed to give the go-ahead by March 2023 to build a 400 MW wind farm, which would cost more than A$1 billion. There are literally trillions of dollars of capital looking for green energy projects," he said.

SYDNEY/MELBOURNE, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Mining billionaire Andrew Forrest's private firm Squadron Energy has acquired CWP Renewables in Australia for more than A$4 billion ($2.7 billion), three people familiar with the deal said on Wednesday. Forrest said in a statement Squadron had acquired CWP Renewables, owner of 1.1 gigawatts of wind farms and a development pipeline of 1.3 GW of wind and solar farms in Australia, but did not disclose the price. CWP was sold by Swiss-based investor Partners Group (PGHN.S), which said it built the Australian business up after first investing in the Sapphire Wind Farm in the state of New South Wales in 2016. Other companies that had looked at CWP included Spain's Iberdrola (IBE.MC), Tilt Renewables, partly owned by AGL Energy (AGL.AX), and Origin Energy (ORG.AX), all aiming to expand in renewable energy as Australia speeds up its transition away from coal-fired power. With CWP Renewables, Squadron would have the scale it needs in eastern Australia to meet demand from large commercial and industrial customers for reliable green energy, Forrest said.

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