FINANCE, BUSINESS & LEGAL
www.euroweeklynews.com
15 - 21 May 2014 / Mallorca
THE Bank of Ireland must pay €103.5 million compensation for a failed Spanish deal. Spain’s Supreme Court ruled that the Irish bank reneged on its May 2007 agreement to acquire the Plaza Imperial Shopping centre in Zaragoza. It had agreed to pay €360 million for 100 per cent of 1.7 million shares in Procom Desarrollo Comercial, jointly owned by Procom Desarollos Urbanos and Cecosa Hipermercados (Eroski). The Supreme Court recognised that Procom had received other offers from entities ‘of recognised prestige’ including ING Real Estate, Commerz Grundbesitz and Quinlan Private. Instead Procom chose the Bank of Ireland offer. The transaction was negotiated through the bank’s privatebanking division, which intended to provide €140 million. The remainder was to be financed by the German bank Hypo Real Estate although
Output continues to rise SPANISH manufacturing continued to rise in March, the fifth straight month of increases. According to the National Statistics Institute (INE) output was rising at an annual rate of 0.6 per cent. While the consumer sector continued to decline - consumer durables production fell 4.8 per cent output of business equipment rose 3 per cent while materials like textiles and chemicals used during the manufacturing process rose by 2.5 per cent. The modest but now sustained growth in output followed five years of falls that started with the implosion of the property market in 2008.
CREDIT Canadian Pacific.
No luck for the Bank of Ireland
PAY UP: €103.5 million bill for Bank of Ireland. the conditions of the agreements between the banks were never communicated to the vendors, the Supreme Court pointed out. Hypo Real Estate withdrew its offer in September 2008 and Procom and Cecosa were advised that the finance operation had fallen through
owing to ‘persistent adverse market conditions and the specific circumstances of the project.’ Unable to meet the terms of the contract, Bank of Ireland then took back the €40 million it had already advanced, prompting legal proceedings from Procom and Cecosa.
In December 2011, the Madrid Provincial High Court decided in their favour and ordered Bank of Ireland to pay €103.5 million plus €12.65 million in interest. “Bank of Ireland acted in bad faith,” the Supreme Court ruled, confirming the high court sentence.
Who wears the pants in business? MOST will be familiar with the wisecrack: “I am the boss in this house and I have my wife’s permission to say so.” You have got to believe it. Had I not caught on to the fact that it is the woman who makes the buying decision I would have starved. Time after time I have seen sales fall through because the salesman ignored the client’s wife or secretary. Fail. Our culture portrays man’s role as a decision maker. It is theatre. Selling is a balancing act in which it is necessary to empathise equally with the lady partner. When selling properties abroad I focused equally, often a little more so, on the client’s wife. However, if successful, it was the man who gave it the nod. My after sales practice was to ask which of them had actually made the decision to buy. In only one instance had the man made that decision. The others ruefully conceded that the wife had given it the final nod. Had she not done so the sale would have fallen through. Clients were often single women and either travelled alone or with a female relative. I can’t remember my sales partner in Spain not closing. Occasionally a single man would go on his own.
DECISION: Make sure the real boss agrees.
Talking shop Mike Walsh Mike Walsh was for 20 years Regional Assessment Manager for the Guild of Master Craftsmen, Britain’s biggest quality assurance body for businesses.
www.michaelwalsh.es • 966 786 932
It was a waste of time. Only once did I make a sale. Modern man, I am sorry to say, finds making a decision harder to do than does a woman. Far less sure of himself he will pro-
crastinate. It got so bad that I would not send a man on a viewing trip unless he was accompanied by a woman. Property is one thing close to a woman’s heart but over the years I have sold payphones to businesses, building services, a retailer, and trade association accreditation. Other salesmen covering a wide diversity of products and services agree with me. A tip from a former Rolls-Royce Sales Manager: “The worst mistake you can make in business is to procrastinate.”
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April showers work on the jobless DESPITE discouraging unemployment figures for 2014’s first quarter, April’s were buoyant. The increase in employment was the best ever for this month, with a 2.3 per cent fall in the number of people registered as unemployed. There were 111,565 more people in work than in March, the Ministry of Labour announced. Although unemployment fell by only 50,202 after seasonal adjustments, the reduction is still a record for April. “Seasonally adjusted employment fell for the ninth consecutive month,” said the junior minister of Labour Engracia Hidalgo. “Such a prolonged reduction has not been seen since 1999,” she added. Although 4,684,301 people are without jobs in Spain, there was further good news with another 133,765 people paying into the Social Security system as bars, restaurants and hotels took on more staff over Easter. The ministry of Labour figures followed the National Statistics Office (INE) report on the first quarter of 2014. If, as some analysts claim, INE figures are more reliable than the Labour ministry’s, then employment in Spain is still being destroyed. Approximately 5.9 million people - 25.9 per cent of the work force were out of work between January and the end of March, according to INE. The government is confident that the unemployment rate will drop to 23.3 per cent in 2015 although it will not fall below 20 per cent until 2017.