Finance Extra for the UK and Spain

Shelling out BRITISH taxpayers will have to cover part of the expense of dismantling some of Shell’s most polluting North Sea platforms.  The Ospar Convention governing marine pollution ruled that waste must be removed from the oil rigs and the UK Treasury and Shell should pay the £400 million (€467.2 million) cost between them.

Broken toys IMAGINARIUM, which in 2021 closed most of its toy shops in Spain, announced on Facebook that it was closing its last store in Zaragoza, leaving 101 employees redundant without compensation. The sale of shares to investors in Costa Rica could not revitalise the chain and the company went into receivership in 2022.

Chelsea pad SHEIKH Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MbZ), the United Arab Emirates president, has paid £65 million (€75.9 million) for a mansion in exclusive Chelsea, Bloomberg revealed. Located on the site of a former telephone exchange, the transaction is one of the biggest home purchases in London since the pandemic hit.

Grifols mission NACHO ABIA, a former executive with Japanese firm Olympus and a Grifols board member since February 2024, took over as chief executive of the Barcelona-based pharmaceuticals company on April 1. His initial objectives involve demonstrating greater transparency and reducing Grifols’ €9.420 billion debt.

Family affair DAVID AL-MUDALLAL, Frasers Group’s 31-year-old chief operating officer, was promoted to its board, making him one of the youngest directors of a FTSEs 100 company.  He is also dating Matilda Ashley, whose father founded the £3.6 billion (€4.2 billion) company and is a majority shareholder, the Sunday Times said.

Flight plan CONSTRUCTION starts in two years’ time on what will be one of the biggest plants in Europe for generating renewable kerosene (SAF) from hydrogen and carbon dioxide.  Once in full production, the €780 million site in Garay (Soria) is expected to produce an annual 60,000 tons of kerosene, enough for 12,000 flights between Madrid and Palma de Mallorca.

Fare play SPAIN’S National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) is analysing the track access charges that train operators Renfe, Ouigo and Iryo must pay state-owned infrastructure-providers Adif and Adif AV.  These charges are amongst the highest in Europe after France and the UK, and account for 91 per cent of what passengers pay for a ticket.

Double trouble EVERTON FC lost £89.1 million (€103.9 million) during the 2022-2023 season, almost double the £44.7 million (€52.1 million) losses of 2021-2022), which the club attributed to the suspension of sponsorship deals.  The club’s majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri said that he “remained confident” the takeover by Miami-based investment company 777 Partners would soon be completed.

Office jobs BIG FOUR accountant Deloitte is renting three floors of a Farringdon block near its New Street Square headquarters, two years after reducing its London office space by 250,000 square feet (23,226 square metres).  This helped to reduce overheads during the pandemic as employees worked from home, although more are beginning to return to the office for team projects.

Stat of the week: €15 billion in dividends is due to be paid out by 12 leading Spanish companies between April and June, with CaixaBank, Inditex and BBVA all paying more than in 2023.