Finanzas

EVERY December, more than 1,000 female high school students, some as young as 15, take part in a “bikini competition” held in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao. The event, hosted by Oriental Beauty, a modelling agency, provides a platform for aspiring flight attendants to show off their bikini bodies to eager recruiters from the Chinese airline industry. Those deemed the most attractive are invited to join a fast-track flight attendant trainee scheme, which can open the door to a dream job at one of China’s big airlines.

Many Chinese and other Asian airlines shamelessly exploit female sexuality. At China Southern Airlines, air hostesses must be 25 or younger and must not have “X or O shaped legs”. Stewardesses at Japan Airlines need to have “good skin complexion”. Indonesia’s flag carrier, Garuda Indonesia, which Skytrax declared had the world’s best cabin staff in 2016 (not a single Western airline made the shortlist), refuses to hire older, married women. VietJet…Continue reading

DOROTHY was unhappy. Life on the Kansas farm seemed dull, and her pocket money hadn’t risen in real terms for years. It was time for a change; time to make Kansas great again. Then, as she was sitting in the farmhouse with her dog Toto, a tornado came along, sweeping them up and taking her away, far from reality.

With a bump, the farmhouse landed on a woman. As Dorothy emerged, she saw a crowd of cheering little people.“You have killed the wicked witch of the east wing” they shouted. “We could not abide her charitable foundation or lax e-mail security procedure. But you have saved us.”

“Who are you?” asked Dorothy.

“We are the Mnuchins” they proclaimed “and we raise all the finance for the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, who lives in a giant tower with his name on the side.”

“What’s it called?” asked Dorothy.

“Ozterity” came the reply.

“Can the Wizard of Oz restore prosperity to my Kansas farm?” she asked.

“Of course” they cried.

“Can the Wizard help me and my dog Toto?” she asked.

“It depends. Is Toto a Hispanic name?” said one Mnuchin. “And…Continue reading

CaixaBank, Lazora y Blackstone tienen las mayores carteras de viviendas en alquiler

El Pleno del Congreso de los Diputados ha convalidado este jueves el decreto ley que incluye los cambios tributarios

Javier Marín será consejero del banco de la Santa Sede

La entidad bancaria italiana prosigue con sus planes para evitar un temido rescate estatal

IT IS a short walk from a tiny shop with peeling yellow paint in downtown La Coruña, in northern Spain, to a dazzling five-storey store, opened in September by Zara, by far the world’s most successful purveyor of “fast fashion”. In this stroll across three city blocks, the career of Amancio Ortega unfolds: from teenaged apprentice in the corner shop, Gala, a men’s clothing business, to Europe’s richest entrepreneur, the majority owner of one of its best-performing firms.

According to one employee of Zara who works with him, “the true story of Amancio Ortega has not been told.” Mr Ortega, the son of an itinerant railway worker, who started at the corner shop aged 13, had a basic upbringing: an ex-colleague says he talks of meals of “only potatoes”. He has lived mainly in Galicia, a relatively poor region with no history in textiles. Yet there, in 1975, he founded Zara—a manufacturer-cum-retailer that, along with its sister brands, has over 7,000 shops globally.  

Mr Ortega (pictured) is now 80 but he remains energetic and involved in the business (if uninterested in wearing trendy clothes). He owns nearly 60% of…Continue reading

Who’s the daddy?

“IF THEY resented me they didn’t talk to me about it,” says a young German manager at a media firm in Frankfurt. Still, he says it was noticeable that when a subordinate 20 years older than him thanked him for buying lunch he had to swallow twice before adding the word “boss”.

Older workers sometimes begrudge being managed by a callow colleague. Precocious youngsters, too, can feel awkward about bossing their elders around. But in Germany a shortage of skilled workers means that such situations are becoming ever more common.

The country’s population is projected to shrink. Among rich-world countries, only in six nations including Japan and Greece are populations expected to decrease faster. As more Germans retire, fewer youngsters are entering the workforce to replace them. As a share of the working population the number of 15-to-24-year-olds has fallen by ten percentage points since the 1980s, says the German Federal Employment Agency. Firms competing to retain young talent are tempted to promote them earlier as a result. A paper by professors at the University of Cambridge and WHU, a…Continue reading

IT WOULD seem to be a stunning comeback for Rupert Murdoch and his clan. Five years ago News Corporation was engulfed by scandal. One of its British papers, the News of the World, had routinely hacked private phones. In the aftermath the company gave up a bid it had made for BSkyB (now simply called Sky), a satellite broadcaster in which it had a stake. A parliamentary report declared Mr Murdoch unfit to lead a large company. James Murdoch, his son, resigned as chair of BSkyB and chief of the newspaper division. Ofcom, Britain’s media regulator, eviscerated his leadership as “difficult to comprehend and ill-judged”.

Now the Murdoch empire appears to be striking back. On December 9th, 21st Century Fox, the Murdochs’ entertainment business, said it had reached a preliminary deal to pay £11.2bn ($14.1bn) for the 61% of Sky it does not already own. James Murdoch is ascending once more: indeed, this deal is chiefly his doing. Last year he succeeded his father as boss of 21st Century Fox, and in January he reclaimed his Sky chairmanship. But the show of strength comes with new weaknesses.

Much has…Continue reading

NO BOSS in French business can match Vincent Bolloré for swagger and aggression. Variously described by the press in France as a stubborn Breton, a ruthless profiteer and a smiling killer, the 64-year-old corporate raider has acquired interests in media, transport, advertising, telecoms and more, scattered across Europe and Africa. Opinion at home is divided between those who say his methods are too brutal and others who welcome his effect on an often dozy business world.

This week it was the turn of Italian newspapers to rant against the French “pirate” and “mercenary”. On December 13th the news came that France’s Vivendi, a media firm in which Mr Bolloré’s company, Bolloré Group, owns 20% (he effectively controls it) was racing to buy up shares in Mediaset, Italy’s biggest TV-broadcaster. Things moved swiftly. By the next day Vivendi had a 20% stake in Mediaset, up from 3% two days earlier. The Italian firm claims a hostile takeover attempt—the smiling killer’s speciality—is under way.

Mr Bolloré has long aimed at winning a share of Mediaset. Earlier this year, Vivendi had agreed a plan with Mediaset in which…Continue reading