The head of Vila Galé hotels, Jorge Rebelo de Almeida, is the sort of thoughtful entrepreneur that Portugal needs more of.
His profitable hotel business closed last year’s accounts with a 15% increase in revenue and the company aims to open five new hotels in Portugal in 2018.
Keen to set up shop on top of Portugal’s natural lithium resources, the management of Australian mining company Dakota Minerals wants to invest up to €370 million in an industrial facility in Tras os Montes to supply businesses across Europe.
The company is selling assets in Australia to enable it to focus on northern Portugal as a growing market for lithium is predicted due to the rise in popularity of electric cars whose manufacturers needs lithium for the vehicle battery packs.
Thursday’s Eurogroup finance ministers will make it abundantly clear to their Portuguese colleague that things are not going according to plan.
Finance Minister, Mario Centeno, is experiencing a little local difficulty with rising interest rates on Portuguese government bonds, a range of testy banking problems and socialist policies such as raising the minimum wage.
A former partner of reviled international finance house Goldman Sachs says he has access to a €15 billion fund to buy up bad debts from Portugal’s weakened banking sector.
António Esteves worked at several international banks, lastly at Goldman Sachs, and claims he has the support of a big bank, of Deloitte and lawyers Vieira de Almeida, to buy up the debt.
Carvoeiro’s Tivoli is to reopen as a five star hotel on April 1st after its total renovation is signed off.
The hotel’s upgrade has been planned and executed under the international architecs Broadway Malyan which has added three restaurants, a pool bar, the Carvoeiro Sky Bar, and a spa and a fitness centre.
One in five Portuguese who use social networks stopped using at least one last year.
A “lack of interest” was the main reason, according to a study by Marktest which reported that 21% of users abandoned a social network in 2016.
The collapsed Portuguese bank, Banif, given away to Santander in December 2015, has managed to generate a million euros a month in profit for the Spanish group last year.
Santander acquired Banif's banking activity at the end of 2015 as the Bank of Portugal yet again was panicked into a deal that saw shareholder value wiped out and future losses underwritten.
After the cold, we now have rain and high winds to look forward to across the Algarve.
The Faro district, and 11districts across Portugal, have been placed on the weatherman’s 'yellow alert' as strong winds are set to bring torrential rain on Thursday.
