Black market SHOPLIFTING cost the retail industry £1 billion in 2024 and people increasingly buy black market shoplifted food as prices soar, the British Independent Retailers Association said. Meat, cheese and confectionery are amongst the items most-often stolen in large quantities from shops and lorries, they said.

Cutting losses SPAIN’S “bad bank” Sareb set up 11 years ago during the financial crisis, plans to sell on €850 million in unpaid loans and defaulted mortgages.  To help it do so, the bank has put out to tender a €375,100 contract for a financial consultant to carry out “one or several” operations in 2024. 

Brand scheme SUPERDRY is negotiating to sell its brand rights in the US and Middle East to underpin the clothing company’s finances.  The announcement follows last October’s agreement with India and Sri Lanka which raised £30 million (€34.57 million) in a deal with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Brands. 

Fewer layoffs THE UGT union ratified the agreement that the CC OO and Sumados Fetico unions had previously reached with Telefonica. The working week has been reduced to 36 hours and instead of the multinational company’s plans for 5,124 redundancies, these have been reduced and now affect 3,421 employees.

Plucked Rose ALISON ROSE,  NatWest’s former chief executive, will have her name removed from the Rose Review, an official report on women entrepreneurs that bore her name. Rose had to resign following the debanking debacle when Nigel Farage’s Coutts account was allegedly closed owing to his political views.

Stat of the week: €112 billion paid in Income Tax (IRPF) alone to Spain’s tax authority Hacienda during the first 11 months of 2023, a record sum that topped the total received in 2022.