Another interesting, yet hard to grasp from an economic point of view, week is behind. The instability created by Brexit, the US Presidential election and the Deutsche Bank’s ongoing problems significantly reduced confidence in the market.
As the anticipation for the US Presidential election was growing around the world, most indexes lost points during Monday, keeping the trend during Tuesday since investors became too nervous to bet on which candidate is going to win, following a bitter campaign and several scandals that characterized the last weeks of October.
In Europe, Irish government announced that it would appeal against the decision of the European Commission to demand back taxes to Apple, an amount as high as 13 billion dollars. They are afraid that it could potentially threaten the country’s economy. Dublin has sought a more relaxed tax regime in order to attract more multinational companies to the country; a strategy that has worked, as most of the largest “multinationals” in the world have opened headquarters in Ireland in the past years, including Apple and Amazon.
In the Czech Republic at least six bids were raised for acquiring the Pilsner Urquell beer company, worth 5 billion euros. Several Czech and foreign companies have submitted their bids, including the Czech PPF Group and the Swiss Jacobs Holding. Pilsner Urquell has a 40 percent share of the beer market in the Czech Republic, the country with the highest consumption of beer per capita in the world.
According to Robert Stheeman, chief executive of the UK Debt Management Office, trends are inverting in the UK, and investors are gaining confidence in the financial future of the Great Britain. This comes just a few days after the British High Court declared that the Parliament has no power to trigger Article 50, initiating the procedures to leave the European Union. The government announced it would appeal against the decision of the High Court.
In other news, the fastfood chain McDonald’s sued the city of Florence, Italy, for blocking a restaurant in one of the historic squares of the city centre, reported BBC on Tuesday. “We completely agree that the cultural and artistic heritage and the Italian historical town centres have to be protected and guaranteed, as well as the traditions and the historical small shops, but we cannot accept discriminatory regulations that damage the freedom of private initiative without being advantageous to anyone,” McDonald’s told the BBC. The company calculated that over the next 18 years it will lose around 18 million euros if the restaurant in Piazza del Duomo won’t open.
Photo courtesy of Chicago Sun Times
