Puig Brands, the Catalan multinational family group for beauty and fashion, which is negotiating an integration with the American Estée Lauder, three times larger, brings to the table the process of ownership change of local companies that has been occurring over the last 20 years. This very week, the Japanese Marubeni Corporation has bought 85% of Factorenergia, founded in 1999 by Emili Rousaud, former candidate for the presidency of Barça, for 204 million euros. The ownership changes of Catalan companies have not stopped. Between 2005 and 2006, the sales of Panrico, by the Costafreda family, to the fund Apax Partners were closed; and that of Chupa Chups, founded by Enric Bernat in 1958, to the Italian Perfetti Van Melle. Bernat's heirs today operate Casa Batlló on Barcelona's Passeig de Gràcia, one of Antoni Gaudí's iconic buildings, which they bought in the 90s.

From Guitarland you can easily leave convinced that your life needs a guitar to acquire the full dimension of its meaning. Richard and José Luis have been running this shop on Carrer del Diluvi in Barcelona since 2003, right in the heart of Gràcia, a neighborhood that has been becoming orphaned of this type of establishment –contrary to its personality, with deep-rooted festivals and a tradition for musical taste– for a type of resident who is a very interesting potential customer for the services a music store can offer.

Since she was 15 years old, Xantal Llavina (1975) has been clear that she wants to be a journalist, but with a family of entrepreneurs, she opted to graduate in journalism and business: "I'm a humanities person and accounting was a bit complicated for me. In fact, I begged the teacher to average my grades with the theoretical exams because I would never be an accountant, only a journalist. A year later, when I was already on television, I ran into the teacher and she told me that I was right, that I wanted to be a journalist," she explains. Restless and hardworking, Llavina has ended up building a career that goes far beyond journalism.

Payment by large companies and administrations is not only not improving, but is getting worse. Last year, 85% of the largest companies exceeded the legal payment deadline between companies by seven days, reaching up to 67 days. And administrations more than doubled this, settling at 70 days, instead of the 30 established in the regulations, according to the Multisectorial Platform against Default (PMcM), which brings together one million companies and self-employed workers.

In a year like 2025, with record stock market gains, the main executives of the Ibex companies, the main benchmark of the Spanish equity market, overwhelmingly earned very significant incomes, further widening the gap with the average earnings of their staff. The link between remuneration and stock performance contributed to boosting the incomes of many senior executives. A clear example was Manuel Manrique, president of Sacyr, who topped the rankings by earning 32.6 million euros, 384.59% more than the previous year, thanks to a bonus for the company's stock market rise since the pandemic. As a consequence of this plan, this executive, one of the founders of Sacyr, multiplied his remuneration of around 6.7 million from 2022, 2023, and 2024. The fact is that Manrique's remuneration was 628 times the average earned by the company's staff, which is around 52,000 euros, according to the directors' remuneration report published by this company.

The Catalan Institute of Finance (ICF) has allocated 8 million euros to the new plant of the industrial boiler group Attsu, in Riudellots de la Selva. The company specializes in the design, manufacture, and commercialization of steam boilers, thermal oil, and other pressure vessels.

The industrial company internationalization agency, The Big Move, has signed up former Minister of Business and Labor, Roger Torrent, for its advisory board. Founded by Quico Ramió, this company works with industrial companies looking to grow internationally and reduce costs and risks. The company accompanies them throughout the process of opening new markets, from initial analysis to commercial activation, using a methodological framework that integrates analysis, definition, testing, and market development.

The relationship between the president of the Spanish employers' association Conpymes, José María Torres, and the Catalan Pimec, one of the founders of this organization, which was established in May 2021, is rapidly deteriorating. So much so that Pimec is considering promoting a split from this organization or achieving a change in the presidency, according to close sources. Torres, who headed the only candidacy for the presidency and renewal of the board in the electoral process that opened last October, has chosen to proclaim himself winner again during the organization's assembly held this Thursday in Madrid, with the majority of affiliated organizations against him.

The Catalan Finance Institute (ICF), the public bank of the Generalitat, has granted to date 846 loans to young people aged 18 to 35 to obtain the down payment for an apartment. The average granted is 36,332 euros and an average housing price of 189,908 euros with an average age of beneficiaries of 29.4 years, according to data presented by the Secretary General of Economy and President of the ICF's governing board, Juli Fernández, and the entity's CEO, Vanessa Servera.

The challenge isn't so much creating a company as making it last. The data reflects this. Around 100,000 companies are established in Catalonia each year (this figure includes everything from corporations to sole proprietorships and others), but only three are over 300 years old (Codorniu, which is no longer owned by the Raventós family; Raventós itself, which has other businesses in the sector; and the Publications of Montserrat Abbey). This data was presented by Oriol Amat, professor at Pompeu Fabra University-Barcelona School of Management (UPF-BSM) and director of the Family Business Observatory. Together with a colleague, Jordi Tarragona, Amat analyzed family-controlled companies and concluded that only 17% have a high level of professionalization. The experts based their findings on responses from 129 companies out of a sample of 1,200. And this refers to professionalization, understood as the opposite of improvisation, lack of systematization, or acting solely on intuition, which is key to business survival, according to these researchers. The fact that survival is a challenge is demonstrated by the fact that only 30% of companies reach the second generation and only 13% the third.

Frit Ravich, the Catalan family-owned company that produces potato chips, snacks The company has begun work to expand its factory in the municipality of Maçanet de la Selva, next to its existing plant. The location was chosen last year, and buildings adjacent to the headquarters were demolished. Recently, the detailed design phase was launched to define and plan the foundations of the new 38,000-square-meter complex. According to the company, the new facilities will guarantee the company's operational capacity until 2040. The company consolidated its growth and increased its investments last year by 14%, to 8 million euros. Part of this amount was allocated to the start of the expansion work. The bulk of the resources were used to increase production capacity, especially for potato chips and... snacksand to increase new technological solutions to improve the efficiency and management of production processes.

Indra shares led the stock market declines on Tuesday, falling by more than 8% and ending the session with a 4.19% loss at €57.10. Analysts attribute this negative performance to reports that the Spanish government, through SEPI, its main shareholder with over 25%, has requested the dismissal of the company's president, Ángel Escribano.

Isabelle Ferreras (Belgium, 1975) has been coordinating the Report on Democracy at Work. The text, recently presented by a high-level commission of experts under the Ministry of Labor, which she herself chaired, questions power structures in the workplace: "They are connected to the possibility of living in a democratic society," Ferreras reflects. The Belgian researcher speaks to ARA via video call, while the Ministry has begun negotiations with unions, but without employers' associations, to make progress on this issue.

The number of women on the boards of directors of large French companies has steadily increased in recent years. In the case of CAC 40 companies—the French equivalent of the IBEX 35—the progress is remarkable: while 6.3% of executive committee members were women in 2008, this figure rose to 28.81% in 2025, according to a study by the Skema business school. However, women's presence in senior management positions remains a minority, and parity is still a long way off. The increase in female executives is explained by the quotas imposed by the French government. On March 1st, it became mandatory for companies with more than 1,000 employees to have at least 30% women on their management and executive committees. The so-called Rixain Law—which, according to experts cited by the French press, has no equivalent in Western countries—also establishes that by 2029 the percentage of female directors must reach 40%. In Spain, the parity law will also require large companies to have 40% female representation on their boards of directors by June of this year, but the regulation only affects companies listed on the IBEX 35. The French law goes further, affecting all large companies (around 1,500) and stipulating fines of up to 1% of their payroll for companies that do not comply. The French government has not yet released data on compliance with the regulation, but according to the barometer of the French Institute of Directors (IFA), the 120 largest listed French companies will have 30% female directors by 2025. In 2021, female representation was only 22%. No data is available for the other companies.

Five seconds, one liter. Ten seconds, two. Fifteen seconds, three... and so the water is lost down the drain hole toward the sewer. This is the scene that repeats itself every day in most homes when someone is waiting for the hot water to come out in the shower, sink, or kitchen. To put an end to this, companies like those in Valencia AquaReturn and Ecoid They have devised devices that prevent this waste and aim to make reuse a daily practice, moving from an occasional gesture to something commonplace.

Alongside the C-65, the road that connects Girona with the Costa Brava, stands the headquarters of the largest Spanish-owned resource company in Spain. Every day, it hires a total of 27,000 people from seven countries; 91,000 annually. And it does so from the industrial park in a cork-producing town, with no intention of abandoning its 35-year history. This is Eurofirms, which, with a turnover exceeding €700 million in 2025 and a 13% growth rate, holds the third-largest market share in the sector nationwide. But that's not enough for them.

In 1851, at the age of twenty-two, Augusto de Muller y Ruinart de Brimont (1829-1893) arrived in Tarragona from Reims. Belonging to a prominent winemaking family from Alsace, De Muller sought an area in Spain untouched by the phylloxera plague, where he focused his activities on the production and export of wines. The volume of his international sales, with branches in Bordeaux and London, made him the leading businessman in Tarragona during his time, a city where, for much of the first third of the 20th century, the wine trade was the main economic driver, overshadowed by other, far less significant, activities. The port of Tarragona became De Muller's export hub.

Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) earned €1.979 billion last year, a 37% increase over the previous year, according to results submitted to the Spanish National Securities Market Commission (CNMV). At the same time, it announced a €1 billion share buyback program. The group, chaired by Sol Daurella, specified that, on a like-for-like basis, profit increased by 3.6% to €1.916 billion. Total revenue, at €20.901 billion, rose by 2.3%. Sales remained stable in Europe, driven by energy drinks and Coca-Cola Zero. In the Asia-Pacific region, sales increased by 1%, with significant growth in Australia and Papua New Guinea.

An average of more than 500 complaints per day. This is the volume of grievances handled by the economic-administrative courts—bodies attached to the Ministry of Finance—an essential avenue for challenging tax assessments before resorting to the courts, according to regulations. It represents a veritable avalanche of work for these entities. However, in 2024—according to the latest available data—complaints decreased by 17.87% compared to the previous year, reaching 196,442. Conversely, the number of cases resolved, which reached 222,737, increased by 14.20%. The economic-administrative courts in Madrid lead the way in complaints, with more than 33,000; followed by those in Andalusia, with 31,000, and those in Catalonia, with 30,395—the three most populous autonomous communities.

In recent years, China has managed to capture a significant portion of the market that until recently was dominated by the European pharmaceutical industry, displacing the Old Continent to third place globally in many aspects. This ranking is led by the United States, but the Asian giant continues to gain ground. In this context, Catalonia, the leading center for the sector in Spain, with 44% of the pharmaceutical manufacturing plants (79 out of 181), and one of the main centers in Europe, must play a key role in the effort to improve innovation in the industry and regain its position. Within this framework, the Catalan government (Generalitat) and the industry association Farmaindustria are working to boost competitiveness and increase innovation and patient access to new treatments. The last meeting between the two parties took place last month, attended by President Salvador Illa, before his medical leave, and the president of the industry association, Fina Lladós.