10.623 million euros has been the tax collection by the Treasury in this year's income tax campaign. We can debate whether it is a lot or a little, but it has grown by 53% compared to last year. And the truth is that it makes perfect sense.

Night of January 20, 1985. Location of Zuoz, in the Swiss canton of Grisons. Two masked men move silently through one of the rooms of the Lyceum Alpinum boarding school, where the children of Central Europe's great fortunes study. They wake a 19-year-old young man who was sleeping peacefully and convince him to accompany them when they show him a pistol. After hours of travel in a car confined to the trunk, they lock him in a room and force him to record a message for his family in which he asks for a ransom of 15 million German marks, quite a fortune (about 825 million pesetas at that time, or almost 5 million euros).

Movements at the top of Grifols in the United States. These movements suggest that the Catalan hemoderivatives company continues with its intention to take part of its biopharmaceutical business in the North American country to the stock market. Another move this week has been the announcement that the director of the State Tax Agency, Soledad Fernández, will leave her post, which has occurred just as the income tax campaign is closing.

The covid-19 pandemic blew up part of the economic postulates that had prevailed in Europe since the financial crisis. Thus, for example, member states agreed to approve European funds Next Generation, that just end this August; but there was also consensus on suspending fiscal rules. To both of these was added an element: the European Commission's relaxation of EU rules on state aid. Thanks to this, the Spanish government was able to create in July 2020 the Fund for the Support of the Solvency of Strategic Companies (FASEE, in its Spanish acronym), conceived as a kind of rescue fund and managed by the State Industrial Participations Society (SEPI), an entity dependent on the Ministry of Finance. Six years later, what was the most desired pandemic measure for some companies is experiencing a reputational headache: the shadow of corruption pursues it.

The L'Azure hotel in Lloret de Mar closed its doors in 2018 as a two-star establishment, and when it reopened, more than two years and 35 million euros of investment later, it had four. It had become a high-end hotel. In the last decade, this segment of the offer has gained weight in Catalonia to become the majority, going from representing 47.41% to 56.93% of the total.

Ferran Martínez (Barcelona, 1968) shone with Barça, Penya, the Spanish national team, and Panathinaikos during the 80s and 90s. But even then, he was preparing for a new life as an entrepreneur and financial advisor. Martínez meets with ARA on a Barcelona terrace, where for over an hour he talks about businesses, quantum computing, and AI. And about basketball, of course. He now publishes The Algorithm of Success (EmpreBooks), a book where he uses his sporting experience to understand the business world.

Today, June 27, marks Catalonia's Business Day, an initiative promoted by the Government of the Generalitat of Catalonia in 2021 that aims to highlight the strategic role of the business fabric in the economic and social development of the territory. Beyond their productive function, companies, from entrepreneurial initiatives to large corporations, become key players in talent generation, wealth creation, and territorial balance, contributing decisively to collective prosperity.

The technology center Eurecat has received the National Award for Knowledge and Innovation Transfer 2025, awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya, in recognition of its continuous work to improve business opportunities and social welfare through applied research, technological transfer, and innovation.

Avalis, the public-private company promoted by the Generalitat that offers guarantees to SMEs and self-employed workers, is joining forces with the banking services firm Kenta Capital and launching a debt fund to finance small and medium-sized Catalan enterprises (SMEs). The instrument, presented this Wednesday in Barcelona, is launched with an initial volume of 50 million euros and offers financing conditions that are until now unusual for SMEs: unlike a common loan, companies will have access to a structure known as "bullet".

Anthropic, the creator of the artificial intelligence chatbot Claude, has suspended public access to its most advanced artificial intelligence models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5. The decision comes at a time of maximum tension between the company and Donald Trump's administration.

In the summer of 1588, during the Battle of Gravelines, the famous Spanish Invincible Armada was shattered by the push of the English fleet led by Francis Drake. The historical event, which led to a phrase as well-known as it is apocryphal, attributed to the King of Spain Philip II, was that a storm, during the retreat towards the Peninsula, finished off the Spanish ships: "I sent my ships to fight against men, not against the elements." Sir Horatio Palavicino, Italian by birth, but already a banker to the Queen of England, was contemplating the Spanish defeat from a distance, rubbing his hands with glee (it has often been said that he himself captained a ship of the English fleet, but it has never been officially confirmed that this is true).

Indra has been restructuring its top management for several months, with recent changes in president and CEO, and the incorporation of new high-level directives. This reinforcement of the technology and defense company's top level also reaches Catalonia, where the company chaired by Àngel Simón has appointed a new territorial director, Enric Blasco. Furthermore, a lifelong banker, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri – he was CEO of BBVA, president of Bankia, and president of CaixaBank – is making the leap into the fashion world as a new independent director of Inditex, the company controlled by Amancio Ortega which owns brands such as Zara, Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, and Bershka, among others.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become the center of business debate. For this reason, the BBVA board of directors has met in Barcelona to analyze its opportunities and the strategy linked to it, and has also gathered a hundred client companies from all over Spain during corporate banking days.

Musical chairs in the Catalan technology sector. The former CEO of Cellnex – the main telecommunications tower company –, Tobías Martínez, will move to lead Openchip, while Pedro Mier will take over the direction of Open Cosmos. Furthermore, the president of Indra, Àngel Simón, continues with the revolution at the company's top and is already looking for a new CEO, who will possibly be announced this Tuesday, after dismissing José Vicente de los Mozos – seemingly in agreement with the Spanish government –, who is the main shareholder of the technology and defense company.

The co-founder and managing partner of Asabys, Josep Lluís Sanfeliu, has been endorsed by the Barcelona Global supervisory board as the new president, an appointment that will be ratified by the partners' assembly on June 19. Sanfeliu, who will succeed Ramon Agenjo (Damm) for the new term until 2028, will have as vice-presidents Rafael Fontana, lawyer and honorary president of Cuatrecasas; Lluís Seguí, co-founder and CEO of Miura Partners; and Carmina Ganyet, corporate director general of Colonial, the only one to repeat in the same position. The supervisory board has endorsed Sanfeliu's candidacy and the board.

The 22@, Barcelona's technology district, has a new building with open-plan offices, modern spaces, and multilingual workers. This time, however, it is the largest coworking space in Southern Europe by surface area. It is located just a ten-minute walk from Plaça de les Glòries and covers 20,000 square meters, including a gym, swimming pool, climbing wall, terraces, a restaurant, a games room, and a slide that goes from the first floor to the ground floor.

Catalonia is one of the territories with the most clinical trials active in the world. In 2025 it participated in 5,768 studies, which catapulted it to seventh place in the world ranking, according to the BioRegion of Catalonia Report. The United States, with 38,218 trials underway, and China, with 17,321, led the list of countries.

"If I'm asked, I think the options between merging or not merging Puig Brands with the American Estée Lauder are at 50%.". This is the statement of a person who knows the negotiations between the two family beauty and fashion companies, which became known at the end of March. One of the points that makes it difficult to reach an agreement is the price of the Catalan group, which is worth around 10 billion euros, compared to Estée Lauder's 30 billion dollars (26 billion euros).

The European Union faces one of the most important economic debates of the coming years: should competition rules be relaxed to allow the creation of large European companies capable of competing with North American and Chinese giants? Or, before easing merger control, should Europe complete its single market?

Four and a half years ago, in December 2021, we talked about Gaspar Remisa, from Osona but based in Madrid, who pulled the strings of state finances during the first half of the 19th century. One of the figures he was often associated with was a French investor named José Buschental, who would also be a key figure in the Spanish Treasury of those times.