Latest news with #Lombardy
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
NewPrinces strikes €1bn deal to buy Carrefour stores in Italy
NewPrinces is acquiring Carrefour's operations in Italy for €1bn ($1.18bn) in a move described as "vertical integration between production and distribution". The Italy-headquartered food and drinks giant said Carrefour's store network in the country stretches across more than 1,000 sites in regions such as Piedmont, Lombardy and Liguria. Subject to regulatory approval, NewPrinces added the deal is expected to close by the end of the current third quarter. Carrefour is the latest acquisition target by NewPrinces, which was trading as Newlat Food before it acquired UK-based Princes Group last year. More recently, the company has entered an agreement to buy a clutch of baby-food brands in Italy from US heavyweight Kraft Heinz. "The acquisition of Carrefour Italia represents a significant milestone in our group's growth trajectory," Angelo Mastrolia, the chairman of NewPrinces, said in a statement. "With this transaction, we are taking a decisive step towards verticalintegration between production and distribution, strengthening our ability to create value along the entire supply chain." Mastrolia added: "We have made the bold decision to invest in a strategic asset for Italy, with the aim of relaunching a widespread retail network and maximising synergies between industry and distribution. "Our ambition is clear: to build a sustainable, solid and long-term model that can offer concrete benefits to customers, employees, suppliers and shareholders alike." As part of the transaction, NewPrinces said Carrefour has committed to reinvest €237.5m in its Italian stores in a "one-off contribution" to support the retailer's "industrial relaunch and operational continuity". Meanwhile, NewPrinces has pledged €200m to invest in "development initiatives, logistics innovation and brand renewal". Carrefour acknowledged the agreement with the Italian group in its full year 2025 results yesterday (24 July). The retailer said its stores in Italy had gone through a "recovery" period from 2020 to 2022 but sales then declined last year. The same year, Carrefour Italia booked a €67m loss in recurring operating income and had negative free cash flow of €180m. "This operation covers all of Carrefour's activities in Italy. It will allow Carrefour to refocus on its key markets in Europe and Latin America," the France-based retailer said. With the deal, the owner of the Princes, Napolina and Delverde brands said it aims to 'optimise synergies' between production and distribution and 'enhance' its brand portfolio. NewPrinces also hopes to 'develop new omnichannel platforms' for the sale and delivery of fresh and packaged products and 'strengthen' its position in 'key' European markets. The company added that the Carrefour stores in Italy generated around €3.7bn in sales last year and EBITDA of €115m. Post the transaction, the pro-forma consolidated turnover of the food and drinks group will reach circa €6.9bn, it said. In the first quarter of 2025, NewPrinces generated revenues of €672.2m, a dip from the €699.9m made in the corresponding period of 2024. EBIT stood at €28.9m, against €5.9m a year earlier. NewPrinces booked a first-quarter net profit of €13.5m, versus a loss of €2.2m the year previous. Aside from the agreement with Carrefour, NewPrinces is reportedly considering floating the UK Princes unit on the London market in October. "NewPrinces strikes €1bn deal to buy Carrefour stores in Italy " was originally created and published by Just Food, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Cure by Katherine Brabon review – moments of grace in meditation on chronic illness
Katherine Brabon's fourth novel follows a mother and daughter with a shared experience of chronic illness who travel to Italy in search of a cure. It feels like a companion piece to her elegant previous novel Body Friend, about three women who seek out different ways of managing their chronic pain after surgery. Cure continues Brabon's metaphoric use of doubles, mirrors and reflections to explore the social dimensions of the body in pain. It opens in Lake Como, where, we are told, in autumn 'clouds devour the hills around the lake' and the water 'reflects the scene of disappearance. [It] cannot help but replicate the obscuring fog.' Vera has been here before; she is now taking her 16-year-old daughter, Thea, to a small town in Lombardy, where she herself travelled with her parents as a sick teen, to seek out an obscure man who promises to heal and cure people of their illnesses. Cure captures the painful intimacies between a mother and daughter: 'Vera has lived this, or a version of this, but she wants it to be different for her daughter,' Brabon writes. Vera and Thea are allied in their shared experience of chronic headaches, fatigue and joints stiffened with pain. Both have been subjected to the banal health advice of others – to take cold showers, hot baths, avoid coffee and consume tea. At the same time the pair are estranged – Thea wants to rebel against Vera's anxious and protective proscriptions; Vera favours curatives such as 'supplement powders, tablets, and tea' over the prescribed medications recommended by her doctor husband. Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning The gentle and unassuming narrative shifts between Vera's adolescent pilgrimage to Italy and her daughter's, and between sequences from Vera's early adulthood and scenes of the mother and child at home in Melbourne. Vera is taken to a thermal bath in regional Victoria by her parents, and spends hours connecting with other young women online. In Italy, Thea rests and walks to the lake, meeting a teenage boy called Santo. Writing in her journal, she reflects upon how her mother's journey maps neatly on to her own: the same age, the same bed, a shared illness, a shared purpose. To Vera, her daughter is a 'just a body': 'a mirror of her own body … she cannot see beyond the body, its destruction, its inheritance'. Thea and Vera's nights are long, edged with pain; the days are repetitious, spent managing that burden. Brabon is sensitive to how time can dissolve in these efforts of maintenance, bracketing the hours with temporary relief. Vera partakes in a fortnightly regime of subcutaneous injections, while Thea relies on painkillers to alleviate the 'fatigue and fever and aching eyelids'. As she swallows the tablets, she 'feels her mother come back to her'. In this cyclical experience of illness, Thea looks to Vera as a template of what will come. In Thea, Brabon draws a sensitive portrait of a girl adjusting to life in a body that will be constrained. Vera is a complex figure, anxious and tired, whose responsibility for her daughter both draws them together and drives them apart. They turn to writing as a means of communication and escape: Thea retreats into her journal, diarising her own adolescence and crafting stories about her mother; Vera appeals to online communities, where she can share her own experience anonymously. This secret retreat into fantasy is driven by necessity, for it is there that mother and daughter are free to imagine their lives with a supple and mysterious hope. Vera and Thea must live slowly, carefully, and the narrative reproduces this in its structure – to enervating effect. Between sequences of Vera and Thea in the past and present are italicised passages told from an estranged, omniscient perspective. The pair become 'mother and daughter', 'the woman' and 'the girl'. Thea's upset sleep and swollen knees, initially presented to the reader with first-hand intimacy, are reconsidered with toneless neutrality, a flat recital of events: 'The girl feels both happy and angry'; 'the girl walks to the lake'. In adopting this kind of glacial formalism, Brabon perhaps seeks to capture the effects of bodily estrangement with the sage reticence of a writer like Rachel Cusk, whose novel Parade is quoted in the epigraph. Instead, these italicised passages achieve something more dry, too narrow. The warmer haze of Brabon's other prose better captures the feelings of rupture and dissociation brought about by the sick body and by the family in conflict. Brabon's play with narration in Cure signals her subtle exploration of how stories of sickness can be confining, too definitive. Shifting our attention to the ill body beyond pathology, she re-engages with the relational and affective qualities of this experience, sketching a dim world, foggy with illusion and mythmaking. Narrative intensity is stripped back for something softer, more reflective. If the novel's carefully refined atmosphere is sometimes remote to a fault, it also contains arresting moments of grace, as Brabon meditates on the stories we tell about our bodies, wellness, healing and memory. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Cure by Katherine Brabon is out through Ultimo Press ($34.99)
Sky News
17-07-2025
- Sky News
Body found in search for British hiker Matthew Hall who went missing in Italy
The body of Matthew Hall, the British hiker who went missing in the Italian Alps, has been found according to local officials. Officials in the province of Sondrio confirmed to Sky News that search teams located the hiker between 100 and 150 metres down from a famous observation deck in Chiavenna valley. His body was found on Wednesday by local police and the fire department. Mr Hall, 33, from Hull, had not been seen since Tuesday 8 July, after he left an Airbnb in Chiavenna, just north of Lake Como, in Lombardy, northern Italy, for a solo walk. A missing persons appeal circulated by his friends and family on social media said he last contacted a friend at 1.20pm the day he went missing, sending a photo of himself on the walk. Mr Hall's mother Sara Foster, 62, flew out to Italy on Wednesday to help search for the 33-year-old. Speaking to Hull Live at the time, she said she had been overwhelmed by the support shown by Matthew's friends and colleagues. A spokesperson for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office told Sky News earlier this week: "We are supporting the family of a British man missing in Italy and are in contact with the local authorities."
Reuters
17-07-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Italy's Lombardy picks group using Starlink to test satcom services
MILAN, July 17 (Reuters) - Italy's Lombardy region on Thursday picked a consortium of firms using Starlink's low-orbit satellite constellation in a pilot project to see if space-based connectivity is a viable solution to boost high-speed internet penetration in the country. Lombardy, home to Italy's financial capital Milan, launched a tender for a 4.1 million euro project to test wholesale systems combining fibre and satellite-based networks to bring fast Internet connections in remote and poorly served areas. A joint proposal from Swisscom's Fastweb (SCMN.S), opens new tab and Italian defence group Leonardo ( opens new tab satellite unit Telespazio has been awarded the pilot project, a regional document showed on Thursday. A source close to the matter said the test is expected to involve the use of Starlink's satellite constellation. Telespazio, a joint venture between Leonardo and French peer Thales ( opens new tab last year secured an agreement with Elon Musk's low orbit satellite unit Starlink to commercialise its satellite service. Italy is grappling with delays in state-backed rollout plans for ultra-fast terrestrial telecoms networks for households in sparsely populated areas, with latest European Union data pointing to a coverage of 36.8% last year against an EU average of about 60%.
The Guardian
17-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Cure by Katherine Brabon review – moments of grace in meditation on chronic illness
Katherine Brabon's fourth novel follows a mother and daughter with a shared experience of chronic illness who travel to Italy in search of a cure. It feels like a companion piece to her elegant previous novel Body Friend, about three women who seek out different ways of managing their chronic pain after surgery. Cure continues Brabon's metaphoric use of doubles, mirrors and reflections to explore the social dimensions of the body in pain. It opens in Lake Como, where, we are told, in autumn 'clouds devour the hills around the lake' and the water 'reflects the scene of disappearance. [It] cannot help but replicate the obscuring fog.' Vera has been here before; she is now taking her 16-year-old daughter, Thea, to a small town in Lombardy, where she herself travelled with her parents as a sick teen, to seek out an obscure man who promises to heal and cure people of their illnesses. Cure captures the painful intimacies between a mother and daughter: 'Vera has lived this, or a version of this, but she wants it to be different for her daughter,' Brabon writes. Vera and Thea are allied in their shared experience of chronic headaches, fatigue and joints stiffened with pain. Both have been subjected to the banal health advice of others – to take cold showers, hot baths, avoid coffee and consume tea. At the same time the pair are estranged – Thea wants to rebel against Vera's anxious and protective proscriptions; Vera favours curatives such as 'supplement powders, tablets, and tea' over the prescribed medications recommended by her doctor husband. Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning The gentle and unassuming narrative shifts between Vera's adolescent pilgrimage to Italy and her daughter's, and between sequences from Vera's early adulthood and scenes of the mother and child at home in Melbourne. Vera is taken to a thermal bath in regional Victoria by her parents, and spends hours connecting with other young women online. In Italy, Thea rests and walks to the lake, meeting a teenage boy called Santo. Writing in her journal, she reflects upon how her mother's journey maps neatly on to her own: the same age, the same bed, a shared illness, a shared purpose. To Vera, her daughter is a 'just a body': 'a mirror of her own body … she cannot see beyond the body, its destruction, its inheritance'. Thea and Vera's nights are long, edged with pain; the days are repetitious, spent managing that burden. Brabon is sensitive to how time can dissolve in these efforts of maintenance, bracketing the hours with temporary relief. Vera partakes in a fortnightly regime of subcutaneous injections, while Thea relies on painkillers to alleviate the 'fatigue and fever and aching eyelids'. As she swallows the tablets, she 'feels her mother come back to her'. In this cyclical experience of illness, Thea looks to Vera as a template of what will come. In Thea, Brabon draws a sensitive portrait of a girl adjusting to life in a body that will be constrained. Vera is a complex figure, anxious and tired, whose responsibility for her daughter both draws them together and drives them apart. They turn to writing as a means of communication and escape: Thea retreats into her journal, diarising her own adolescence and crafting stories about her mother; Vera appeals to online communities, where she can share her own experience anonymously. This secret retreat into fantasy is driven by necessity, for it is there that mother and daughter are free to imagine their lives with a supple and mysterious hope. Vera and Thea must live slowly, carefully, and the narrative reproduces this in its structure – to enervating effect. Between sequences of Vera and Thea in the past and present are italicised passages told from an estranged, omniscient perspective. The pair become 'mother and daughter', 'the woman' and 'the girl'. Thea's upset sleep and swollen knees, initially presented to the reader with first-hand intimacy, are reconsidered with toneless neutrality, a flat recital of events: 'The girl feels both happy and angry'; 'the girl walks to the lake'. In adopting this kind of glacial formalism, Brabon perhaps seeks to capture the effects of bodily estrangement with the sage reticence of a writer like Rachel Cusk, whose novel Parade is quoted in the epigraph. Instead, these italicised passages achieve something more dry, too narrow. The warmer haze of Brabon's other prose better captures the feelings of rupture and dissociation brought about by the sick body and by the family in conflict. Brabon's play with narration in Cure signals her subtle exploration of how stories of sickness can be confining, too definitive. Shifting our attention to the ill body beyond pathology, she re-engages with the relational and affective qualities of this experience, sketching a dim world, foggy with illusion and mythmaking. Narrative intensity is stripped back for something softer, more reflective. If the novel's carefully refined atmosphere is sometimes remote to a fault, it also contains arresting moments of grace, as Brabon meditates on the stories we tell about our bodies, wellness, healing and memory. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Cure by Katherine Brabon is out through Ultimo Press ($34.99)
