The EU’s competitiveness has been the talk of the continent (“Draghi hopes to save Europe from itself”, Opinion, September 18).

Former and current prime ministers, business leaders and heads of the EU’s largest investment funds, among other prominent voices, are lamenting what has been termed a “competitive crisis”.

EU leaders are right to focus on this issue. Europe is falling behind.

As leaders look for real solutions to these real challenges, they should take a page from the book of those running US capital markets and get rid of the EU’s antiquated shareholder rights equity issuance rules.

The US method of raising equity capital through open offerings is faster and more efficient, and it ultimately better serves shareholders.

Conversely, the EU’s stringent shareholder rights rules, while designed to protect investors, often impede companies’ timely access to capital.

As chief executive of a fund manager I know that in today’s fast-paced global economy cost, speed and access to capital is critical.

Rights offerings often succeed not because of the companies’ attractiveness — for example, a perception that they are strong and well managed — but because of wide discounts offered that are consequently coercive to shareholders who didn’t want to absorb dilution.

That’s anathema to a competitive market. The prevalence of deeply discounted, defensive rights issues is one of the reasons why European markets have lagged behind the US, in our view.

By modernising these rules, the EU could create a more dynamic and responsive market environment. Simplifying the equity issuance process would make it easier for European companies to compete on the global stage, attracting more investment into the region through the improved access to and cost of capital. Investors are more likely to put their money into markets where companies can act swiftly and decisively.

Moreover, reforming these regulations would send a strong signal that the EU is committed to fostering a competitive and innovation-friendly economy via vibrant capital markets. This could help reverse the current trend of European companies being overshadowed by their American and Asian counterparts.

Joseph Harvey
Chief Executive, Cohen & Steers, New York, NY, US

IMAGES of known shoplifters must be shared on WhatsApp in order to protect staff, a supermarket boss has demanded.

Iceland’s executive chairman Richard Walker yesterday blasted “bonkers” data protection laws that prevent him from doing so to safeguard violent offenders’ “human rights”.

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He also slammed the “ridiculous” £200 theft limit introduced by the Tories in 2014, which treats thefts under this amount as “low value” and lets offenders off with a slap on the wrist via post.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to scrap the limit as well as making assaults on shop workers a specific criminal offence in a new crime bill.

Urging the new Government to get cracking, Mr Walker told the BBC: “We talk about workers’ rights… how about the right not to be assaulted at work?

“So making assault on shop workers a stand alone offence, getting rid of this ridiculous £200 limit, which basically gives a free card to shoplifters to nick what they want.

“And more police resourcing because they are not responding at the moment as they should do.”

He went on: “I’d also like to throw the gauntlet down to the Information Commissioner because to protect the human rights of known violent offenders I am not allowed to share on WhatsApp groups images of known shop lifters, which is bonkers.

“So I think there’s many things the Government can do and clear up that will help my customers, my colleagues in the day-to-day life, just go about their business.”

Shoplifting hit a 20-year high in the year to March 2024, with 443,995 offences recorded by police in England and Wales.

This is a third higher than in the same period in 2014, when 326,440 offences were recorded but led to significantly higher numbers being punished.

Columbia Hillen

Every tile tells a story.

Or at least that’s the situation at the 5-star Bela Vista Hotel & Spa in Portimão on Portugal’s Algarve coast.

Century-old hand-painted tiles adorn the walls of this 38-room hotel, none more so than on the ornate wooden staircase leading up to the bedrooms. Here, a series of intricately designed tiles illustrate one of Portugal’s most respected books, The Lusiads, an epic poem written by Luis Vaz de Camoes about Portugal’s ‘golden age’ of discovery.

Columbia Hillen

Elsewhere, an aptly-named ‘tile room’ depicts the arrival in Brazil by 16th century explorer, Vasco da Gama, while religious scenes such as the Last Supper are illustrated in other rooms.

The intricate tile work throughout the hotel is the legacy of the original owners of this 1908 building, once a stately family home. Only in 1934 was it transformed into a hotel, now expanded to 38 rooms, 10 in the main building, 21 in what are termed  ‘garden rooms’ and seven in the ‘blue house,’ both on the same grounds. 

Columbia Hillen

Beautiful tile work is not the only impressive artistic feature of Bela Vista. Ceilings are carved from Brazilwood, a rare variety now protected. There is also a vintage piano in the main lobby dating from 1855.

Columbia Hillen

Bela Vista, as the name suggests, occupies an envious position overlooking the ocean and Praia da Rocha (Beach of the Rocks). In many ways, the hotel is reminiscent of the 1950s Amalfi coast, a white ‘ivory tower’ like structure insulated from the busy hubbub of the streets just beyond its sturdy iron-wrought gates and with an interior design bright with colors, a vivid blue and white on chairs and cupboards and sunny yellow bedspreads.

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Our room, 102, was refreshingly decorated in hues of blue, yellow and white with tiles featuring a floral motif covering part of the walls. It also featured a wood-floored balcony with whicker armchairs overlooking the long stretch of beach. 

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Even the bathroom, with tub and shower and l’Occitane and Guerlain toiletries, granted clear views over the beach and ocean. A floor-to ceiling linen curtain kept the room dark at night. Two armchairs and a coffee table, a bench and chair and a wall TV were among room furnishings.

Chef Joao Oliveira. Photo by Columbia Hillen

Dining highlight of a stay at this hotel is its Michelin star restaurant, Vista.

Guests are granted a short pre-dinner tour of the basement kitchen where they meet executive chef Joao Oliveira from Porto and his team of seven chefs, as well as a visit to the wine cellar. 

Columbia Hillen

The kitchen renovated five years ago has a special chef’s table for two for unique dining experiences.

Beside the kitchen is a wine cellar with, according to sommelier, Tiago Samarro, 800 different vintages, most from Portugal but also from countries such as Spain, New Zealand and Italy, all kept under constant room temperature. The oldest wine is a mid-1960s vintage.

Columbia Hillen

A ‘tactile’ menu, including grains of sand affixed to it, is provided to guests, created by local artist, Inês Barracha, followed by a jigsaw-like miniature map of three Algarvian regions indicating from which products for the restaurant’s 11-course pescatarian tasting menu are sourced.

Our dinner began with a veritable explosion of taste, a marble-size, lime-green ball filled with a liquid blend of horseradish, ginger and apple that simply blasted flavour throughout my mouth.

Columbia Hillen

Innovative dishes that followed included violet shrimp (camarao listado), a thin sheet of rice flour with the shell of a shrimp imprinted on it.

Another was a tomato dish comprising marinated cherry tomatoes from Quinta Das Castelhanas, a local farm, three tomato gels flavored with yuzu, camomile and Moroccan lemon combined with garlic flowers and capuchinha (aquatic leaves) and a sprinkling of ‘tomato water,’ all sprayed with camomile-infused vinegar.

A langoustine from Sagres slightly roasted and decorated with flowers of pickled cauliflower and an emulsion of white grape was also among the culinary offerings.

Columbia Hillen

Our dinner also included turbot and anchovies and delicious sourdough bread with olive oil from the hotel owners’ grove, Daniel Proença de Carvalho (DPC).

Even the butter on the menu is far from standard fare – being a blend of goat, cow and sheep milk, according to Neuza, our gastronomic guide for the evening.

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A second restaurant is the Bistro. In season, it is outside on a poolside patio facing the beach and sea; offseason, in the elegant ambience of the bar area with a mosaic floor and what can best be described as three-dimensional wall paintings – some featuring parakeets perched on keys in a cage; others, a system of mirrors that seemed quite nautical on a background of broken coconut shells. 

Columbia Hillen

A furnishing highlight is the ceiling of Brazilwood beams, deftly painted in a leaf and grape filigree.

Here we enjoyed Portuguese cod fish cakes, fresh cheese, mushrooms and thyme ravioli with celery broth and extra virgin olive oil; langoustine and scallops carpaccio with champagne and Ossetra caviar designed as a rosette reminiscent of a cactus flower like the ones on the hills nearby, formed by thin petals of langoustine and scallops, layered, with a pistil of caviar and surrounded by a smooth, champaign and butter sauce. 

Columbia Hillen

A gym, and outdoor swimming pool surrounded by tall swaying palm trees and a spa offer leisure opportunities.

Wes Streeting has joked that Sir Keir Starmer’s top adviser Sue Gray had “shot JFK” and “no one should earn more than the Prime Minister” amid a row over her salary.

The Health Secretary made light of suggestions of mounting acrimony at the heart of Government as he spoke at an event on the sidelines of the Labour Party conference in Liverpool.

At a gathering hosted by think tank Labour Together, Mr Streeting told the crowd: “I want to welcome the BBC’s conviction that no one should be paid more than the Prime Minister, that no one should receive hospitality, and that we should judge performance on social media mentions.

“Be careful what we wish for, comrades.”

He added: “It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Sue Gray is hiding Lord Lucan and shot JFK, and I can’t even tell you what she did to Shergar.

“I don’t know how we’re going to recover from this, frankly.”

Ms Gray has been the subject of a series of anonymous briefings signalling discontent within Downing Street just weeks into the new administration.

Leaks about Gray’s £170,000 salary while other special advisers have seen their pay held down have contributed to reports of a fractious atmosphere within Downing Street less than three months after coming to power.

Her wage is slightly higher than the Prime Minister’s salary of £167,000.

According to the BBC, insiders claimed Ms Gray herself had named the salary after the election, and declined to cut it to earn less than the PM.

Sources close to Ms Gray denied the claims and told i that she did not request her salary and insisting that pay decisions are made by civil servants.

The row, alongside a lingering backlash over the acceptance of luxury gifts from wealthy donors by senior MPs, has threatened to overshadow Labour’s annual conference.

Sir Keir has insisted he is “completely in control” despite the briefings, while Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner earlier on Sunday said she was angered by attempts “to demonise workers in their workplace through the press and the media”.

John Plender is right to draw attention to the growing preference of defined benefit scheme trustees and the schemes’ employer sponsors to insure their pension obligations (“The lucrative pension fund transfer trend needs urgent scrutiny”, Opinion, September 17). However, the primary reason for this trend has, perhaps, been overlooked.

Beneficiaries of a defined benefit pension rely on the strength of their former employer’s corporate covenant being sufficient to meet, in all circumstances, the “promise to pay” implicit in a DB pension.

Conversely, following a transfer to an insurer, this promise is underpinned by the solvency capital requirement and the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. In other words, a “promise” becomes a closely-regulated commitment. Hence the market’s rapid growth now that this protection is evidently affordable.

Mark Wood
Chairman, PensionBee, London SE1, UK