roads

Barcelona-based Abertis' telecommunications subsidiary, Abertis Telecom Terrestre, will operate as Cellnex Telecom, S.A. from 1 April, as approved by the company's Shareholder General Assembly on Tuesday. The new name and brand are part of the preparations for a potential stock market flotation, as announced last October in the context of Abertis' 2015-2017 Strategic Plan. However, neither the Catalan group's President Salvador Alemany, nor Vice President and CEO, Francisco Reynés, have set a precise date yet for its admission to trading, which will be announced during this year's first semester. The new company's slogan will be "driving telecom connectivity".

Some roads have been blocked for a few hours and thousands of children had their schools shut down for the day. These have been the main effects of a small snowstorm that covered most of Catalonia during Wednesday morning. Catalonia has a wide diversity of landscapes, combining alpine mountains with river deltas, flat agricultural plains with rocky coasts, hills covered by forests with sandy beaches. This diversity is concentrated in an area the size of Belgium, which results in a wide diversity of climates. In the Pyrenees, snow is present for most of the winter, but this is not the case for the rest of Catalonia. In the flatlands around Lleida or in hilly areas of Girona or the northern part of Barcelona Province, it tends to snow at least once per year, but not in the rest of the country, where it only snows once every 4 or 5 years. Therefore, when snow arrives, transport problems and other issues tend to be also present.

Abertis, the international group which manages transport and telecommunications infrastructures, has announced it will list its telecom exchange business on the Stock Exchange in 2015. The Catalan company presented its new Strategic Plan for 2015-2017 to investors in London this week. The main objectives of the decision were to develop its business strategy, increase returns for shareholders and boost growth. The company currently owns 8,000 radio, television and mobile signal towers. Besides, Abertis presented its numbers for the first nine months of 2014 to the Spanish Stock Exchange Authority (CNMV), including a net profit of €560 million, an increase of 4.6%. The new Strategic Plan also envisages a dividend increase of 10% for its shareholders every year until 2017.  

The days of the previous government’s speed limit measure that brought about a 80 km/h zone are limited. The Catalonian Ministry of Traffic ‘Transit’ is currently deciding on an appropriate speed limit based on the amount of pollution, congestion and security.