The meeting between Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Tayyip Erdogan did not add anything new to us. We didn’t expect it, since these meetings hardly make any sense beyond internal consumption.
I just see that the government is returning to the agenda of regional relations, to the line it has recently, namely the narrative of the pillar of geopolitical stability, at a time when various… fires are burning all around.
The “legitimate” tourists…
After all, even with what the representative Pavlos Marinakis said, the prime minister’s priorities in the meeting he had with the Turkish president in New York were the annihilation of violations, good cooperation in dealing with smugglers and attracting… legal tourists.
I didn’t understand what he meant by “legitimate tourists”… but I agree!
It is good to avoid illegal tourists…
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The problem is the work attitude
One does not know where to begin… when talking about “railway” in this country.
And I put it in quotes… because one cannot speak of a complete and reliable network.
And on what we call a “railway” for the sake of convenience, management and workers argue for a work stoppage.
Yes, you read that right… work stoppage.
Employees say it…
Of course, the workers are right. And history justifies them even more. Unfortunately and sadly…
The hardware is old, the technical base understaffed, the facilities obsolete.
And all this when there is a state grant of 65 million euros for the… barren lines, for a company that shows negative equity of -44.5 million euros.
Where did the insurance go?
As a person who knows the financial situation from the inside told me, the image of Hellenic Train is a consequence of the tragic accident in Tempi and also of the huge disasters in Thessaly due to the bad weather Daniel.
Two events that froze passenger and freight traffic for months. Who would come in anyway… let’s not brag about it unfairly.
But as my source herself wondered… where has the government’s effort gone on the private insurance front?
It’s not enough to just chase farmers and owners to insure against natural disasters…, he told me characteristically.
18 interventions
However, the competent Minister informed the Parliament about the interventions in the railway sector, with several of them being very interesting.
He was actually 18…
The 6 related to what was done last year… 2 related to assignments to contractors, another 2 to trees and “plant technical work”, and several related to the cooperation of the Commission.
He also mentioned the recruitment of 117 employees and the procedure for 100 additional positions has already been approved.
Half a billion
And to come back to the cost of Daniel… the minister himself mentioned that the final restoration of the rail network from the extensive damage caused by Daniel is progressing.
The cost of these works amounts to 463 million euros, including VAT!
Let’s not include the compensations of the victims…
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Who will get this ONE?
The Sklavenitis family is no longer interested in AB Vassilopoulos’ wholesale stores. She withdrew her interest.
Reliable sources tell me that the negotiations for the acquisition of ENA were fruitless, without clarifying the reason for the… shipwreck.
Although everyone’s thought fatally goes to the price.
Money always plays its role in these cases, say market people.
We remind you that both the Panteliadis family, which maintains a strong presence in the field through the METRO group, and Masoutis, which has been growing dynamically in recent years, had shown interest in the wholesale sector of AB Vasilopoulos.
Of course, the question that arises is what the Dutch will do with their subsidiary in Greece.
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Remove (?)
However, other bosses in Greece do not hesitate to remove their executives, even if they welcomed them to their groups with fanfare…, such as with laudatory press releases, interviews, joint appearances at conferences, etc.
I am referring to Alphabet Education (IEK AKMI and Metropolitan College) of BC Partners and the managing director Marianna Politopoulou.
The information circulating in the market brings the international investment company BC Partners, which hired her in December 2023 and solemnly announced her inclusion in the educational arm of the fund, to remove her…
Expectations
Sources from the market told me that the former CEO of NN insurance and current member of the Board of Directors of Attica Bank, did not meet the expectations of the ownership of BC Partners as well as what she did not implement the plan she had set…
Are you saying they fell that far out there at BC Partners…?
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Pepsico and Michael Jackson
“A few months after I became a director at Pepsi – on November 11, 1983, the day I turned 39 – I signed the most expensive celebrity contract in the history of advertising: $5 million for the rights to two commercials and the sponsorship of a tour, featuring a young man, talented but shy, who sang in a small voice and danced backwards.
Many thought I had gone mad. Many wrote and told me so. Even I began to believe that maybe they were right.”
The young singer was none other than Michael Jackson. And the one who tells the story of a business war in the United States, is the later president and CEO of Pepsico, Roger Enrico.
The other part of the “war” is none other than the Coca Cola giant. In that bras de fer, Pepsico won – hence the title of Enrico’s book, “The Rival Has Backed Up”!
Failures
All these are of course distant things – not only in terms of time, but also in terms of geography. And they are of little importance to us.
Mainly only in terms of the Sisyphean effort of – now – Pepsico Hellas SA, to stand on strong terms in the Greek market.
In fact, it is typical of the fact that in the past he exhausted all the margins of strategic options that the – at times – management of the company had, in order to be able to achieve this….
And price reductions!
A young manager even made direct price reductions during the crisis years – up to 10%!
But instead of increasing its share – always in the soft drink category of course – it was decreasing.
Since then the then young manager changed and the company took the lead to… Romania….
In Romania
It sold or closed its production business and now Pepsi was coming from the neighboring country, burdened with the cost of transportation expenses!
The period of the pandemic and quarantine changed the dimensions of logistics. Transport costs have “taken off”!
“Repatriation”
And so the administration decided that it is preferable to “repatriate” the production to Greece, than to import its soft drinks from Romania.
And it is true that the soft drink market has changed dramatically. Nothing reminds of her past ten years ago.
It has opened, new players and more powerful ones are in the “field”….
Competition
And the competition is quite big. Also – and this is impressive – in the seven months of 2024 the soft drinks market has perhaps the highest growth rate, even if part of this comes from price increases.
Pepsico did not reprice its soft drinks this year!
From the beginning
And its total turnover is estimated – including all its activities – to exceed 260 million euros.
And it is certainly far from the Greek version of the repetition of the American success story of the 1980s….
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