Illustration of a brown leather shoe on a workbench under a hanging lamp, inside a sawtooth-roofed factory hall with idle machines and an empty conveyor

Business 2 November 2026

632 jobs go as Ecco shuts the Portuguese factory it opened in 1984

Danish shoemaker Ecco said on Monday it will permanently close its factory in São João de Ver, Santa Maria da Feira, its first plant outside Denmark. Production had already stopped. The move is part of a global restructuring that also closes its Vietnam unit.

Ecco is closing its shoe factory in São João de Ver, Santa Maria da Feira, and letting all 632 of its workers go. Staff were told at a meeting on Monday morning, by which point production had already been halted.

The Danish company says it will start the legal process for a “total and permanent closure”. It gave no end date. Workers say the shutdown will be gradual, with some staying on for a while.

The first Ecco plant outside Denmark

The factory opened in 1984 and was the first Ecco ever built outside its home country. It made formal, casual and golf shoes and was once Portugal’s largest footwear producer. It has been through several rounds of layoffs in recent years, each justified on grounds of “competitiveness and sustainability”.

This time the reason is global. The Feira closure is part of a reorganisation of the group’s production that also shuts its factory in Vietnam and cuts about 400 regional and head-office roles, some of them in Denmark.

What Ecco is promising

The company says it will pay all compensation owed and meet every legal obligation, and that it has informed the authorities and Santa Maria da Feira council, which it says it will work with. Ecco Portugal’s general manager, Gustavo Kremer, told staff the decision does not reflect their work or the quality of what they make. The actual severance figures have not been made public.

A sector on the move

Footwear is still one of northern Portugal’s big export industries, but the map keeps shifting. In July a sports-shoe plant opened in Barcelos with a target of 580 jobs, making shoes for an international brand. Now, further south, one of the sector’s oldest factories is closing. For Santa Maria da Feira, the question for the coming weeks is how many of the 632 the region’s other factories can take on.

Ecco had not posted a statement about the closure on its group website by Monday lunchtime.

By Beatriz Mota

Illustration: Tugadaily

Business 3 November 2026

Apple sold $57.6bn of iPhones in John Ternus's first quarter. China grew fastest

In the quarter to 26 September, the first full one with John Ternus as CEO, Apple's revenue rose 11.7% to $114.5bn and profit reached $30.7bn. The iPhone brought in half of it. Apple's own regional tables show Greater China up 21%, ahead of the Americas (10.2%) and Europe (11.5%).

Apple took in $114.5bn between July and September, 11.7% more than a year earlier, and made $30.7bn in profit. It was the first full quarter with John Ternus as chief executive, a job he has held since 1 September, when Tim Cook moved up to chairman. That closes fiscal 2026 at $479bn, the best year in the company's history, according to Apple's results announcement.

Illustration of a white-sailed caravel bearing the Cross of the Order of Christ sailing into a sunset, while a broken chain and an iron ball sink into the sea

Business 2 November 2026

Portugal gets the go-ahead to repay another €5bn of its bailout early

The EFSF has cleared Portugal to repay up to €2.4bn of its EFSM loan ahead of schedule by the end of 2026, and up to €2.6bn more by the end of 2027, without triggering matching EFSF repayments. Add December 2025's €2.5bn and that's €7.5bn returned early to the EU mechanism.

Portugal has the green light to hand back another €5bn of its troika-era loans before they fall due. On 30 October the board of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) cleared early repayments to the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism (EFSM) of up to €2.4bn by the end of 2026 and up to a further €2.6bn by the end of 2027, according to the European Stability Mechanism's press release.

Business 1 November 2026

Markets tracker: gold, the Fed, oil and stocks

Our running tracker of the markets that move savings in Portugal — gold, Fed and ECB decisions, oil and stocks. Updated whenever there is news.

This is our running tracker of the markets that move savings in Portugal. Instead of a fresh article for every swing, we update this page whenever something matters: gold, Federal Reserve and European Central Bank decisions, oil and the main stock indices. For the background on the Portuguese economy, see our mid-year review. Official data is at the Bank of Portugal.

Business 30 October 2026

Binance just lost $6.3 billion in crypto's biggest hack. It started with one engineer's laptop

The world's largest crypto exchange confirmed the theft on 29 October and paused withdrawals on several networks. About $3 billion has been frozen, Binance says its SAFU fund and own money will cover customers, and blockchain analysts point to North Korea.

Binance, the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange, lost around $6.3 billion in a hack on Thursday 29 October. That makes it the largest crypto theft on record, more than four times the roughly $1.5 billion taken from Bybit in February 2025. The figure comes from Binance's own incident announcement, and withdrawals remain paused on several networks while it investigates.

Business 29 October 2026

Christine Lagarde will leave the ECB on 7 February, nine months early

The European Central Bank president told the Governing Council and European Council President António Costa on Thursday that she will step down on 7 February 2027. Her eight-year term was due to run until 31 October 2027. EU leaders pick her successor, and Costa says the process starts today.

Christine Lagarde will step down as President of the European Central Bank on 7 February 2027. She told the ECB's Governing Council and European Council President António Costa on Thursday, and the bank confirmed the date in a three-paragraph press release that closes with the governors giving her a long standing ovation. It is an early exit. Her eight-year term began on 1 November 2019 and was due to end on 31 October 2027.

Business 28 October 2026

The queue for Jio's IPO paid off. Shares opened 21% higher on day one

Jio Platforms, Mukesh Ambani's telecoms arm, opened at ₹1,358 on both the NSE and BSE on Wednesday, against an issue price of ₹1,119. That is a 21.36% premium at the open, and the stock closed higher still at ₹1,419 (up 26.8%) after the most heavily bid listing India has ever seen.

Jio Platforms started trading in Mumbai on Wednesday and its shares opened at ₹1,358 on both the NSE and the BSE. They were sold in the IPO at ₹1,119, the top of the range. That is 21.36% up in the first minute. For anyone who got an allocation, it was quick money. For Mukesh Ambani's Reliance, which owns the operator, it is proof that the record demand was not just noise. When the offer closed on Friday, Jio had drawn around $77bn of bids for a little…

Four Galp workers in dark overalls and white hard hats walk towards the columns and stacks of the Sines refinery

Business 27 October 2026

Galp's €682m quarter shrinks to €201m under IFRS

Galp's adjusted (RCA) net income rose 68% in the third quarter to €682 million on strong refining and Brazilian output. Its IFRS profit fell 24% to €201 million after €453 million of special items, mostly mark-to-market losses on unsettled derivatives.

Galp has two profit numbers for its third quarter, and they are a long way apart. The one the company leads with is adjusted net income, which it calls RCA: €682 million for July to September, up 68% from €407 million a year earlier. The other is profit under international accounting standards (IFRS), the figure that goes into the statutory accounts: €201 million, down 24% from €264 million. Both sit in the third-quarter results Galp published on 26…

Tugadaily bar chart: net loss 80.7, convertible notes 72.4, revenue 16.3 and operating loss 0.7, in US$ billions, first half of 2026

Business 26 October 2026

Anthropic files to go public as ANT. Its $80.7bn loss is mostly paper

Claude's maker filed its S-1 with the SEC for a Nasdaq listing. First-half 2026 revenue was $16.3bn and the net loss $80.7bn, of which $72.4bn is a fair-value change on convertible notes. The operating loss was $693m.

Anthropic, the company behind the Claude assistant, filed to go public on Monday. Its shares will trade on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley running the deal. How many shares, and at what price, is still blank: the company's announcement leaves both numbers out. Everything else is in the prospectus. One figure jumps off the page. In the first half of 2026 Anthropic booked a net loss of $80.7bn. That is nearly double what…

Business 26 October 2026

Galp and Moeve walk away from their Iberian refining and fuel-station merger

Ten months after a non-binding deal in January, Galp told the market that talks with Moeve's owners, Mubadala and Carlyle, ended with no agreement. The Sines refinery and Galp's station network stay as they are.

Galp's refineries and forecourts will not be joining Moeve's after all. The Portuguese company said on Monday, 26 October, that its talks with Spain's Moeve about merging their refining and fuel retail businesses ended with no agreement, after what the Portuguese company called extensive negotiations.

Bar chart of demand in the Jio offer: institutions 70.55 times, non-institutional 14 times, retail 2.72 times, overall 22.19 times

Business 26 October 2026

$77bn of bids for a $3.2bn offer: Jio's IPO is India's most oversubscribed yet

Mukesh Ambani's Jio Platforms closed its share sale on Friday covered 22.19 times, an Indian record. Institutions asked for 70 times what was on offer, retail buyers under three. Trading starts on Wednesday 28 October.

Jio Platforms set out to sell about ₹30,213 crore of shares, roughly $3.2bn. By the time the offer closed on Friday it had drawn bids worth ₹7.4 lakh crore, or about $77bn. No Indian share sale has ever been chased this hard. The telecoms arm of Mukesh Ambani's Reliance group was covered 22.19 times overall, from 13.9 million applications, which is also a national record. Demand was very uneven, and that is the story in the chart: Institutional buyers:…

Business 25 October 2026

Meta ordered to pay New Mexico $25bn over Cambridge Analytica

Judge Francis Mathew in Santa Fe set the penalty on 21 October, after a jury found Meta liable for more than 43 million violations of the state's consumer protection law. New Mexico had asked for $35bn to $40bn. Meta says it will appeal.

Meta has been ordered to pay the state of New Mexico $25 billion. Judge Francis Mathew of the First Judicial District in Santa Fe set the penalty on 21 October, in a case that grew out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal nearly a decade ago. The New Mexico Department of Justice's own release calls it a historic penalty against Facebook.

Business 24 October 2026

Menzies keeps ground handling at Lisbon, Porto and Faro after the top-ranked rival is thrown out

Portugal's civil aviation authority, ANAC, ruled on Friday 23 October that SPdH, the former Groundforce controlled by Menzies Aviation, has the technical capacity to handle aircraft at the three airports, and issued its licences. The Clece/South consortium, part of the Iberia group, had the best-scored bid but was excluded for failing to line up the resources required.

The company that already loads the bags, wheels out the steps and drives the apron buses at Portugal's three biggest airports is staying put. The national civil aviation authority, ANAC, completed its assessment of SPdH, the former Groundforce controlled by Menzies Aviation, on Friday 23 October and issued its licences for third-party ground handling at Lisbon, Porto and Faro. According to the aviation regulator's statement, SPdH "demonstrates the…

Business 23 October 2026

What did Lufthansa promise for TAP? Eight planes in Porto and 700 jobs in Feira, for a start

Portugal's cabinet picked Lufthansa over Air France-KLM to buy 44.9% of TAP, plus up to 5% held for staff, in a €1.201bn first phase. The state keeps 50.1%, and the government's own statement lists commitments on the brand, the Lisbon hub, Porto, the islands and jobs. Closing is expected in early 2028.

TAP is getting a German partner. On 14 October, Portugal's Council of Ministers approved Lufthansa as the buyer of 44.9% of the airline, plus up to 5% set aside for employees if they don't take it up themselves. This phase, including that reserve, is worth €1.201 billion and the state keeps 50.1%, according to the government's statement selecting Lufthansa.

Tugadaily bar chart of Spain's fuel discount per litre: 20 cents in October, 13 in November and 6 in December

Business 29 September 2026

Spain puts its fuel discount back up to 20 cents for October, then steps it down to 6 by December

Spain's fuel discount was down to 5 cents and due to end in October. The cabinet raised it to 20 cents a litre off petrol and diesel in October, then 13 in November and 6 in December. In Portugal, diesel falls 5 cents this week and still sits above €2.15.

Spain's government approved a third decree on the Middle East crisis on Tuesday, and the part that matters at the pump is simple: the fuel discount, which had already shrunk to 5 cents in September and was due to disappear in October, goes back up to 20 cents a litre in October, then drops to 13 in November and to 6 in December. It covers both petrol and diesel, it works through a cut in the Hydrocarbon Tax (VAT is untouched), and the figures are in the…