The week in business: 14 October
ING transferring Brussels operations, Uniqlo to open six new outlets and an overview of the rest of the week's business news
Refrigeration \ Daikin
Retail \ Uniqlo
The Japanese fashion label plans to open up to six outlets locally in addition to its Antwerp store, which opened last year. The next operation is slated for Brussels in an as-yet unspecified location.
Banking \ ING
The Dutch-based bank is transferring its Brussels trading room, active in the derivatives, stocks and raw material markets, to London. IT operations backing those activities will move to Singapore.
Banking \ KBC
Flanders’ largest financial institution has been fined €1.4 million by the Irish central bank for curbing the rules on internal loans to some of the staff and shareholders of its Dublin-based affiliate.
Beer \ Alken-Maes
The Kontich-based brewer, part of the Dutch Heineken group, is investing €20 million next year to boost capacity and production of its Affligem brand. The company is seeking to increase its exports to 50% of output compared to 30% today.
Chemicals \ Synvina
The joint venture created by the German chemical group BASF and the Dutch Avantium will build a 50,000-tonnes-a-year furandicarboxylic acid production unit in the port of Antwerp area. Engineering work on the multi-million-euro project is expected to be completed by 2018, and the unit will come on stream in 2021 at the earliest.
Agri-business \ Sapec
The Brussels-based industrial services company specialised in the agricultural and chemical sectors in Spain and Portugal is seeking to sell its agri-business division for up to €400 million.
Employment \ House of HR
The Roeselaere-based recruitment group has acquired TimePartner, headquartered in Hamburg, with some 100 outlets in Germany. House of HR already has operations in Belgium, France, Germany, Rumania, Portugal, Switzerland, Poland and the Netherlands.
