Renewable Firm Boralex to Invest $5 Billion to Double Output
Canadian renewable power firm Boralex Inc. plans to invest as much as C$6.8 billion ($5 billion) to more than double its production output even as it takes a more cautious stance in the US.
Chief Executive Officer Patrick Decostre said the Montreal-based company will boost its installed capacity from 3.2 gigawatts currently to about 7 gigawatts by 2030. The increase will be driven by solar and wind power, as well as battery storage projects in Canada, France, the UK and the US. The firm expects to spend another C$1.2 billion after 2030 to reach 8 gigawatts.
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Cannes is done with huge cruise ships. The French city is joining the overtourism backlash
PARIS (AP) — The French Riviera resort of Cannes is imposing what its city council calls 'drastic regulation' on cruise ships, banning any vessels carrying more than 1,000 people from its harbor starting next year. The home of the world's premier film festival is joining a growing global backlash against overtourism, which recently saw uproar over Jeff Bezos' and Lauren Sanchez' Venice wedding this weekend, water-gun protests in Spain and a surprise strike at the Louvre Museum. 'Less numerous, less big, less polluting and more esthetic' — that's the aim of Cannes city councilors who voted Friday to introduce new limits on cruise ships in its ports starting Jan. 1. Only ships with fewer than 1,000 passengers will be allowed in the port, with a maximum of 6,000 passengers disembarking per day. Larger ships will be expected to transfer passengers to smaller boats to enter Cannes. France — which drew in some 100 million visitors last year, more than any other European country and more than the country's population — is on the front line of efforts to balance economic benefits of tourism with environmental concerns while managing ever-growing crowds. 'Cannes has become a major cruise ship destination, with real economic benefits. It's not about banning cruise ships, but about regulating, organizing, setting guidelines for their navigation,' Mayor David Lisnard said in a statement. Cruise operators have called such restrictions damaging for destinations and for passengers. Two cruise ships were scheduled to dock in Cannes on Sunday, each bigger than the upcoming 1,000-passenger limit and with a combined capacity of more than 7,000 people. Their owners did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the new restrictions. The nearby Mediterranean city of Nice announced limits on cruise ships earlier this year, as have some other European cities.
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New homes discounts and incentives: the best and worst in London
Cash gifts! Free sofas! Celebrity interior designers to help you style up your home! House builders have long handed out great-sounding freebies to encourage buyers to take the plunge. But with sales flagging the great giveaway bonanza has reached new heights in 2025. Buyers are being offered tens of thousands of pounds worth of handouts if they agree to buy a new home. Cynics may suggest that the generosity of the freebies is linked to a recent collapse in sale numbers, and experts urge buyers to think carefully about whether the offers are actually a great deal or just sound good. According to Savills, between 2013 and 2015 some 20,000 new homes changed hands each year in the capital, in a market where interest rates were rock bottom, buy to let was a highly profitable endeavour, and international buyers were keen to invest. Last year sale numbers plunged to just 7,500, an 11 per cent decline compared to 2023, as the industry grappled with the loss of the Help to Buy scheme (in 2022) which gave buyers with small deposits and modest borrowing power the chance to get onto the ladder by way of a Government equity loan. 'As the market softens there are more offers and goodies available,' agrees Jeremy Leaf, principal of Jeremy Leaf estate agents in north west London. 'Developers need to sell so they can pay off their loans. They are prepared to be perhaps more flexible than owner occupiers – they have to be. It is a buyers' market and they have to bend over backwards to sell.' Most of the deals out there centre on cutting upfront costs, by contributing to buyers' deposits or stamp duty and, certainly, it can get you onto the ladder. Without enough savings to cover a deposit Jayson Masaya, 32, and his wife Irish, 30, both nurses, believed home ownership was out of reach — until they heard about a deposit contribution scheme on offer to key workers. The scheme allowed them to buy at Sterling Place, a Barratt London development in New Malden, where one-bedroom flats start at £409,000 ( They bought off plan, putting down a five per cent deposit. Barratt contributed another five per cent, and they moved in in December, having saved another five per cent while waiting for the flat to be completed. 'A real draw for us was how spread out the deposit payments are,' says Irish. Different developers offer different variations on the theme. At the £8bn Brent Cross Town project in north-west London, for example, developer Related Argent will pay stamp duty for incoming buyers of studios, one, two, and three-bedroom homes (up to £41,250, providing they are UK residents buying a main home). Prices start at £420,000 ( And Barratt has a whole range of incentives depending on your circumstances. If you are a key worker and buy a home at Hayes Village, a reboot of the former Nestle Factory with 1,500 you'd get a £15,000 contribution towards your deposit if you buy either a £355,00,000 one-bedroom flat or a £432,500 two-bedroom flat. If you already have a ten per cent deposit saved up, Barratt will give you another five per cent at several of its sites, upping your deposit to 15 per cent which will give you access to lower interest rates when you go mortgage shopping. This offer is in play at Bermondsey Heights, a 26-storey tower at the heart of regeneration of the under-utilized swathe of south London around the Old Kent Road. Prices start from £449,000 for a one-bedroom flat, which means you will need a deposit of almost £50,000 to qualify (ouch) but will get a 'free' almost £25,000 in return. If location is more important to you than size then Pocket Living's Forest Road E17 gives you a chance to buy a small slice of real estate in fashionable Walthamstow ( Prices start at £300,000 for a one-bedroom flat measuring 453 sq ft. First-time buyers don't pay stamp duty on purchases of £300,000 or less, but for those buying a more expensive £325,000 property the developer will pay the £1,400 stamp duty bill. And all buyers can book a style consultation with Banjo Beale, interior designer and winner of BBC's Interior Design Masters 2022, to advise you on colour schemes and finishes. Pocket says this assist is worth another £500. For those considering the shared ownership route, buyers who reserve an apartment at SO Resi Wembley Way, just around the corner from the stadium, this summer will be given a five per cent deposit contribution. Prices start at £87,000 for a 25 per cent share of a one-bedroom apartment, which means that if buyers put down a five per cent £4,350 deposit they will be gifted another £4,350 ( Monthly costs, including mortgage, rent, and service charge will tot up to just under £1,200pcm. Broadly speaking the bigger your budget the more headline grabbing the freebies. At The 1840 St George's Gardens, the redevelopment of a Grade II listed Victorian hospital building in Tooting, The Old Dormitory, a two-bedroom duplex apartment with double height living room, a study, utility room, and two bathrooms, is on sale for £875,000. Interested? Then the developer will pay your £33,750 stamp duty and furniture and accessories worth up to £32,291, adding up to a freebie total of just over £66,000, or some 7.5 per cent of the sale price. But buying agent Nina Harrison, of Haringtons, advises buyers to avoid getting over excited about designer furnishings and styling, and concentrate on cash benefits. 'At high-end developments there's often a big song and dance about bespoke interiors – everything from choosing your own marble to working with their in-house designer,' she says. 'It's a way to make buyers feel they're getting something truly one-of-a-kind, but rarely does it come with the kind of financial sweeteners you see in other parts of the market.' Leaf agrees that 'goodies' should be treated with caution. 'Look at the bigger picture,' he says. 'How does the development itself compare? Is it overpriced? What would its rental value be if plans change and you needed to move to a new area? 'There is a lot of information and misinformation out there.' A major issue buyers of new homes need to consider is the ongoing cost of annual service charges, which can quickly wipe out any early cash advantages. At Kew Bridge Rise, for example, you will pay £2,777pa for a one-bedroom flat and £3,756pa if you buy a two-bedroom flat, while at Hayes Village the bill for a one-bedroom flat is £2,100pa, rising to £2,465 for a two-bedroom flat. The buyer of The Old Dormitory will pay just over £4,000pa. And some offers are so convoluted it is easy to lose sight of what you are actually saving. At the 150-acre, £8.4m Greenwich Peninsula scheme taking shape next to the O2, developer Knight Dragon is offering a 'rent to buy' scheme. Put really, really simply you put down a five per cent deposit on a flat, move in, then spend a year leasing the property and paying monthly rent in order to amass another five per cent. Twelve months later you are free to buy the flat with your ten per cent deposit. To use a real time example, currently for sale at Greenwich Peninsula is a one-bedroom, 564 sq ft flat, priced at £570,000. Your initial five per cent deposit would be £28,500, and you would then pay a hefty £2,375pcm rent for a year. At the end of the year you would have £57,000 to put down and officially buy the flat. Although the scheme does give you some breathing space to save, ultimately the only cash benefit you are getting here is that you won't have to pay service charge or ground rent that first year. For the one-bedroom flat comes in at around £5,200. You can also claim up to £1,500 for legal costs. And there you have your real cash saving – less than two per cent of the asking price. You might think that developer prices are fixed – but you would be wrong. The reality is that many firms will discuss lowering the sale price as well as offering incentives to buyers. 'If it was me I would not hesitate to offer 15 per cent below the asking price,' says Marc Schneiderman, sales director at Arlington Residential. 'Saying that, if you manage to get 10 per cent off I'd say you are doing very well.' You are more likely to get a cut price home if you are ready to buy immediately, and are able to buy off plan – because buying early means you are helping a builder with their cash flow while they are still on site. Year end is another good time to haggle hard as firms want to hit their sale targets. Check with Companies House when your builder's end of the financial year is. For Harrison getting in early is the best strategy. 'Developers want to secure early adopters to build momentum and create the illusion of demand,' she says. 'Once that critical mass is in place, the tone shifts. Suddenly, it's 'we're nearly sold out' and 'there are only a handful left' – and at that point, any talk of incentives disappears. The window for negotiation shuts quickly.' And even if a developer shuts down your pleas for a discount Schneiderman suggests a Plan B. 'Sometimes developers will not negotiate on price because they don't want it in the public domain that they are discounting,' he says. 'That would open the floodgates. But they will give very good incentives that are not necessarily advertised, like paying stamp duty or giving you a store room or a parking space.' Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
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Analysis-Investors flock to Europe as bloc's stability contrasts with concerns over US
By Christoph Steitz FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Peter Roessner is feeling both sides of Donald Trump's trade war. While tariff risks mean the CEO of Luxembourg-based hydrogen firm H2Apex can no longer rely on U.S. suppliers for its more than 200 million euro ($235 million) project in Lubmin, Germany, investor interest in European projects is rising. "Investors in the hydrogen sector are now focusing more on the European market due to the absolute uncertainty and planning insecurity in the USA," he told Reuters, adding this included both local and U.S. players. "The framework conditions in Europe are not ideal, but they are stable." Roessner's comments are indicative of a trend that has taken hold in recent months: Investors and companies are increasingly turning to Europe, drawn by an infrastructure- and defence-led spending push that offers stability at a time when Trump's erratic tariff policies have made the U.S. market a less safe bet, according to more than a dozen interviews with executives and fund managers. The shift has also been fuelled by Trump's tendency to make sweeping tariff threats and announcements that are then often delayed or changed, and to draw up executive orders that have tested the limits of his presidential power. "The U.S. is coming from a very capital market-friendly and stable environment. Now there is political intervention and also an attempt to expand power," said Christoph Witzke, who heads the CIO office at Deka, one of Germany's largest investment funds. "This creates uncertainty that some kind of intervention ... could come at any time," he said, adding that Europe had become the centre of attention in the most recent investor conferences as a result. With a July 9 deadline for a trade deal less than two weeks away - and Trump saying he will impose 50% tariffs on all EU goods without a deal - investors have started shifting their money. Data from LSEG's Lipper Funds show that more than $100 billion has flowed into European equity funds so far this year - up threefold from the same period last year - while outflows from the U.S. more than doubled to nearly $87 billion. "All that is an indication that at least market forces, investors, those who move real money around, actually see value and have confidence in Europe," ECB President Christine Lagarde said earlier this month. This shift in focus was also illustrated by the weak market debut of Holcim's North American spin-off Amrize in late June, which was announced to much fanfare in early 2024 at a time when the lure of U.S. valuations also got some of its rivals excited. In contrast, the share price of Holcim itself, now squarely focused on Europe, Latin America and North Africa, soared 15%. SENTIMENT CAN QUICKLY TURN Siemens Energy, which makes more than a fifth of its sales in the U.S., has noted a shift in sentiment, finance chief Maria Ferraro said, on the back of a recent U.S. road show and an 84% rise in the group's share price year-to-date. Apart from the improved market view, more investments are also crucial in efforts to revive the EU's economy and narrow its competitiveness gap compared with other regions, most notably China and the United States. Closely watched foreign direct investment flows into Germany, the bloc's largest economy, more than doubled to 46 billion euros in the first four months of 2025, according to the most recent data from the Bundesbank, marking the highest level since 2022. It also shows that German companies even pulled money out of the United States in three of the first four months of the year, with their balance of foreign direct investments in April at a negative 2.38 billion euros. Negative balances emerge when companies either divest more than they invest in a foreign country or decide against extending credit lines to local counterparts. But the picture is not all rosy, with several investors pointing out that Europe is now under pressure to act faster, create better regulation and make good on its spending pledges. "This sentiment can quickly turn again. This should be both a warning and an incentive to use the momentum now and consistently implement the planned agenda," said Stefan Wintels, head of German state-backed lender KfW. This chimes with comments from Hajo Kroesche, partner at private equity firm Altor, who said "the window of opportunity will not stay open forever" for Europe to attract capital. Having recently travelled to Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing last week said investor interest in Europe and Germany was huge - while still cautioning that conditions needed to be stable in the long-term. "These are not people who invest within two days. But of course they see what is happening in the world right now." ($1 = 0.8520 euros)
