Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1221489
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 15 MARCH 2020 9 COMMERCIAL Vassallo Group celebrates International Women's Day VASSALLO Group hosted a luncheon on Friday 6 March in celebration of In- ternational Women's Day where over 100 women from directors, managers, em- ployees from across the group and special guests attended this event which was held at the Malta Chamber of Commerce, En- terprise and Industry. Group Chairman Nazzareno Vassallo delivered a speech on this occasion, a long standing tradition which marks a very important day in the group's event calendar. Being that 60% of the work- force are women the group strongly be- lieves in the capabilities of women at all levels, in fact he quotes "27% of direc- tors are women, apart from the involve- ment of women in many other manage- rial positions. We also do our utmost to fight the challenges around stereotypes, create new opportunities and constantly keep on striving to achieve more for women within our society" CareMalta CEO Natalie Briffa Farru- gia spoke about the group's core values Excellence, Integrity, Respect and Inno- vation and announced plans for a new Leadership course for women through the group's Education arm Learning Works which will be launched next year marking the group's 75th Anniversary. The Guest of Honour for this year was Mrs Miriam Vella, First Lady. Mrs Vella congratulated the group for its policies which favour equality as rec- ognized by the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality where four companies within Vassallo group have been re-certified with the Equality Mark. She encouraged employers to offer training on diversity and equality to staff and that we must keep on work- ing on changing the culture and mental- ity in favour of equality in our society. She concluded by thanking the Group for the continuous support shown to- wards the Malta Community Chest Fund Foundation. In line with this year's theme #Each- ForEqual Guest Speaker Ms Maria Micallef, CEO at General Soft Drinks shared her experience with all on the challenges she encountered along the way. Starting off as a student work- er with GSD she stated that it was not easy to overcome certain barriers relat- ed to women being promoted to high- ranked positions as was the case with her eventually being promoted to Gen- eral Manager and subsequently to her current role as CEO. Ms Micallef stat- ed that "Only 18% of local companies have women as CEOs, so we need to work harder for more women to occu- py high-ranked roles". She also shared her personal views on the key to success highlighting Passion, Perseverance, In- tegrity and Consistency. As a token of appreciation all women were presented with a special gift in line with the group's green initiatives. The catering was handled by CaterEssence, the Group's catering arm which will be celebrating its 10th Anniversary this year. Bank of Valletta earmarking €10 million to assist businesses BANK of Valletta is announcing a number of measures to sup- port business customers who are being adversely affected by the current COVID-19 scenario. These measures will be con- sidered on a case-by-case basis on the particular circumstanc- es of each business customer and may include: • Capital repayment hol- idays ranging from be- tween three and twelve months • Ease of trade finance ser- vices via internet banking at no additional cost • Provision of direct work- ing capital for customers facing short term cash flow issues The Bank is earmarking a fund of €10 million to be able to provide direct working cap- ital for business customers fac- ing cash flow issues. The terms for the provision of direct working capital is for a period of six months priced at 3.5% re- payable over twelve months at ZERO charges. Each case will be analysed on its own merits and will still be subject to cred- it approval and the maximum loan per customer may not ex- ceed €500,000. This will ensure that the allocated fund will be made available to as many cus- tomers as possible. The Bank is monitoring the current situation on a continu- ous basis in close collaboration with the government and the health authorities and will be taking all the necessary meas- ures to ensure that the Bank will continue to support the business community. Frank Salt Real Estate cuts down on just under 1000kg of CO2 emissions in just under 12 months INTERNALLY, Frank Salt Real Estate has invested extensively to reduce its own carbon foot- print, by reducing the quantity of paper used in the offices and by making use of recycled prod- ucts where possible, encourag- ing the use of paper towels and recyclable paper napkins and by introducing and maintaining ap- propriate waste separation dis- pensers throughout its head of- fice and branch network. Thanks to such initiatives, over a span of 12 months, the company has saved 15 trees, recovered 35,539 one-litre post-consumer bever- age cartons and avoided 929.6kg of CO2 emissions. This was possible thanks to a collaboration with Inserv and Lucas Group, where Frank Salt Real Estate adopted use of sev eral paper products made from 100% ecological raw mate- rial obtained from the recycled components of beverage cartons – thus giving new life to mate- rials which otherwise would be disposed of in a waste dump, by contributing to the reduc- tion of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere and by preventing the cutting of trees. Ever since its inception in 2018, Frank Salt Real Estate has undertaken sev- eral initiatives to safeguard and contribute towards the wellbe- ing of the environment. This is being done through the agency's Let's Go Environmental Drive, which amongst other, has car- ried out afforestation projects, a number of clean ups, main- tenance of public gardens, and more recently the installation of 454 Solar Panels on the roofs of the Inspire Foundation.