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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 12 JUNE 2016 16 JEANELLE MIFSUD GET set for a month-long cel- ebration of football as the Eu- ropean Nations Cup gets under- way in France. But it's not all about 22 men running after a leather ball un- der the sun – for small business- es, reeling in the punters and selling as much beer as they can is the highlight of the season. "Sports bars or pubs that ad- vertise they will be screening the game get a surge of business throughout the period," Philip Fenech, the GRTU's section president of hospitality and lei- sure said. "Conversely, those places not so well known for sports gather- ings register a drop in business," Fenech said, indicating that pa- trons don't congregate as much for the game itself as for the at- mosphere it generates. "It seems intuitive that the teams most preferred and sup- ported by Maltese football- enthusiasts would see bigger crowds coming to enjoy the spectacle," Fenech said. Even a spokesperson for Farsons, the brewer, confirmed that interest in their products remains high as long as Italy and England re- main in the game. "But even the games' climate plays an important role. The closer the competition gets to the final, the bigger and the more excited the audiences get," Fenech added. In its annual report for 2014, Farsons even acknowledged that both growing tourism numbers and "the summer World Cup event remain important factors which will influence the group's business performance." "It is a known fact that such events and activities do nor- mally attract crowds and there- fore we do experience a positive effect on our sales in general. Also with Carlsberg as the of- ficial beer of Euro 2016, an up- lift in sales is expected since a number of sponsored events are planned," a spokesperson for Farsons said. There's no question for Fene- ch that beer is the most popular beverage asked for during the football season. "Lager louts – they just sit back, scream, and enjoy the game with a cold beer at hand," Fenech joked. "But no one causes any real trouble… sports bars don't normally have pre- made agreements with the po- lice. When football games are aired in public spaces, the police normally get involved to make sure everyone can enjoy the game safely and everything goes smoothly, but other than that the games are normally quite peaceful, so the establishment's security would be more than enough." News Virtù Ferries MaltaToday and Virtù Ferries have teamed up to take one lucky winner and a companion every week to Sicily, with two tickets to be won every week in our photography competition. Already been on holiday? Good: we're sending you back if your best photograph from your holidays and travels makes the cut. That's right: send us a good quality image of your holidays and we'll send the best one to the gateway of Italy with Virtù Ferries. Malta - Sicily Express Ferries For more information visit www.virtuferries.com or contact by telephone 23491000 RULES OF THE COMPETITION maltatoday Conditions apply: 1. Tickets for each week's competition can only be won by one person who submits one entry of a high-res image with description. Entrants with more than one entry WILL NOT be considered. Entrants must send a description of photo. 2. Winners will be informed before the end of the week, and then announced on maltatoday.com.mt and MaltaToday on Sunday. 3. By entering this offer, entrants consent to their photos being published and owned by Mediatoday Co Ltd. 4. The entrant with the best photograph will be awarded two (2) return tickets, valid for travel to any Virtù Ferries destination. Mediatoday's decision is final. 5. Tickets are issued free of charge, excluding port charges, and in accordance with Virtù Ferries' rules and regulations. All taxes and charges are to be paid accordingly by the winning entrant upon the issuance of tickets. 6. This offer is closed to employees and contributors of Mediatoday Co. Ltd and Virtù Ferries, or their family members. This week's theme: Travel SEND US PHOTOS FROM YOUR FAVOURITE HOLIDAY PHOTO COMPETITION Photos should be a hi-res image (one per individual entry) with a sentence or two about what inspired you to take your photo. Entrants are kindly reminded not to send in personal family pictures that might be unrelated to theme subjects unless expressly requested. If sending a photo by post, address it to: 'MaltaToday photo competition', Mediatoday, Vjal ir- Rihan, San Gwann, SGN9016 Please supply your daytime telephone number, your name, your home address and an email address. Send the photo via email on info@mediatoday.com.mt [SUBJECT HEADING: MaltaToday photo competition] by next Friday at 9am. Themes may change from one week to the other Swedes still want investigation despite MFSA clearance on Malta-run pension MATTHEW VELLA THE Swedish pensions agency has insisted it has an obligation towards pension savers to in- vestigate suspicions in the way a Malta-run fund is investing their money. The fund, Falcon Fund, is run from Malta and is offered for in- vestment on the Swedish premi- um pension system, where savers can contribute 2.5% of their an- nual salaries in the private pen- sion of their choice. The €250 million fund reinvests the money in top stocks like Ap- ple and Air France and corporate bonds. But the pensions agency has reported Falcon Fund, one of whose directors is former finance minister and Nationalist MP To- nio Fenech, to the Malta Finan- cial Services Authority over three particular instruments the fund has invested in. It also believes thousands of pension savers had their savings transferred from their funds to Falcon Fund through the fraudu- lent sales tactics of the Konsu- mentkraft call centre, which was subcontracted by Falcon's dis- tributor. The MFSA has only recently informed the Swedish pensions agency that it had found nothing untoward about Falcon Funds investing in the securities Solid Venture P2P, Boardwalk Real Es- tate, and WSV Pro Mittelstand. But the Swedish pensions agen- cy is suspicious that the securi- ties bear similarities to the Malta company Solid Venture Capital and an associated company in the Isle of Man called Boardwalk, set up by Emil Ingmanson, a Swedish entrepreneur who had a role in starting Falcon Fund and is now positioning himself to become the fund's investment manager. The allegations have been de- nied by Ingmanson and the di- rectors of Falcon Funds. Emails sent from Falcon Fund's invest- ment managers to an unnamed bank however indicated that Ingmanson is awaiting licensing from the MFSA to set up Falcon Asset Management as the com- pany that will take the invest- ment decisions for Falcon Funds. "We do not usually find these types of investments in UCITS- funds and are worried about the underlying investments and the valuation," the Swedish pensions agency has told MaltaToday after the Maltese-run pension fund featured on TV4's 'Cold Facts' in Sweden – an exposé that re- vealed the way Konsumentkraft agents conned savers to transfer their monies into Falcon Fund. "We question why a UCITS- fund such as Falcon Fund should invest in such instruments at all, and if such investment is in the best interest of the shareholders. Consequently, we have asked the MFSA to investigate if there may be a conflict of interest behind Falcon Fund's decision to invest in the ETIs." Tonio Fenech has defended the pension fund from the allega- tions, saying he filed a complaint with the Swedish ombudsman af- ter the pensions agency insisted that investments in Falcon re- main closed. "The Swedish pensions agency has an agenda against the fund because it is Malta-run. They can't stomach this. I met them myself and asked them why they had not lifted our suspension when we had severed our rela- tionship with Konsumentkraft. They lifted the suspension of four others funds, but not ours," Fenech protested. Falcon Fund's distributor, Stel- lum, has severed the contract it had with Konsumentkfraft be- tween June and September 2015. According to former employees of the call centre who spoke to 'Cold Facts', they were specifi- cally asked to tell Swedish savers they should transfer all their sav- ings to Falcon. "As a Swedish authority, the Pensions Agency treats UCITS- funds from all EU-countries in the same way," a spokesperson for the agency said. "If we experience problems connected to the way pension savers have been induced to in- vest in a fund or where we have reason to believe that a fund may have made investments that a UCITS-fund would normally not make, we have an obligation against Swedish pension savers to investigate the matter." Beer and football, best friends for the Euro