28 September 2016 | Herpreet Kaur Grewal Interserve has won a three-year account extension to provide support services to CooperVision, manufacturers of contact lenses. The service provider has worked with CooperVision since 2009 and is set to continue delivering cleaning and grounds maintenance services at its 15-acre manufacturing site in Hamble, Hampshire. The contract covers the manufacturer’s 15 manufacturing facilities and laboratories, which operate to ‘clean room’ standards, and support areas such as maintenance and engineering workshops.   Interserve aims “to reduce costs and provide a more environmentally efficient service by delivering a 24/7 service using new, sustainable technologies such as chemical free scrubber driers and pre-dosed chemical cleaning”. The contract extension comes a week after the service provider’s partnership with the Environment Agency was renewed for a further two years. The new contract is valued at £11 million, and sees Interserve continue to provide its cleaning, maintenance and security operation across more than 100 locations. Source link

©Bloomberg Hi, I’m Lombard and I’m a rent seeker. I’m on the wagon, but could easily backslide. Then I’d be in the same boat as Elliott Associates. My financial intoxicant back in the day was buy-to-let property. For the activist investor it is “bumpitrage” — the practice of buying into a company subject to a takeover offer and squeezing a small bump in the price from the bidder. Elliott’s good at it. On Thursday, South Africa-rooted retailer Steinhoff agreed to pay 5p more per share for UK bargains store chain Poundland, taking the price to 227p. Last month, brewer AB InBev sweetened its offer for rival SABMiller by £1 to £45 per share. In both cases, Elliott had bought stakes big enough to make it worth placating. Economists define “rent seeking” as an activity that appropriates value but does not add to it. It’s a pejorative phrase. You might apply it to a short-term investor that turns the screw on a bidder already offering a decent price. Or it might be a landlord extracting good returns from a London house to which he contributes little beyond a few coats of magnolia emulsion. The contrast is with a longer-term investor that shakes up a complacent fund manager, as Elliott did at Alliance Trust, or a property owner who improves rather than maintains. I’m comfortable sharing my feelings with the group because I know you won’t judge either of us the way readers of The Economic Journal might. Let he who is without sin, and all that. Fate has a way of catching up with rent seekers, I figure. The chancellor takes away the tax breaks benefiting small BTL investors and capital values dip. Or a big company calls a bumpitrageur’s bluff, labelling an offer “full and final” without any uplift, inspiring others to do the same. Burning platform We said it wouldn’t be pretty, and it isn’t, writes Kate Burgess. Legal & General is flogging Cofunds, about the UK’s biggest fund platform, for a mere £140m. Three years ago, Nigel Wilson, L&G’s boss, paid the equivalent of £175m for it. Cofunds tends £77.5bn in funds, yet still hasn’t made a sous. The 2013 acquisition looks like an misconceived attempt to emulate Hargreaves Lansdown, the FTSE 100 platform operator that made billionaires of its founders. The deal was ill-timed because regulators were already picking apart the cost of retail investment and competition was cranking up. Few platforms like Cofunds catering to financial advisers, who can take their pick, are profitable. If L&G’s plan was to sell enough of its own funds to make up the margins, it failed. It is a relief, therefore, that Mr Wilson is selling the business to Dutch insurer Aegon rather than spending shedloads updating the IT, even if it crystallises a £65m loss. Comparing Cofunds with HL may have been tempting but it was wrong. HL deals with consumers and although it has just £55bn under administration, it skims margins of 67 per cent. Rivals will always have a job overtaking HL, which established a grip on consumers decades ago. The 1980s bedroom-start up may not be sitting pretty, but it is sitting comfortably. Chinese banana plant At last, some good news about Hinkley Point. A senior adviser to the Chinese partner in the £18bn power plant has been indicted on nuclear espionage charges in the US, it has emerged. China General Nuclear Power therefore appears well placed not only to bring the best of Chinese nuclear technology to the UK, but the best of American nuclear technology, too. Britons are increasingly sceptical about Hinkley Point. It isn’t just the cost. They are also wary of entrusting nuclear security to a partner from a country whose culture is so alien. Lombard speaks, of course, of EDF. Hinkley Point’s second foreign collaborator is from France. This, shockingly, is a nation where the accordion is regarded as a source of entertainment rather than an instrument of torture. Understandably, Theresa May has postponed a decision on Hinkley Point, lest it helps French spies obtain British technological secrets. These include the folding mechanism of Brompton bicycles and the technique by which Emma Bridgewater covers its pottery in polka dots. The realisation China General may be able to deploy counter spies to neutralise a Gallic threat should stiffen Mrs May’s resolve to press ahead. The UK has much in common with China. Hereditary elites run both countries, where show trials are popular (in the UK, via parliamentary select committee and The Jeremy Kyle Show) and spies are traditionally communists. Amateurism is another apparent similarity between our espionage initiatives. A Chinese citizen arrested in April in New York allegedly used the code words “the banana” to describe military-grade materials he coveted. Johnny English, eat your heart out. jonathan.guthrie@ft.com Cofunds: kate.burgess@ft.com Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016. You may share using our article tools. Please don’t cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web. Source link

July sees fall in both workload and staffing forecasts Optimism remains as staffing levels are higher than a year ago After a record high forecast in June, July 2015 saw a significant note of caution with the RIBA Future Trends Workload Index falling sharply to +22 (down from +44). Practices nevertheless reported that their overall workload is growing at an annual rate of 8% and that current staffing levels are 6% higher than they were a year ago. All nations and regions in the UK returned positive balance figures, with practices in the North of England the most optimistic (with a balance figure of +48). Practices of all sizes remain upbeat about work prospects. For small practices (1–10 staff) the balance figure is +17, medium-sized practices (11–50 staff) returned a balance figure of +55 and large practices (51+ staff) a balance figure of +50. The private housing sector workload forecast fell to +23 in July 2015 (from +39 in June). The commercial sector workload forecast saw a moderate fall down to +13 in July 2015 (from +19 in June). The public sector workload forecast dipped slightly to -1 in July (from +2 in June) with practices expecting little medium-term change in public sector expenditure levels within the built environment. The RIBA Future Trends Staffing Index also declined this month, standing at +12 in July (down from +20 in June). The employment market for salaried architects remains very positive; 98% of respondents expected their staffing levels either to increase or to stay the same over the next few months. Small and medium-sized practices are still confident about increasing their staffing levels (balance figures of +6 and +42 respectively); however, large practices are more likely to be actively appointing new staff, with a balance figure of +67. RIBA Executive Director Members Adrian Dobson said: “Despite the fall in our headline index, it is important to state that our forecast remains firmly in positive territory. This drop seems largely to have been driven by some loss of confidence by our practices in the medium term outlook for work in the private housing sector, especially in London and the South of England. Private housing has been the main driver of increases in architects’ workloads in the last couple of years, so this is a development that we will be monitoring closely in the next few months. It is too early to say if this is a definitive trend and the crucial autumn period will give a better indication of the prevailing sentiment.” “Our participating practices continue to suggest that the majority of firms are seeing solid growth in workloads, though there is significant pressure on fee levels and profit margins on projects typically remain tight, constraining salary levels. Future Bank of England interest rate rises may yet dampen activity in the key private housing and commercial sectors, but with the current low inflation environment looking set to continue this seems to remain a relatively distant prospect at present. The overall economic environment for architects continues to be positive, despite the cautionary note sounded by this month’s survey results.” ENDS Notes to editors: 1. For further press information contact Callum Reilly in the RIBA Press Office: 020 7307 3757 callum.reilly@riba.org 2. The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) champions better buildings, communities and the environment through architecture and our members. Visit www.architecture.com or follow @RIBA on Twitter for regular updates www.twitter.com/RIBA 3. Completed by a mix of small, medium and large firms based on a geographically representative sample, the RIBA Future Trends Survey was launched in January 2009 to monitor business and employment trends affecting the architects’ profession. 4. The Future Trends Survey is carried out by the RIBA in partnership with the Fees Bureau. Results of the survey, including a full graphical analysis, are published each month at: http://www.architecture.com/RIBA/Professionalsupport/FutureTrendsSurvey.aspx 5. To participate in the RIBA Future Trends Survey, please contact the RIBA Practice Department on 020 7307 3749 or email practice@riba.org. The survey takes approximately five minutes to complete each month, and all returns are independently processed in strict confidence 6. The definition for the workload balance figure is the difference between those expecting more work and those expecting less. A negative figure means more respondents expect less work than those expecting more work. This figure is used to represent the RIBA Future Trends Workload Index, which for July 2015 was +22 7. The definition for the staffing balance figure is the difference between those expecting to employ more permanent staff in the next three months and those expecting to employ fewer. A negative figure means more respondents expect to employ fewer permanent staff. This figure is used to represent the RIBA Future Trends Staffing Index, which for July 2015 was +12   Posted on Thursday 27th August 2015 Source link

Smart heating market explodes in 2016 Published:  22 June, 2016 A new report on the UK smart heating market from MTW Research indicates that sales of ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) heating devices have grown by 3,000% since 2010, with volumes set to rise by a massive 40% in 2016. Led by smart heating controls, the report suggests that sales in the IoT heating market is offering healthy opportunities for manufacturers and distributors in 2016, boosted by product development and growing consumer demand. MTW points to the explosive growth for this sector in recent years, with demand rising for smart boilers, connected TRVs, smart controls and a host of heating related IoT devices and applications. MTW’s director Mark Waddy said: “We are seeing unprecedented growth for smart heating across a range of products in 2016. Every month we are seeing more manufacturers and distributors expanding their range and grabbing the opportunities that smart heating is offering.” Reviewing the size and trends for several smart heating sectors, the 120-page report suggests that the market is set to become characterised by rising sophistication and connectivity as end users demand greater monitoring and control of their heating. Features such as geofencing, remote operation and enhanced efficiencies are identified by MTW as among the key benefits of smart heating that are driving demand growth in 2016. Mr Waddy added: “Our findings suggest that 50% of consumers are likely to install smart heating products in their homes in the next five years, highlighting a market with massive growth potential in the near term.” The report also reviews the total UK IoT market, pointing to almost 900 million IoT devices in use in the UK in 2016. The findings indicate that growth in connected devices is rising by 13% in 2016, reflecting a market which is outpacing the overall heating market by a factor of four. MTW believes that the heating market is set to slowly polarise into non-connected products in the lower value spectrum, with smart heating devices boosting growth at the higher value end of the market. The report also reviews the conventional heating market and notes that modest yet tangible growth is forecast for the more traditional heating products market over the next few years. The full report is available to purchase online at www.marketresearchreports.co.uk. Source link