Industry first partnership between online auction house and lender announced Short-term property finance lender LendInvest has announced this morning that it has become the funding partner for online auction house LOT11. The partnership will see LendInvest pre-qualify select lots at LOT11 auctions which fall within the lender’s criteria. The lender’s logo will appear next to any auction property that it has pre-qualified, allowing bidders and their brokers to see at a glance which properties LendInvest is prepared to lend against. On the information page for each pre-qualified lot, summary funding details will be presented alongside other key property information, such as floor plans and legal documents, reflecting the imperative of arranging auction finance in advance of a bid for prospective bidders. LOT11 is an online auction house, offering properties for auction on a weekly and quarterly basis. LOT11 held its first auction in November 2015 and has since sold properties across the asset classes throughout the UK. Its last auction attracted participants from more than 120 countries, illustrating how online property auctions open up bidding to interested parties from around the world in a faster, more efficient way than ever before. Matthew Tooth, Head of Distribution at LendInvest, said: “This exciting partnership reflects the growing importance of auction finance to LendInvest. Both LendInvest and LOT11 are challenging the status quo in our respective fields with the application of sensible technology, so we make perfect partners. This service will help prospective buyers and their brokers move quickly to secure properties that catch their eye.” Kevin Coughter, CEO of LOT11, added: “LendInvest has established itself as a lender which offers a speedy, efficient and flexible service for buyers and sellers who need to move quickly. LOT11 clients are accustomed to achieving fast results and having all of the information they need at their fingertips; this partnership will only enhance their journey with us.” The partnership begins with LOT11’s quarterly auction on 27 September. Properties for that auction will be available to view on the LOT11 website three weeks beforehand. Source link

Protests are being held today at three incinerator construction sites over migrant workers being paid less than half the nationally agreed rate. Unions say that Interserve and Babcock & Wilcox Vølund (BWV) are paying skilled construction workers just £7 per hour rather than the £16.64 per hour set down in the National Agreement for the Engineering Construction Industry. The GMB union, which represents construction workers in the sector, is holding demonstrations today at energy from waste plants that Interserve and BWV are building in Rotherham, Port Talbot and Dunbar. Today’s demonstrations follow previous protests last month. An Interserve spokesperson said: “We are disappointed that protests have been called again. We comply with UK legislation on pay and generally use UK contractors and UK supply chain partners on these projects. We have discussed the matter with the unions and will continue to work with them to try and find a solution that is acceptable to everyone.” Phil Whitehurst, GMB national officer for engineering construction, said “GMB members in the engineering construction sector are being debarred from employment on energy from waste (EfW) facilities being built around the UK. “Unscrupulous construction companies using spurious umbrella companies exploit non-UK workers at rates of pay as low as £7 per hour rather than paying £16.64 per hour which is the applicable rate through direct employment and utilising UK collective agreements. “This undercutting effectively disadvantages UK construction workers and subsequently GMB members. “GMB and Unite intend to launch a major campaign to get politicians in the UK and the European Union to implement the provisions of social Europe which were intended to go hand in hand with the free movement of labour across the European Union. As things stand we have a total one way street where undercutting of pay is happening on an industrial scale right across the UK. This cannot be allowed to continue.” The Interserve/BWV joint venture awarded Croatian company Ðuro Ðavokic the contract to manufacture and install the main boilers for all three energy plants. Gary Cook, GMB officer for engineering workers in Scotland, said. “How can the government turn a blind eye to the exploitation of these workers who will be paid as little as £6.98, 63% below the recognised national agreement rates for engineering and construction workers? What chance does local skilled labour have at these exploitative rates? “This is yet another glaring example of a missed opportunity to protect what little construction work Scotland has. The government should be sending a message out loud and clear: Scotland is a no go area for exploitation and social dumping and it will not be tolerated at the cost to our skilled workers and young people desperate to get a craft apprenticeship.” GMB regional organiser Bob McNeill added: “Interserve and Babcock Wilcox Vølund are undermining our agreement by exploiting non-UK workers and paying inferior terms and conditions. This is nothing other than social dumping.”         This article was published on 7 Apr 2016 (last updated on 7 Apr 2016). Source link

©Dreamstime In his State of the Union address in January 2006, President George W Bush warned of the dangers of being “addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world”. Ten years on, the world is showing how hard it is to break that habit. The head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, pointed out last week that the share of the world’s oil supplies coming from the Middle East had risen to its highest since the 1970s, and was likely to continue to grow. His comments were a salutary reminder of a weakness that is too easily forgotten at a time when crude is cheap: the world is still vulnerable to an oil supply shock. Among the large consuming countries, the US has had the most success in reducing its reliance on imported oil. The policies promoted by Mr Bush, including mandates for biofuels and tighter vehicle fuel efficiency standards, had some effect, but the bigger factors have been the slow recovery from the recession of 2007-09, and the shale oil production boom of the past six years. Net petroleum imports dropped from 12.5m barrels a day in 2005 to 4.7m b/d last year. That still leaves America as a significant importer though, and with US production falling and consumption rising, the decline in imports appears to have come to end for the time being. Other developed countries have cut their oil consumption through higher efficiency and weaker growth, but remain largely import-dependent. Meanwhile the large emerging economies have become more thirsty for Middle Eastern oil. China’s oil consumption grew by 73 per cent during 2005-15, and the proportion covered by domestic production dropped from 53 per cent to 36 per cent. India’s oil consumption grew 60 per cent over the same period, and its own production dropped from 28 per cent to 21 per cent of that. For oil importers, the upside of the price collapse of the past two years is that it has boosted their spending power. The downside is that consumers and businesses have been encouraged to make investment decisions that lock in demand. Sales of gas-guzzling SUVs have been booming in both the US and China. The more the world becomes accustomed to the idea that oil prices will stay low, the worse the pain will be if they rise sharply. The volatility of the Middle East, and other producers such as Venezuela, means that a sudden disruption to supplies is always a risk. If oil markets tighten because of steady growth in demand and erosion of inventories, then the US shale industry can be expected to respond with increased activity and production that will hold prices down. But the US is not a “swing producer” in the sense that it can react within weeks to a supply shock. Deploying the capital, equipment and workers needed to raise US output will take time. As the 1970s showed, plenty of damage can be done by even a temporary spike in prices. One answer for consuming countries is that they need to lean against the wind, using fuel taxes, efficiency standards and support for electric vehicles to discourage short-sighted responses to oil prices that may be only temporarily low. Subsidies for oil consumption should be cut wherever politics allow it. There is only so much that those efforts can achieve, however. Oil consumers also need to recognise that they are tied in a codependent relationship with the Middle East and are likely to remain so for decades to come. With an addiction that is this difficult to kick, it is important to make sure it is carefully managed. 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

Building materials firm Hanson has been up in court on safety charges for the second time in two weeks. Yesterday Hanson Packed Products was fined £750,000 at Southwark Crown Court for offences that led to the death of an employee, sucked into a machine at its cement bagging site in Dagenham. The hearing came just a week after Derby Crown Court fined it £80,000 for its part in the death of a delivery driver, crushed by a concrete panel. [See previous report here.] The Dagenham employee, 26-year-old William Ridge, was clearing sand around the base of an in-feed conveyor on 25th September 2013 moments before his right arm was drawn into the roller. Southwark Crown Court heard that there should have been fixed guards surrounding the powered roller to prevent access to the dangerous moving parts. A Health & Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that a critical guard had not been in place on the machine for a few days. It also found there had been issues with the machinery on the previous day, which Mr Ridge was trying to rectify at the time of the incident. Hanson Packed Products Ltd – part of Germany’s Heidelberg Cement Group – pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, and were fined £750,000 and ordered to pay costs of £29,511.       This article was published on 18 Dec 2015 (last updated on 18 Dec 2015). Source link