ENERGY & UTILITIES
Indian purchase is final Bric in the wall for AggrekoTEMPORARY power supply company Aggreko has earned itself a vital foothold in the increasingly important Indian market (
Scotsman). The Glasgow-based company has paid £3.9 million for the power rental business of Cummins India, a division of US-based industrial power giant Cummins. Aggreko, which rents generators, heating and air conditioning systems worldwide, has been targetting expansion in the so called Bric countries. The company has long been in the Brazilian market and last year entered China and Russia. The company supplied temporary power to the recent Beijing Olympics. The acquisition of Cummins India is subject to the approval of CIL's shareholders. The business is forecast to have revenues in 2008 of about INR179m (£2.4m). Aggreko yesterday also announced the sale of one of its European divisions. It sold off part of its industrial air compressor division to Atlas Copco, a specialist air compression service business based in Stockholm. The deal was worth 14.6 million (£12.3m). The sale only affects Aggreko's European oil-free air compressor (OFA) business, as Aggreko retains its US business which provides temporary clean air compressors to industry.
Read all today's energy and utilities news from scotsman.comECONOMYFidelity abandons Edinburgh fund baseUS fund giant Fidelity has abandoned its hopes of building a fund management base in Edinburgh, leading to the departure of the two fund managers it had recruited, but its office in the capital will remain open (
Herald). The company is cutting several hundred UK jobs as it seeks to cope with the market downturn. The plans will be finalised by the end of January as the US fund giant seeks to axe 1700 roles worldwide, on top of the 1300 it has already announced. But it has already moved the running of some UK equity portfolios for institutional investors out of Edinburgh and back to London. This led to the company letting go on Wednesday of portfolio managers Jonathan Cobb, who joined in the summer of 2007 from Standard Life Investments, and former Scottish Widows Investment Partnership investment director David Urch, who started at Fidelity earlier this year. Another two investment roles have also been axed.
Slump hits Heritor's upmarket property development armTHE development arm of upmarket property firm Heritor's has fallen into administration after months of battling against the credit crunch and the downturn in the property market (
Scotsman). Heritor's Residential Property has mothballed its 20 development sites in Edinburgh and Glasgow after being taken into the hands of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. It is understood that the residential arm of the business, which lets out luxury serviced apartments, is continuing to trade. The decision to place the company into administration was the last resort for a firm which has struggled to cope with the impact of Edinburgh's contracting housing market for several months. Heritor's Residential Property holds properties worth an estimated £150 million in a partnership with HBOS. In October it admitted that it had had to change its development strategy and had put a stop to work at four of its sites, axing four of its 19 staff. It also recently put three Georgian townhouses on Inverleith Row up for sale for £1.2m – just over half the £2.25m price tag it paid out only 11 months ago.
Read all today's economics news from scotsman.comFOOD, DRINK & AGRICULTUREScotbeef pre-tax earnings slide despite 5% increase in turnover
Scotbeef, a major supplier of Aberdeen-Angus-branded products and lamb to supermarkets, has reported a fall in pre-tax profits in its last financial year to £1.34m, despite a 5.2% increase in turnover to £119m (
Herald). In accounts filed with Companies House for the 52 weeks to February 23, 2008, Scotbeef directors described the firm's performance as "satisfactory", but warned that trading conditions remain highly competitive. The firm blamed restrictions placed on export sales because of the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Surrey in 2007, and a significant increase in the cost of livestsock, for a fall in profits during the last quarter of the year. Gross profit for the year, however, increased to £10.27m from £9.98m for the previous period.
The company has invested £17m in the purpose-built storage and packing facility at Queenslie, Glasgow. This enabled it to transfer operations from Polmadie and Inverkeithing in 2007 and sell its site at Strathaven. Scotbeef's payroll for the year remained stable at £13.5m, up marginally from £13.2m previously. Staff numbers dropped to 471 from 491
Read all today's food, drink and agriculture news from scotsman.comTECHNOLOGYMED calls in administrators – and more technology failures fearedA SCOTS company credited with developing the world's smallest television screen has become the latest victim of the global economic crisis, prompting fears that there could be a wave of business failures in the technology sector (
Scotsman). MicroEmissive Displays is to appoint an administrator after failing to find funding to support its pioneering business. The Edinburgh-based firm, led by chief executive Bill Miller, said yesterday it had been hit by the "severe slowdown" in the demand for consumer electronics – and had been unable to borrow enough cash to survive. MED, which has about 50 staff – evenly split between its operations in Scotland and Dresden, Germany – is continuing to trade and has not yet made any staffing cuts as a result of yesterday's announcement. In June it said it was to cut five jobs after issuing a profit warning, saying monthly profitability would be delayed until 2009.
Read all today's technology news from scotsman.comTRANSPORTScots rail fares set to increase Train passengers in Scotland face a 6% rise in the price of most tickets from January - almost 2% above the current rate of inflation (
BBC). First ScotRail said the changes followed significant "cost pressures" over the year. It said for the third year running, its rise in "regulated fares" reflected the same increase given to "unregulated fares" by the Scottish Government. The operator also said it had frozen advance tickets on more than 80 routes. Unregulated fares are subject to no maximum increase and are set at the train operator's discretion. These include most Singles, off Peak Day Returns, First Class and Anytime Returns. Regulated fares, such as Season Tickets, Off Peak Returns and most Anytime Day Returns, increase in line with the franchise agreement of the Retail Price Index (which was 5% in July) plus 1%.
Read all today's transport news from scotsman.comScotsman Business ClubGet to the heart of the issues affecting Scottish business at www.scotsman.com/businessclub. Features include blogs from The Scotsman's formidable team of business writers - including Bill Jamieson, Martin Flanagan, Peter MacMahon and Scott Reid, a diary of forthcoming company announcements and networking events and video interviews with leading business experts covering a wide range of useful topics."
