UK Coal creates £100m financial headroom
UK Coal is Britain’s largest producer of coal and supply’s about 6% of the country’s energy needs for electricity generation, the company, has today announced that its £100 million fundraising has been well-supported by shareholders.
Based in Doncaster, the coal producer and property business, confirmed that 93.2% of shareholders eligible for the open offer have indeed taken up their new shares.
UK Coal, which also owns a power generation business utilising waste gas from mines to generate electricity, and has planning permission for the development of the Group’s first two wind farms, along with other schemes the company is pursuing in collaboration with Peel Energy, is raising the money in an attempt to reduce its debt thus giving it more financial headroom.
The company made 86.49million shares available under the 11 for 20 open offer at 75 pence each -Unwanted shares have also been taken up, which resulted in £64.9 million.
A firm placing will raise the remaining £41.7 million, and take the gross proceeds up to £106.5 million, therefore providing the company with the £100 million plus costs of the share offer.
Source;
Thebusinessdesk.com/ Deals/ Restructuring
http://www.thebusinessdesk.com/yorkshire/news/16857-uk-coal-s-100m-fundraising-well-backed.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Yorkshire_9th_Oct_2009_-_Daily_E-mail
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Illegal power market play
As reported by The Times, Seven companies have been found guilty of illegally carving up European and Japanese power transformer markets which has resulted in them receiving fines from the European Commission totalling £61.8 million (67 million euros).
Siemens, a conglomerate of three main business sectors which are Industry, Energy and Healthcare, only just escaped a fine after blowing the whistle on the illegal behaviour.
Receiving the biggest penalty of 33.75 million euros was ABB a UK leading power and automation technology group, followed by power generation and energy company’s Alstom, Areva, Toshiba, Hitachi, and Fuji Electrics – who were issued with smaller fines.
The Times – Business – 8 October 2009
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123456 Password not protected
Utility Exchange recently reported on the latest phishing scam that at first was thought to have targeted Hotmail e-mail accounts, but was later discovered to have threatened e-mail addresses and passwords from Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, Gmail and others service providers
http://www.utility-exchange.co.uk/2009/10/scammed-e-mail-accounts-goes-up/
Having been published online – a researcher who examined 10,000 Hotmail, MSN and Live.com passwords has unveiled an analysis of the list revealing that “123456″ was the most commonly used password, after appearing 64 times. The research also showed that 42% of those passwords used lowercase letters from “a to z” and that only 6% mixed alpha-numeric and other characters.
Interestingly, a number of the top 20 passwords were Spanish names, including Alejandra and Alberto, which suggests that the victims were in Spanish-speaking communities. Nearly 2,000 of the passwords were only six characters long, but the longest password – lafaroleratropezoooooooooooooo – contained 30 characters.
The 10,000 passwords and user names were posted over the weekend to the clipboard site PasteBin, and has since been removed, but Bogdan Calin of Acunetix managed to grab the passwords before it disappeared.
The list actually only included online account addresses beginning with “A” or “B” and therefore could mean that it was merely part of a larger cache of credentials.
Internet giants Google and Microsoft, who own Gmail and Hotmail, MSN and Live.com respectively, have each taken measures blocking the use of the exposed accounts until the legitimate users can reset their passwords.
Source;
Current.com http://current.com/16oke4c
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Amazon ditches Royal Mail post
Royal Mail – the national postal service of the UK – looses a crucial contract with its second largest customer – online retailer Amazon – following a wave of strikes that are threatening parcel deliveries in the build up to the busy pre-Christmas sales period, reports guardian.co.uk. After cancelling its long-term contract to use the Royal Mail for parcels over 500 grams, Amazon will use a rival service, Home Delivery Network (HDN), a company which also makes deliveries for Tesco and Argos.
The news comes before a national strike announcement which is due tomorrow, by the Communication Workers Union (CWU) – where it is anticipated the simmering industrial dispute will be brought to the boil along with further disruption to deliveries across the country.
Angry workers are concerned by the Royal Mail’s handling of its modernisation programme and it is anticipated that the CWU members will escalate their programme of local strikes in a dispute they state is about consultation over changes to working practices.
However, an already backlogged amount of undelivered mail is worrying customers, particularly small businesses and internet retailers who have to rely on the service, and state that the unpredictable nature of the strikes has caused reliability concerns – whereby the loss of this business will severely affect Royal Mail, who was relying on the growth of online shopping to compensate for the decline of its letters business as a result of increased email usage.
Customers of eBay, the UK’s online marketplace, are particularly vocal – claiming the strikes are causing detrimental damage to small businesses which suffer negative feedback due to the postal service where as a consequence lose their online reliability ratings.
Source;
Guardian.co.uk/ UK News/ Postal Strike
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/07/royal-mail-amazon-postal-strikes
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Avaya’s latest IP Office is good for Business
Nimans, the UK’s leading telecommunications and data distributor, has confirmed that a new enhanced version of Avaya’s IP Office technology is generating massive channel interest following a number of nationwide launch events, informing resellers about IP Office Release 5, the company’s flagship communications solution for small and medium-sized businesses.
The new version has been based on software that simplifies unified communications and customer service by delivering a range of advanced capabilities that help to improve the scalability, resilience and productivity of modern business.
“Interest has been huge and the feedback is very encouraging” confirmed Sarah Linnett, Avaya Business Manager at Nimans. She continued by saying that to make communications easier for SMEs, Avaya IP Office is now offered in six role-based solutions including tele-worker, mobile worker, and customer service agent, where each has been designed to meet specific needs. By using this approach, small businesses don’t have to choose from a multitude of application options, which removes the complexity of choosing the right communications solution, which then makes selling the product far easier for resellers, where they can better tailor solutions for individual customer requirements, thus producing more compelling and higher impact results.
Ms. Linnett added that Avaya has also streamlined IP Office by consolidating multiple hardware options down to a single, higher-capacity hardware platform, which now supports 384 users per system (from 272) which extends the scalability and usefulness of an IP Office system as a business grows. Along with the conferencing capacity, which, has been doubled from one, to two 64-party bridges.
“These additional features have quickly captured channel interest, taking IP Office to new levels of user friendliness and powerful features”
Source;
Comms-dealer.co.uk/ Industry News
http://www.comms-dealer.co.uk/industry-news/nimans-dealers-give-thumbs-avaya%E2%80%99s-ip-office-release-5
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Swiss get franc about tax-saving deals
Chief executives of UK-based companies are being approached directly by Swiss authorities offering tax-saving deals in a bid to lure the world’s financial elite into the country.
According to The Times, it is believed that officials governing regions such as Geneva have been personally contacting bosses of FTSE 100 companies, along with other wealthy individuals to persuade them to relocate not just their business but family too, to areas known for their favourable tax regimes, while offering “financial privacy” to residents.
It is understood that one business chief was offered a flat tax rate of 10% on his personal income if he relocated his company to Geneva and lived there – on the proviso that he provided a forecast of earnings for the next ten years.
Switzerland is renowned for its flexible approach to taxation on individuals who meet their strict criteria, but such unsolicited approaches have only happened more recently becoming the latest attempt by Swiss authorities to capitalise on the worldwide financial crisis alongside the increasingly punishing tax regime for high earners in Britain.
Other countries, such as Panama, have also been taking steps to boost their appeal to wealthy individuals.
Source article;
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article6865224.ece
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Carphone Warehouse full of Broadband
Carphone Warehouse, Europe’s leading independent mobile phone retailer and owner of TalkTalk, has reported an increase in customers for both businesses during its second quarter and at the same time confirmed that it will split into two companies early next year.
Specialising in Home and Mobile telephone equipment and services, the telecommunication business stated that it has added 77,000 broadband subscribers to its TalkTalk telecoms division in the three months to the end of September, and also advised that customer connections at Best Buy Europe, Carphone Warehouse’s retail joint venture with US electricals group Best Buy, were also up 2% to 3.17 million.
Having recently acquired Internet and Telecom company Tiscali UK – Carphone Warehouse announced that this business lost 62,000 broadband subscribers, but commented that this was in line with expectations, and that the business is also expecting to lose a further 160,000 customers following the adjustment process.
Regarding the company’s plans to demerge next year, Charles Dunstone, chief executive officer of Carphone Warehouse stated that they remain convinced that by separating TalkTalk Group and Best Buy Europe it will enable the worth and potential of each business to be more appropriately evaluated, and continued by saying that they have made good progress regarding a number of outstanding issues and that they are increasingly confident they can achieve a demerger by the end of March.
Source;
Google/ News/ Business (Link to:- )
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article6865739.ece
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Accounting for fee ban
As reported by The Times (Business) Britain’s top accounting firms are set to lose hundreds of millions of pounds in fees as the financial reporting watchdog considers tougher restrictions on the services they currently sell to listed companies whose accounts they are auditing.
The Auditing Practices Board (APB) which is a division of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), has confirmed that it is to review its rules created to safeguard audits following growing concern that the big firms’ objectivity has been compromised under the existing system in place.
Among proposals, the financial reporting council is going to consider an outright ban on accounting firms providing non-audit services to audit clients – massively affecting the big four businesses; Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers – who use their audit relationships to sell additional services including tax planning and management consulting.
The article reports that the big four accounting firms generated around £530 million from fees by auditing Britain’s 100 biggest companies last year, whereby an additional £380 million was generated from ‘other’ services provided to those clients – It is also suggested that if the FRC makes just modest changes, accountants may still need to re-think their business model.
The Times (Business) 7 October 2009 (Tough new rules could hit big four services fees)
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Businesses warned to save water
It would appear that many UK businesses are not aware of the steps they can take to help reduce the impact of future water shortages even though the adoption of water recovery and re-use technology has the potential to make or break companies in years to come – the sustainability advisory service Envirowise has warned.
Envirowise is a Government-funded agency and has issued the warning in light of research from climate change consultancy firm WSP which shows that more than 90% of sustainability specialists, covering a wide-range of private and public sector organisations, believe that a water crisis is looming.
Environment Agency figures, which were published in March, also suggest that the UK’s groundwater will begin to decrease by 2025, where the overall amount of water available in English and Welsh rivers will reduce by 15% by 2050.
Water specialist at Envirowise, Claire Sweeney states that water is going to become one of the most dramatically affected resources due to the impact of climate change.
She continues by saying that UK companies should explore practical steps they can take, including water saving devices, water recovery and reuse technology, for example membrane filtration systems, as these would enable a large proportion of wastewater to be reused for processes such as heating, cooling and cleaning – which can result in major cost savings due to lower mains water and disposal charges, combined with an enhanced environmental reputation with customers and investors.
UK businesses paying income or corporation tax can also claim tax relief on recovery and reuse systems and water saving devices through the Water Technology List, which is managed by Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and HM Revenue & Customs in partnership with Envirowise.
Envirowise previously published research suggesting that UK companies could be missing out on combined savings of up to £10 million per day simply by failing to make changes to their water usage, therefore without sustainability issues, taking action in this area would appear to make good business sense.
Source;
GreenInnLtd – Twitter – UK businesses told they must save water to secure their future www.greenwisebusiness.co.uk
http://www.greenwisebusiness.co.uk/news/uk-businesses-told-they-must-save-water-to-secure-their-future-769.aspx
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Energy Big Six Hit the Headlines
The UK’s “Big Six” Energy suppliers, which includes British Gas, npower, E.ON and EDF, are making a pile of profit from the British public states national newspaper The Independent, who claims this has to be curbed.
Energy suppliers are still failing to pass on the massive savings in gas and electricity prices, after hiking the prices up by 42% last year – this equates to around £382 per household – when the companies blamed the high wholesale cost of gas and electricity, however, since then, these wholesale costs have halved – but utility bills have been reduced by just 4%.
Independent energy analyst, David Hunter told The Independent that the continued failure of suppliers passing on the massive reductions in energy price – is approaching scandal proportions.
He continued by saying that some suppliers have in fact made small reductions to niche tariffs recently, but deemed these as “token discounts” which do not change the overall trend.
The newspaper has now called on the “big six” gas and electricity suppliers to lower their energy prices by 10%, amounting to about £125 per year for each household, and is urging ministers to remove the licences of suppliers who do not pass on lower wholesale prices to the consumer.
Source;
Energychoices.co.uk/ Energy News
http://www.energychoices.co.uk/energy-bills-are-a-scandal-07102009.html