Scottish Business Briefing - Wednesday September 8, 2010

Published on Wednesday 8 September 2010 09:34

WELCOME to scotsman.com's Scottish Business Briefing. Every morning we bring you a comprehensive round-up of all news affecting business in Scotland today.

ENERGY & UTILITIES

European wind farm strikes a blow for green energy

IT is already Europe's largest onshore wind farm and creates enough electricity to power 180,000 homes (Scotsman). But now Whitelee is set for a massive expansion, which will see it almost double its power-generation capacity over the next two years to become one of the biggest wind farms in the world.

Read all today's energy and utilities news from scotsman.com

FOOD, DRINK & AGRICULTURE

Belhaven proves to be the Best for owner Greene King

GREENE King toasted the popularity of its Dunbar-brewed Belhaven Best yesterday after the beer continued to grow its sales in a declining market (Scotsman). Volumes of Best sold in the 18 weeks to 5 September rose by 3 per cent, compared with a 0.3 per cent increase for the group as a whole, according to figures released to coincide with yesterday's annual shareholder meeting.

Read all today's food, drink and agriculture news from scotsman.com

INDUSTRY

Weir set to join top flight in Footsie reshuffle

WEIR Group, the Glasgow-based engineering firm, is today expected to be confirmed as one of the latest entrants to the FTSE 100 in this quarter's reshuffle (Scotsman). The FTSE Group confirmed last night that Home Retail Group - which owns Argos and Homebase - was among those heading for the exit after shares in the retailer plunged by more than 25 per cent since the beginning of May.

EDI losses under microscope as council forced into 62m bailout

The property firm that used to be a cash cow for the City of Edinburgh Council incurred another hefty loss in 2009, when the local authority funded a 62 million bailout of the business (Herald). Accounts for EDI Group show the company made a pre-tax loss of 7.8m in the year to December, after losing 5.8m in the preceding year.

Read all today's industry news from scotsman.com

TECHNOLOGY

Lombard creates jobs in attempt to beat 'silent killer'

A medical device company will create 39 jobs at its factory in Ayrshire in a move to tackle abdominal aortic aneurysm, a disease known as the "silent killer" (Herald). The jobs at the Scottish operation of Oxford-based Lombard Medical Technologies come on the back of a 200,000 Regional Selective Assistance grant and increase the company's head-count from seven.

Totten 'falls on his sword' as triple whammy hits drug firm ProStrakan

A TRIPLE-BLOW was dealt for one of Scotland's brightest biotech hopes yesterday after the head of ProStrakan resigned amid a profits warning and further regulatory delays (Scotsman). Shares in the Galashiels-based drugs developer lost nearly a third of their value after the firm said chief executive Wilson Totten had left. It also admitted that as much as 5 million would be wiped off its operating profits this year due to one of its contractor's factories being closed for up to 12 weeks

Read all today's technology news from scotsman.com

Entrepreneur

Be inspired and communicate with other Scottish entrepreneursat http://entrepreneur.scotsman.com. Features includeupdates from The Scotsman's Executive Editor Bill Jamieson, a diary of forthcoming company announcements and networking events and videoadvice on how to succeed with your new business start-up.