Scottish Business Briefing - Thursday 12 May, 2011

Published on Thursday 12 May 2011 09:24

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.

TRANSPORT

FirstGroup takes 60m gamble on rail franchise

FIRSTGROUP has taken a gamble not to extend its Great Western franchise beyond 2013 and will instead bid for a longer - and potentially more lucrative - deal with the Department for Transport, despite taking a 60 million hit on its profits to do so (Scotsman).

Vertu gears up for Scottish expansion with Nissan outlet

Vertu Motors, the Aim-quoted car dealership, plans to expand its Scottish presence with a Nissan outlet near Glasgow that will also mark its move into electric vehicles (Scotsman).

Read all today's transport news from scotsman.com

ENERGY & UTILITIES

Consultancy gets green light for carbon reduction plans

A Scottish consultancy has won official approval for a new carbon reduction standard that it developed and which it claims sets the UK's toughest standards for organisations that want to reduce emissions (Herald)

Bowleven sees shares soar on drilling results

INVESTORS added around 60 million to the market capitalisation of Bowleven after the company announced encouraging results from appraisal drilling off West Africa (Herald).

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

TECHNOLOGY

I-Design cashes in on deal with Barclays

I-design, the Dundee-based firm that provides advertising software for cash machines, saw its shares leap by a fifth yesterday after it added Barclays to its list of customers (Scotsman)

BT profits rise after year of change

Profits at telecoms group BT have jumped 71% after a year of job cuts, restructuring, and an aggressive roll-out of broadband operations. Pre-tax profits in the year to 31 March were 1.7bn, and in the fourth quarter alone rose 97% to 495m (BBC).

Read all today's technology news from scotsman.com