Scottish Business Briefing - Tuesday, 16 June, 2009

Published on Tuesday 16 June 2009 08:25

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.

ECONOMY

Small firms' costs fall … but so does demand for products

SMALL businesses in Scotland reported a 1.2 per cent drop in running costs in the first quarter of this year, according to data released yesterday (Scotsman). Throughout the UK, deflation stood at 1.4 per cent, with falls in the costs of labour, advertising, vehicle and raw materials driving down bills for businesses. In the final quarter of 2008, costs had fallen by 2.4 per cent. But while costs continue to fall, profit margins remain under "huge stress" due to low demand for products and services. Mike Bowman, head of More Than Business, which compiled the data with Warwick Business School, said: "The fact that we're experiencing such sustained deflationary conditions demonstrates just how deep the recession has become in Scotland."

Read all today's economics news from scotsman.com

ENERGY & UTILITIES

Memory founder in energy firm bid

Cameron McColl, who co-founded Memory Corporation in the 1990s, and a group of entrepreneurs have set up an energy services company to finance the installation and maintenance of environmentally friendly systems to heat and cool new buildings throughout the UK and Europe (Herald). McColl, who is now chairman of Greenrock Energy, and his team are going to the financial markets to raise 10m in equity from investors. Greenrock will manage the energy services company, which will finance the installation and operation of ground source heat pump systems. GSHP systems use solar energy stored just below the earth's surface to heat buildings, and can also cool buildings by transferring heat from buildings to the ground.

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

FOOD, DRINK & AGRICULTURE

Majestic plans for new warehouses

MAJESTIC Wine is planning to open a further two wine warehouses in Edinburgh after the company yesterday launched its third outlet in the Scottish capital (Scotsman). Chief executive Steve Lewis has also revealed that he is on the lookout for more stores in Glasgow and would consider taking "the right site" in Dundee. News of Majestic's expansion plans came as the company reported a 56 per cent drop in pre-tax profit to 7.4 million, including a 5.3m writedown on the value of Wine and Beer World, its French business. Group sales grew by 2.4 per cent in the year to 30 March, reaching 201.8m, with UK like-for-like sales declining by 2.7 per cent over the course of the year.

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

INDUSTRY

RMJM secures design contract for Delhi Games

RMJM, the Edinburgh-headquartered architect that helped design the Scottish Parliament, has won a plum contract to help design facilities that will be used in next year's Commonwealth Games in India (Herald). The company has been appointed the expert planning consultant for six key venues for the Delhi Games. This will involve RMJM experts overseeing the work on the athletes' village, international broadcast centre, main press centre, international airport, uniform and accreditation centre and the main logistics centre. The value of the contract was not disclosed.

Read all today's industry news from scotsman.com

RETAIL

'Solid' Tesco sees sales up 4.3%

Supermarket chain Tesco has seen UK like-for-like sales, excluding petrol, grow by 4.3% in the 13 weeks to June, in a "solid start to the year" (BBC). The firm also said there had been a strong response to its relaunched Clubcard loyalty scheme. Tesco boss Terry Leahy said the firm was maintaining strong "momentum in a challenging economic climate". Sales growth in Asia was up by 43.8%, helped by favourable exchange rates, and in the US sales were up by 174%. In April, Tesco reported underlying annual pre-tax profits of 3.13bn, an improvement of 10% on the previous year, and the highest on record for a UK retailer. At that time it said its sales topped 1bn a week for the first time, with group sales coming in at 59.4bn.

Read all today's retail news from scotsman.com

TECHNOLOGY

Swedish deal could give Axis-Shield a lead on sepsis

AXIS-SHIELD has struck a deal to develop more reliable test to detect a potentially fatal inflammatory condition which affects more than eight million people a year in the western world (Scotsman). The Dundee-based medical diagnostics group has acquired the exclusive rights to the test for the condition, known as sepsis. Financial terms of the deal, with Swedish company Hansa Medical, were not disclosed. Axis-Shield said yesterday it would try to develop tests for the heparin binding protein (HBP), a compound which indicates the presence of sepsis, an extreme form of septicaemia. It would then attempt to develop these into laboratory testing systems.

Read all today's technology news from scotsman.com

Scotsman Business Club

Get 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."