Scottish Business Briefing - Tuesday 26 January 2010

Published on Tuesday 26 January 2010 08:35

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

Recession is set to end but anguish goes on

AFTER 18 months, a banking collapse, emergency stimulus measures and 596,000 job losses, Britain is at last out of its longest recession ever, official figures are set to show today (Scotsman). Defiant shoppers, eager car salesmen and exporters cheered by the falling pound have helped to haul the economy back into growth after six quarters of unrelenting gloom. Today's figures are expected to show the economy grew by upwards of 0.4 per cent in the final three months of 2009. This brings to an end, statistically at any rate, one of the most precipitous economic declines on record.

Read all today's economics news from scotsman.com

BANKING & INSURANCE

Pressure growing on Lloyds to offload Widows

LLOYDS Banking Group was facing further pressure to offload assets yesterday as concerns over new banking regulations posed more questions about the future of its Scottish Widows subsidiary (Scotsman). Banking analysts at Barclays Capital said that proposed changes to banking regulations, known as Basel III, would adversely impact on Lloyds' balance sheet by as much as 18.1 billion.

Read all today's banking news from scotsman.com

FOOD, DRINK & AGRICULTURE

Tennent's backs minimum pricing of alcohol

ONE of Scotland's biggest drinks companies has backed the Scottish Government's plans for minimum pricing of alcohol (Scotsman). Tennent's announcement is significant, as it is the first of the big alcohol companies to break ranks and support the controversial idea. It said it believed the policy could form "part of the solution" in tackling the nation's damaging relationship with alcohol.

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

INDUSTRY

Profits drop at National Semiconductor plant

The Scottish plant of National Semiconductor suffered a plunge in underlying pre-tax profits from about 13m to 2m in its last financial year, as recession exacted a heavy toll, accounts filed with Companies House reveal (Herald). But the Greenock factory, which has stood out as a real survivor in the last decade as many other large-scale electronics manufacturing sites in Scotland have been shut down, has seen a pick-up in business in its current financial year to this May.

21m Cordea sale may prove Quay to success

A PRIME development in Edinburgh's Fountainbridge has been sold for 21.1 million, providing a boost for a new financial district, which many feared was losing its appeal to investors and tenants (Scotsman). Edinburgh Quay 2, a joint venture between Miller Developments and British Waterways, has been sold to the Luxembourg-based Cordea Savills European Commercial Fund. The deal reflects a yield of 6.1 per cent.

Glasgow Harbour hit hard by property slowdown

The company behind plans for a huge patchwork of residential and leisure developments on the north bank of the Clyde appears to have been hit hard by the slowdown in property markets in its latest financial year (Herald). Accounts for Glasgow Harbour show that the company made a pre-tax loss of 252,000 in the year to March 31, 2009 after making a profit of 3,934,000 in the preceding year.

Read all today's industry 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."

Scotsman Conferences

Since it was first published in 1817, The Scotsman has been at the heart of the debate about issues that really matter. Almost 200 years later, it is still the national forum for discussion on the topics of the moment. Now the debate is moving on to a new level with the launch of The Scotsman Conferences. At thefirstevent, Edinburgh: The Next Five Years on 22 February 2010, some of Scotland's most influential speakers,including John Swinney MSP debate if the city's future is bright for 2015.Find outhow Scotsman Conferences can bring you and your organisation to the heart of the debate at www.scotsman.com/conferences.