Vertical integration

This week’s news of the acquisition by Conservatory Outlet may not be numerically the biggest in the recent run of such stories but it is interesting nonetheless. A step into retail? Not really, CEO Greg Kane assured us when we asked him today – just a business to be run as a sister company …but at the same time, he cannot rule out the same thing happening elsewhere. The supplier/network business model is one of the strengths of this still-growing company but the temptation to dabble in a little vertical integration is beyond denial.
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Speaking of running stories, we now follow the series of speculations on post-Brexit price hikes with a thought-provoking letter on market impact from even further afield, as CDW’s Mike Davis ponders on China’s new pollution laws and their impact on world aluminium prices. Read Story

And finally, after last week’s coincidence of two headlines on fire prevention, it is pure happenstance that we now follow with one about a flood door company, so no one need fear the threat of sequels on famine and pestilence. Read Sory

Instead, we hope you enjoy this week’s issue.

Chris Church Editor

Please send all your news stories to news@the-glazine.com

This Week's News

Conservatory Outlet goes vertical with £10m-sales retail acquisition

Conservatory Outlet has announced the acquisition of one of its own network of retail partners, Tyneside-based Pennine Home Improvements, in a move that will bring the group’s total turnover to £25million.

The deal gives the fabricator a sizeable inroad to consumer sales but CEO Greg Kane, speaking to The Glazine today, stressed that it “will remain a B2B company with a strong understanding of the retail market” though he did add that similar acquisitions could not be ruled out for the future.

Pennine, with showrooms in Benton, Gosforth Park, Birtley and Ponteland, has seen its sales grow by 30% to around £10million in a little over three years since it joined the network. Conservatory Outlet says the new combined figure represents a five-fold growth for the group in seven years.

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Flood Angel owner grows with Arktek deal

Flood defence specialist UK Flood Barriers, better known to the door and window industry via sister company Flood Angel, has acquired the flood defence division of Sunderland based Arktek for an undisclosed sum.

UK Flood Barriers CEO Frank Kelly said: “Whilst the flood sector has clearly developed over the past 10 years, it’s still ridiculously fragmented to the point of often being dysfunctional. The end customer is often confused and key sector players do little to the help the situation. I am, and always have been, committed to consolidating this disjointed approach and have  developed a long term strategic vision for UK Flood Barriers that will help me realise this objective”.

The Arktek Flood Defences team will operate under the newly formed ‘UK Flood Barriers Northern’ brand securing and delivering projects in the North East & North West of the England and Scotland.

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House supply up for
third month

The number of houses coming onto the market last month rose by over 10% across the UK excluding London, making it the third month in a row to record increases.

However, a 0.3% slump in new listings in London dragged the overall UK figure down to less than 4%, according to the latest Property Supply Index from online estate agent HouseSimple.com.

In contrast to the capital, Stirling and Dundee saw the biggest increases in supply, up 87.8% and 70.9% respectively last month.

Of the 25% of towns and cities that saw supply fall in the same period, Telford experienced the biggest drop in the number of new listings, down 23.3%. Barnsley and Warrington saw supply fall 13.9% and 12.1% respectively.

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Apprenticeship levy launched

The Government this week launched its apprenticeship levy on big employers which will double the annual investment in apprenticeships in England to £2.5 billion by 2019 to 2020, compared with 2010 to 2011 levels.

The move means companies with fewer than 50 employees that take on apprentices aged between 16 and 18 will have 100% of their training costs paid for.

For other employers, but with a wage bill under £3million a year, the Government will pay 90% of the costs of training and assessing their apprentices.

This is on top of a range of support for apprentices who have additional needs, including around £60 million of funds towards training those from the poorest parts of England.

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We Have Email

From: Mike Davis,
Managing Director, CDW Systems

China has spent decades building its industrial capacity but is now turning its attention to pollution as the priority policy. The recently introduced Air Pollution Control regulation has been imposed to eliminate coal usage and reduce the emissions of almost every other pollutant across 28 cities. As part of this, the government has imposed targets to cut industrial metals production including aluminium.

Although aluminium is considered a ‘green’ building material, many older and smaller production facilities in the cities source their power from coal, the main target of China’s anti-pollution initiative. As a result, China is forcing aluminium smelters to cut outputs by 30 per cent over the winter heating season (November – March), with estimates that the cuts will mean the loss of 2.71 million tonnes of aluminium.

China is the world’s largest producer of aluminium and it is anticipated the new environmental regulations will impact supply-demand dynamics, sending shockwaves through the global supply chain.

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