Round one

The Safestyle – Safeglaze battle is in the headlines again with Safestyle now granted interim court orders against rival newcomer Safeglaze and ‘named individuals’ in the first round of a legal battle that is due to be resumed next month.
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However, the high point of the week was the Glazing Summit, where more than 400 from throughout the industry exceeded even organisers’ expectations of the event.
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And, while the short-term news for housebuilding may not be too rosy Read Story, we have a detailed and compelling letter from Insight Data’s Jade Greenhow urging the fenestration industry to go on investing in the new-build sector.
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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

Safestyle wins first court battle against Safeglaze
– but new chairman Richardson steps down

Safestyle has won the first stage of its legal battle against rival newcomer Safeglaze, with a number of interim court injunctions ‘preventing Safeglaze UK and certain named individuals from undertaking various actions’ and also requiring them to provide specified documents to Safestyle.

In the same announcement, Safestyle also said that its new chairman Peter Richardson is stepping down with immediate effect saying the scale of the challenge and time required are greater than he had envisaged.

Richardson took the chair at short notice last month after the resignation of the then chairman Steve Halbert along with a profit warning in the face of ‘aggressive new market entrant’ Safeglaze. Chris Davies, a senior non-executive director, and former SIG chief executive will lead the search for a successor.

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Glazing Summit a success

More than 400 industry players gathered last week to hear speakers and join panel discussions in the inaugural Glazing Summit organised by Insight Data and Purplex Marketing.

CEO Andrew Scott said of the event: “This was breaking new ground, the industry has never had a major business conference but as the market matures and becomes more professional, a platform for CEO’s and business leaders to come together, learn and share information has become paramount.”

“With several different sectors represented and a diverse range of companies of every shape and size it is impossible to provide content relevant to every delegate on every session, but our aim was that delegates would take away at least some valuable pearls of wisdom and connect with industry leaders and from the feedback this was definitely achieved.”

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Epwin Group ‘on track’

Epwin Group PLC said it is on track to meet market expectations for 2018 despite the bad weather condition in the beginning of the year, which affected trading, and some material cost inflation.

In an AGM trading update, the group said: "The Board anticipates meeting market expectations for 2018, despite the impact of adverse weather on trading in the early part of the year and some continuing materials cost inflation.

“Consequently a greater weighting of profit towards the seasonally busier second half year is expected when compared with more recent years.   Delivery of the site consolidation programme is continuing in line with plan and the Group continues to make good progress in pursuit of its broader strategic objectives.

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Housebuilding slump hits construction

The value of new construction contracts fell by 6.8% last month to £4.9 billion, largely due to a 15.3% slump in housebuilding as well as a wavering infrastructure sector that has performed poorly so far in 2018, according to the latest Economic & Construction Market Review from Barbour ABI.

Across the rest of the construction industry, medical and health construction posted the highest monthly value for projects for more than two years, at £229 million. Hotel, leisure and sport construction saw an increase in contract value for the third month in a row. Commercial and retail and education both saw declines in contract values, down 10 and 9.3 per cent respectively.

Regionally, London was the region with the largest share of contract awards value in April with 20.3% of the total, with three of the largest top ten projects across April. The capital was then followed by the East of England with 16% and the South East with 11.3%.

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We Have Email

From: Jade Greenhow,
General Manager, Insight Data

Whilst it’s long been said that the UK housebuilding industry is on its knees, we are once again beginning to see an increase of new houses being built. Yes, it may not yet be enough to meet the incredible demand for houses, but new developments are appearing all over the UK. In fact, in 2017 UK construction companies experienced their best year in a decade as builders registered plans to start over 160,000 new homes – an increase of 6% on the year before.

It appears that positive effect has continued in the first half of 2018, thanks in-part to the beginning of the Government’s five-year plan to inject £44 billion into housebuilding to meet their budget pledge of building 300,000 new homes every year by the mid-2020s. What does this all mean? It means there’s once again sizeable demand for building products from the housebuilding industry and for supply and installation partners who can service these new developments.

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