News
July 2000
OECD says UK economy in strong shape
The UK’s economy is in good shape and should continue to perform well in the foreseeable future, according to a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). Thirty quarters of continuous growth have now been recorded, with low and stable inflation and falling levels of unemployment. There seems to be no reason why this growth should not continue, says the OECD, although the Bank of England must be wary of inflationary pressures currently held in check by a high exchange rate.
The UK is the least regulated of the OECD countries, and at present has the lowest inflation rate in the European Union, on the harmonised index of consumer prices. Its long-term interest rates are as low as those in the euro zone and a percentage point lower than in the US. Its fiscal position is stronger than that of other leading European countries, with a surplus on the general government fiscal balance of 1 per cent of GDP and government net debt forecast this year to be 35 per cent of GDP.
UK set to retain lead position for FDI
The OECD’s optimism is backed up by a report from the Economist Intelligence Unit, which points out that the UK was among the most attractive business locations in the world during the second half of the 1990s and is likely to continue to be so for the first part of the present decade. Its strengths over the next five years will continue to be a pro-business government, sophisticated financial markets, a comparatively light tax regime and a flexible labour market, according to the EIU. Areas where there is room for improvement, however, are transport, infrastructure and the high cost of office space.
The good news is backed up by Ernst & Young’s European Investment Monitor (EIM) annual survey, which shows that the UK continued to be the largest recipient in Europe of foreign direct investment projects in 1999. Some 2,100 projects were undertaken throughout Europe during the year, creating 275,000 jobs, and the UK took around 20 per cent of this total. Some manufacturing investors expressed concern that the UK’s non-participation in the euro was driving up the pound and eroding competitiveness, but this was balanced by the UK’s leading position in the e-business sector. Investment in software projects, many of them e-related, rose by 28 per cent compared with 1998.
The UK is well placed to capitalise on the e-sector, according to the survey, with an excellent telecommunications infrastructure, a liberalised telecoms environment, an entrepreneurial culture and clusters of complementary businesses. However, it cannot afford to rest on its laurels, as other parts of Europe are working hard to create attractive environments of their own.
E-business is also likely to change the pattern of inward investment, says the report. It concludes: "We believe we are now seeing an end to the established order of foreign inward investment as we have seen it in the last 10-15 years during which the focus was on manufacturing and location choices driven by cost and incentives. Today, the location of e-business, particularly software, service providers and dotcoms, is less driven by cost and more by entrepreneurial culture, the presence of e-skills, attractiveness of cities and infrastructure."
Minister underlines investors’ vital role
Richard Caborn, the Minister of State for Trade and Industry, underlined the importance of inward investors to the UK economy recently. Speaking on the 25th anniversary of the founding of the German Industry Forum, he pointed out that inward investors account for 17 per cent of the UK’s manufacturing employment, 33 per cent of manufacturing net capital expenditure, 26 per cent of manufacturing output and more than 40 per cent of exports. The stock of inward investment in the UK increased by 26 per cent at the end of 1999, to a total of $366 billion.
German investors are one of the most important groups. Around 15,000 German companies are active in the UK, according to the minister, 5,000 of them via UK commercial agents or distributors and 2,000 through UK subsidiaries, which between them employ 200,000 people. The net book value of German investment in the UK was $15.3 billion at the end of 1998. A recent survey by the German-British Chamber of Commerce showed that more than 90 per cent of German investors judged the UK’s economic outlook as satisfactory to excellent, while more than 70 per cent had plans to expand their UK operations. The survey also showed that 75 per cent of companies with similar operations in Germany judged labour productivity in the UK comparable or better.
New trade agency unites trade support services
The government has launched a new promotional brand, which unites its support services for inward investors with export and international trade services targeted at British businesses. The Trade Partners UK name will identify international trade and export services provided by a variety of Government and private sector organisations, and will replace all previous promotional names. Trade Partners UK will be led by British Trade International (BTI), a body formed just over a year ago, which brought together the trade development activities of the Department of Trade and Industry and the export support services of the Foreign Office. Co-chairmen of the BTI board are foreign affairs minister John Battle and trade minister Richard Caborn.
The Invest in Britain Bureau (IBB), the government agency responsible for inward investment, will be part of Trade Partners UK under the BTI umbrella, although it will remain a distinct organisation and will continue to have its own chief executive. It is hoped the new arrangements will lead to a more coherent approach to trade and inward investment, particularly among small and medium-sized businesses. An internet gateway (www.tradepartners.gov.uk) has been launched to make the services of the new body readily accessible.
In the meantime, the Government has backed down on Budget proposals to tighten tax rules on overseas profits recorded by companies operating in the UK. It will now allow companies to continue the practice of pooling foreign earnings to minimise UK tax liabilities, following nearly three months of protest by leading multinationals. The proposals related to the use of offshore subsidiaries known as mixer companies, which allow multinationals to offset earnings from high-tax countries against those from low-tax regimes, resulting in a lower UK tax bill than would be the case if each slice of income was taxed separately.
E-business initiatives reinforce leading role
The Government’s commitment to making the UK the best place in the world for e-business has taken a step forward with the granting of Royal Assent for the Electronic Communications Bill. The new bill liberalises the framework for e-business and, among other measures, grants legal certainty to electronic signatures and encourages the development of secure e-commerce services. Another Government initiative has seen an award of $4.5 million to the Planning Inspectorate to create an internet-based planning service. The proposed new system will speed up the planning process and help the authority handle casework and appeals more efficiently.
The UK is currently ranked sixth in the world in terms of readiness for e-business, according to a survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, which assessed companies by their telecommunications infrastructure together with their general business environment. The US is at the head of the field, followed by Sweden, Finland, Norway and the Netherlands. However at CeBIT, the world’s largest IT trade show, held in Hannover in March, the UK led the way amongst European countries, with the largest single showing of exhibitors. A total of 317 UK companies attended the show, representing a wide variety of technology sectors and business interests.
In Manchester, North West England, four universities have come together to form an alliance aimed at reinforcing the city’s position as a leading centre for science and enterprise. The Incubation Partnership, supported by local development agency MIDAS, will form a strategic partnership with the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance of the US. The initiative will seek to build close links between the two regions, both of which have encouraged economic regeneration through high technology business incubation linked to local universities. The partnership will support North American companies seeking to use Manchester as a European base for their operations and business development.
France Telecom acquires Orange as IT companies expand
The month’s biggest single deal in the telecoms and IT world was France Telecom’s purchase of UK mobile phone operator Orange from the Vodafone AirTouch Group, in a cash and share deal worth $37.3 billion. The deal gives Vodafone, based in Newbury, South East England, a stake of just under 10 per cent in the French telecommunications company. Orange will be grouped with France Telecom’s existing mobile operations in a new company to be known as New Orange, for which stock market listings will be sought in London, Paris and New York later this year. The acquisition makes France Telecom a major player in the European mobile market.
In other developments, Sun Microsystems announced a $38.7 million investment to expand its plant at Linlithgow in Scotland, [see picture] adding a further 200 employees to the existing 910-strong workforce. The Linlithgow plant, Sun’s only manufacturing facility outside the US, produces a full range of the company’s products, ranging from desktop workstations to enterprise servers and network systems for the telecommunications industry. The new investment will introduce new technologies and expand infrastructure at the plant.
3Com Corporation, the global networking telecoms company based in Santa Clara, California, is to invest $10 million in a new European Voice Integration Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland. The centre will expand 3Com’s existing facility in Edinburgh and will help develop the next generation of business telephone systems, particularly 3Com’s Local Area Network systems which allow voice and data services to be delivered over the same computer infrastructure. Intel Online Services, Inc, the Internet application hosting subsidiary of another Santa Clara resident, Intel Corporation, has opened a $150 million Internet data centre in Reading, South East England. The centre, which when fully operational will employ around 250 people, offers high-level physical and network security for up to 10,000 servers. Reading is also the location for North Carolina-based RF Micro Devices Inc’s first European sales and support centre. The company supplies radio frequency integrated circuits for wireless communications applications.
Meanwhile MarketMax of Danvers, Massachusetts, a provider of integrated e-business solutions for the retail market, has opened a sales and customer support office at Desford, Leicestershire, in the English East Midlands, and HearMe, a California-based supplier of real-time voice communications software, has opened a UK sales office in Watford, Eastern England. HearMe’s new office will market the company’s web business and personal communications solutions to customers in the UK and Europe. And Swiss company DigiPlex, which creates co-location facilities for internet and telecoms companies to house their telecommunications equipment, is to open two new centres in London, one in the Docklands area to the east and one in the M4 corridor to the west of the capital. The plan is part of a European-wide strategy to fit out 22 centres by the end of 2001.
Taxing times for EU workers
Salaries and tax and social security payments vary widely across Europe, but the UK compares favourably with its European neighbours, according to a report by management consultants William M Mercer. Executives in the UK are fourth in the executive pay league, earning an average of £45,512 ($68,268) after tax. Non-executive workers are eighth in the EU pay table, taking home ($23,722) after deductions.
Tax and social security deductions are around 25 per cent in the UK, against a European average of 30 per cent of earnings. The lowest deductions are in Ireland, at just 18 per cent, while the highest are in Belgium, which levies a swingeing 42 per cent. Denmark, Germany and Finland all have high tax and social security contributions, reflecting higher social security spending in those countries.
Investment boost planned for transport network
The UK’s transport system is due to receive more than $150 billion of investment over the next decade, although the private sector will be expected to provide more than half the money, under plans unveiled by deputy prime minister John Prescott. Investment in the public transport network will form a core part of the ten-year transport plan. With road traffic predicted to increase by 35 per cent over the period, road improvements will feature prominently, although the government is hoping that better public transport will reduce the use of private cars. Railways will also be a top priority, with rail passenger numbers expected to grow by 40-50 per cent by 2010. The fact that railways are now privately owned means that private money will have to help fund the improvements. Bus and tram services are also likely to benefit.
In the meantime, both rail passenger and rail freight traffic continue to grow, according to the latest Bulletin of Rail Statistics from the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR), which covers the fourth quarter of 1999/2000. Passenger-kilometres increased by six per cent, while freight tonnes moved (tonne-kilometres) grew by 12 per cent. Over the year as a whole, freight tonnes moved climbed six per cent above 1998/99 levels, maintaining the growth of recent years. The volume of freight carried by rail should continue to grow as government initiatives encourage users to switch from road to rail. In North Wales, for example, a recent report commissioned by the Welsh Development Agency on behalf of the North and Mid Wales Rail Freight Working Group identified 37 opportunities for switching freight from road to rail which, if followed through, could double the volume of rail freight transported in the region.
A passenger rail company, GB Railways, has submitted plans for a new rail route that would link the UK’s silicon boom towns. Running from Norwich in Eastern England to Oxford in the South East, it would connect Ipswich, Cambridge and Milton Keynes, avoiding the busy routes around London. On the roads, meanwhile, the UK government has signed an agreement with Slovenia, under which road hauliers operating between the two countries no longer need to obtain permits. This should make operations between the two countries easier and allow haulage companies to expand their operations.
Freight traffic through the UK’s ports is also growing, according to provisional figures from the DETR. Container and roll-on roll-off traffic through major ports increased by 4.1 per cent in tonnage carried to 131.8 Mt in 1999, while the numbers of units moved rose by 5.2 per cent to reach 9.8 million. These consisted of 5.4 million road goods vehicles and unaccompanied trailers and 4.4 million containers. Crude oil traffic rose by 1.4 per cent to 186 Mt, while petroleum products and gas traffic rose by 2.1 per cent to 82.6 Mt.
The largest of the UK’s port operators, Associated British Ports, is seeking planning permission for a huge expansion of its container business at Southampton in South East England. It hopes to add capacity of 2.5 million units per year to its existing capacity of 1 million units, which would make Southampton one of the biggest container ports in Europe. The company is also selling off a $1 billion property portfolio, mostly in the form of surplus land and warehousing. Meanwhile in North Lincolnshire, in Yorkshire and Humber, the new $30 million Humber Sea Terminal has opened at North Killingholme Haven. Owned by the Simon Group, the terminal offers a ro-ro facility for vessels up to 20,000 dwt, together with a large warehousing complex and integral rail links to the UK network. Ferry operator Stena Line has signed a 10-year agreement to operate a daily sailing to Holland from the new terminal, beginning in the autumn.
Call centre boom continues
A number of new announcements have underlined the UK’s position as a world leader in the call centre industry. Capital One, the US credit card company headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, is to invest a further $90 million in its existing facilities in Nottingham, East Midlands, doubling its 1,200-strong workforce. Most of the new employees will be call centre staff, but Capital One is also recruiting senior managers, marketing professionals and IT specialists. Capital One, offering cheaper rates than other credit card issuers, has rapidly won 1 million customers since starting its Nottingham operation in 1998, making it the UK’s fifth largest credit business. The company chose Nottingham for its expansion ahead of sites in Ireland and continental Europe, and was helped in its decision by $9 million in funding from the government’s regional selective assistance fund. "We are very happy with the quality of the people here," said a spokesman. "They are articulate and responsive on the telephone."
Mobile phone company One2One, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, is to create 400 new jobs at its business account call centre at Sunderland, North East England, increasing the payroll to 1,250 employees. Sunderland has 13 call centres altogether, employing 5,500 people. Deutsche Telekom, which acquired One2One in October last year, is Europe’s largest telecommunications carrier and the third largest carrier worldwide. One2One has also signed a contract with Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, the French tele-servicing company, to open a customer service centre at Forres, in the Highlands area of Scotland. The first phase of the centre, which will employ 700 people, is complete and work on phase two will begin shortly. It will be Cap Gemini’s fourth facility in the Highlands and Islands region.
US Airways, the airline based in Arlington, Virginia is to open a new $5 million reservations centre in Liverpool, North West England. The centre, due to open in September, will handle reservations, ticketing, flight status enquiries and telemarketing within Europe. It will employ 90 people initially, rising to 150 within five years.
Meanwhile MIDAS, the development agency for Manchester in North West England, is joining forces with similar agencies in Germany, France, Spain and Sweden to develop an alliance that will offer clients multilingual support through a series of interlinked call centres. The European Call Centre Alliance (ECCA) will offer clients an alternative to setting up pan-European multilingual call centres of their own, offering them access to markets in a number of different language territories. MIDAS’s European partners are Invest in Sweden and the agencies for the Saarland region of Germany, the Moselle region of France and the city of Barcelona in Spain.
Ford backs Land Rover while BMW builds on Rolls-Royce brand
Ford Motor Company of the US has completed its $3 billion purchase of Land Rover from BMW of Germany, and plans to develop the company as its flagship off-road brand. It sees huge potential for the brand in the US, where fewer than 30,000 Land Rovers were sold last year. Industry analysts believe Ford will double that figure, initially seeking up to 30,000 unit sales when it launches the Freelander model in the US this summer, while in time it could be looking at up to 100,000 sales a year. Ford paid BMW $2 billion upfront for Rover, with a further payment of $1 billion to follow in 2005.
The sale leaves BMW free to develop its own family of off-road vehicles, together with the Mini brand and new, smaller BMW-branded cars. The German company will retain a link with Land Rover, supplying it with up to 50,000 engines a year, together with pressed parts, components and support services. BMW has also underlined its commitment to the UK market by announcing plans to build a new factory at the former Goodwood race track near Chichester, South East England to build Rolls-Royce cars. The $320 million plant will be Rolls-Royce’s new headquarters and will produce an all-new model due to be launched in 2003, once the Rolls-Royce brand name has been fully acquired from Volkswagen. The factory will employ 350 people and is expected to produce 1,000 luxury cars a year. Body panels and chassis may be sourced from BMW’s former Rover plant at Oxford, also in South East England.
Northern Ireland celebrates fresh investments
Harland and Wolff shipyard in Northern Ireland has won a $350 million contract from US company Luxus Holdings to build two cruise ships for the luxury yacht market. The 600ft-long vessels will each have 190 suites. This is the second large order for the Norwegian-owned company in less than a month - in May it agreed to make four roll-on roll-off passenger ferries for Bahamas-registered Seamasters International. The initial deal is worth $450 million, with an option for two further vessels bringing the total to $750 million. The shipyard, which built the Titanic, has in recent years diversified its production from standard tanker construction to making specialist vessels for the offshore oil and gas industry. The luxury yacht business represents a further diversification of its business.
Meanwhile, Canadian aerospace and transportation group Bombardier has announced that it is to invest a further $150 million in its Belfast-based subsidiary Short Bros, creating around 1,200 jobs over the next three years. Bombardier is the world’s third largest civil aircraft manufacturer after Boeing and Airbus, and has pioneered the regional jet sector. Short Bros supplies it with fuselages, engine casings and composite components for its Canadair regional jets and Challenger and Global Express business jets. The move, expected to increase the company’s workforce from 6,020 to 7,200, has been hailed by local leaders as a vote of confidence in the design and engineering skills offered by the province and in the productivity of its workers.
Internet effect fuels demand for office space
Tenant demand patterns for office and industrial premises are changing because of the ‘internet effect’, according to the latest quarterly report from property analyst Healey & Baker. The growth of dotcom companies and e-tailers is constraining demand for traditional retail premises but at the same time is offering new opportunities elsewhere.
Occupier demand is strong in the office sector, particularly in the South East where it is being driven by the technology sector, says the company. Prime, modern office space is in short supply in areas such as the Thames Valley, but this means that companies - especially more flexible space users such as internet companies - are looking further afield. Low-cost areas of the country, especially those with grants or Enterprise Zone status, are seeing healthy demand, as are the principal regional cities, especially Edinburgh. In London, demand is strong and availability is stable or falling. Activity in the West End is at its healthiest for several years, with demand led by Internet and other technology firms together with companies from the service sector.
Demand in the industrial sector is also strong and again particularly in the South East. The growth of e-tailing has fuelled demand for distribution premises both on the regional and the urban level. Healey & Baker notes a growth in speculative development and an increase in pre-letting. Meanwhile, the Institute of Directors has announced plans to open commercial centres that will offer serviced offices in 20 cities around the UK. The organisation has teamed up with Eurica, a company that specialises in fitting out and servicing offices, while the centres will be managed by Stonemartin Corporate Centres. The first is scheduled to open in Bristol, South West England in the autumn.
IKEA expansion furnishes job boost
IKEA, the Swedish furniture group, has announced a major expansion of its operations in the UK. The company plans to invest $489 million over the next five years, opening eight new stores and two distribution centres and taking on a further 4,500 employees. A second phase of expansion will involve the opening of another 12 stores and the creation of a further 6,000 jobs. Locations under consideration for the new stores include London, Glasgow, the South Coast of England, the M1 motorway corridor, Manchester, Birmingham, Coventry and South Wales.
One of the distribution centres is planned for West Moor Park at Doncaster in South Yorkshire, a fully serviced site adjacent to Junction 4 of the M18 motorway, which is well placed for both regional and national transport links. IKEA has bought 73 acres of the 173-acre site from local development agency Yorkshire Forward. The $45 million development, due for completion next spring, is expected to create 500 jobs.
Yorkshire welcomes new developments
Elsewhere in Yorkshire, the government regeneration agency English Partnerships, with the support of Yorkshire Forward, has invested $2.6 million in a new business park project at Wakefield. A further $1.7 million from the European Regional Investment Programme has been poured into the Trinity Park Project, which is taking shape on the site of a former greyhound racing stadium on the bank of the River Calder, half a mile from the city centre. Site reclamation is almost complete and services are now being installed. The five-acre development will provide 15,000 sq ft of office space and 11 business units suitable either for manufacturing or service sector use. The project, due for completion in the spring, will create 180 jobs.
At Huddersfield, a new Engineering Technology Innovation Centre has been opened, again with the support of Yorkshire Forward. The centre aims to become a regional centre of excellence, providing a practical training environment that will benefit both industry and the local community. It will offer computer-aided engineering equipment, including robotics, and a mini computer-integrated manufacturing system that simulates a real-life environment. It also offers a full video-conferencing facility, which will allow machining technology to be transmitted live into the workplace. And at nearby Leeds, Japanese company Daiwa Kasei Industry Co, a manufacturer of plastic components for the automobile industry, has opened a sales office to make its first entry into the European market.
Brewer toasts new acquisitions
Interbrew, the family-owned Belgian brewer, has made two major acquisitions in the UK brewing industry. In May it bought the brewing interests of Whitbread, the well-known London brewer founded in 1742, for around $591 million. Whitbread, with 3,900 employees at its three brewing sites and associated distribution centres, currently accounts for 16 per cent of the UK beer market and produce’s Interbrew’s Stella Artois lager under licence. The deal made Interbrew, which sells about 120 lagers and specialist beers in 80 countries, the third largest brewer in Europe.
In June, Interbrew struck a deal to acquire the brewing activities of Bass plc, based in Burton-on-Trent in the English West Midlands. This deal, subject to regulatory approval, is worth around $3.78 billion. "[The acquisition] fits in with our core strategy of acquiring strong brands and high-quality production facilities in local markets," said Hugo Powell, CEO of Interbrew.
Around the regions
- North Tyneside College, in the Tyne and Wear region of North East England, has officially opened its new Microelectronics and High-Tech Engineering Centre (METEC). The centre, occupying more than 3,600 sq ft of space and planning to employ more than 200 people, will train students and the employees of local companies in skills such as microelectronics, printed circuit boards, marine electronics, aviation maintenance and pharmaceuticals. Funding, amounting to $3 million, came from regional development agency One NorthEast and other sources such as the European Regional Development Fund.
- Work has begun on a 61,800 sq ft office development in Swansea, South Wales. The $12 million Waterside Business Park will provide flexible office accommodation and is being targeted at the top end of the market. Four companies have already expressed interest.
- The Welsh Development Agency (WDA) estimates that it helped to create or safeguard 19,900 jobs in the past financial year, 9,700 of them with inward investment companies. Of these, some 80 per cent were concentrated in West Wales and the Valleys. Inward investors pumped $414 million into the country’s Objective One areas, and $296 million into eastern parts of Wales.
- A new satellite campus of Canterbury Christ Church University College (CCCUC) will open at Thanet in Kent, South East England, in the autumn. The university will offer largely vocational studies focusing on the needs of local industries, including a variety of business and technology courses.
- MY Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Malbak Ltd of Sandton, South Africa, has acquired the European cartons division of packaging firm Low & Bonar plc, for around $120 million. Low & Bonar, based in Dundee, Scotland, has three plants in the UK and one each in Holland and Belgium.
- JMAR Technologies Inc of San Diego, California, a provider of precision equipment for the microelectronics industry, has announced a technology, financing and investment tie-up with Bede Scientific Instruments of Durham, North East England. Bede, founded as a spin-off from the University of Durham, is a leading provider of X-ray instruments to the semiconductor industry. Under the agreement, JMAR will acquire exclusive worldwide rights to use Bede’s X-ray generator and optics technologies with semiconductor nano-imaging and metrology applications.
- Manufacturing output in Scotland rose in May for the 15th consecutive month in response to increasing demand, according to the Bank of Scotland’s monthly survey of business conditions in the region. Service sector activity grew for the 19th consecutive month.
- London is still the best city in the world for doing financial business, according to a survey of 100 foreign banks by the London Chamber of Commerce. The depth of its financial markets and its long-standing tradition as a financial centre were regarded as important factors in its success, as were high-quality telecommunications, political stability and a healthy economy. Some 83 per cent of respondents were confident that the UK capital would maintain its leading position for at least the next decade.
- A new strategic body is to be set up to oversee long-term growth and regeneration in the Thames Gateway area east of London. An alliance of government and local bodies, it will aim to make the area, which extends eastwards along both banks of the River Thames, a focus for regeneration in the South East.
- The borough of Halton, situated between the major cities of Manchester and Liverpool in the of North West England and containing the towns of Runcorn and Widnes, offers a wide choice of land and premises for incoming businesses, excellent transport links and access to five million people within a 25-mile radius. Its attractions are outlined in a new brochure produced by Halton Borough Council. Contact: econ.dev@halton-borough.gov.uk.
- The UK currency, the pound sterling, has fallen from its recent high levels against the euro and has also softened against the dollar. According to Barclays International’s monthly Financial Outlook, the Bank of England’s latest decision to leave interest rates unchanged was a result of recent currency appreciation, but also reflected low underlying inflation and slower first-quarter growth. Interest rates are predicted to rise marginally in the next 12 months.
- An industrial park is to be built on the site of Cornwall’s last tin mine. The mine, at South Crofty, closed down two years ago, bringing down the curtain on an industry with a history stretching back 4,000 years. Now the South West Regional Development Agency has put in a bid to buy the 60-acre site, with backing from European structural funds. The site is equidistant from the towns of Redruth and Cambourne.
- United Messaging Inc, a Pennsylvania-based messaging application service provider, has opened an office in London as part of an expansion drive into the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) market. The office, together with another in Amsterdam, Holland, will offer a full range of messaging and consulting services.
- Miami-based Catalina Lighting, which designs and manufactures residential and office lighting products, has bought lighting distributor Ring plc, of Leeds, Northern England, for around $33 million.
- Worms & Cie, a French holding company controlled by the Agnelli family of Italy, has agreed a $3.5 billion take-over of London-based paper-making group Arjo Wiggins Appleton. Arjo Wiggins is currently restructuring its operations, switching from production of carbonless and thermal fax paper to premium writing paper, publishing paper and banknotes.