May 2007

NEWS

Profitability of UK companies hits record high
More than a quarter of businesses in the UK – 26 per cent – have experienced well above average growth levels in 2007, according to business and financial advisers Grant Thornton UK LLP. This propels the UK to fourth place in the company’s Super Growth Index, which measures ‘super growth’ companies around the world and forms part of Grant Thornton’s International Business Report. Last year the UK was in sixth place, with 23 per cent of companies showing above-average growth.

The survey, which covered more than 7,200 business owners from 32 countries, looked at how businesses have performed over the past year, the issues that concern them and their plans for the future. The UK was one of only three European Union countries to make the top ten, with Ireland securing third place. The US topped the Index for the third year running, but this year’s surprise success story was Armenia, which claimed second position. Both India and Hong Kong both fell out of the top ten. Further down the list, other strong performers included the Philippines, Argentina, Russia and Italy, while Malaysia and New Zealand both dropped down the listings.

Overall, super growth companies were more optimistic than ordinary businesses about a range of indicators for the coming 12 months, including turnover, profitability, employment and investment. Their biggest cause for concern was the availability of a skilled workforce, while 32 per cent of them thought red tape and regulation were of key concern, compared with 38 per cent of ordinary businesses.

Corporate profitability of UK companies hit new highs at the end of 2006, with manufacturing and service sector companies benefiting from strong sales growth, lower energy prices and subdued wage pressures. The net rate of return rose to double-digit levels, even in manufacturing, and economists said that rising profitability in the fourth quarter augured well for business investment and underpinned the Bank of England’s forecast of strong growth for 2007. The net rate of return on capital for non-oil companies rose to 14.7 per cent in the last quarter of 2006, the highest level since quarterly figures were first published in 1989. With North Sea oil profits included, the rate for the whole of 2006 rose to 15.1 per cent, the highest level for 40 years.

The service sector registered its 48th consecutive month of growth in 2007, growing faster than forecast and encouraging companies to increase output prices at their fastest pace for seven months. Growth was driven by higher levels of new orders and expansion overseas, with business service companies performing particularly strongly. With prices rising, pressure has been growing on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee to announce a further rise in interest rates. The MPC left the base rate unchanged at 5.25 per cent in April, but is widely expected to move it up to 5.5 per cent in May.
 

UK a top performer in ICT network readiness

The UK has climbed to ninth position in the Networked Readiness Index of the World Economic Forum’s Global Information Technology Report 2006-2007, ahead of most other major EU economies. The report, in its sixth year and this year covering 122 economies worldwide, claims to be the most respected assessment of the impact of information and communication technology on the development process and competitiveness of nations. The Networked Readiness Index measures how well nations are leveraging the opportunities offered by ICT. It examines three dimensions: the general business, regulatory and infrastructure environment for ICT; the readiness of individuals, businesses and governments to benefit from it; and their actual usage of the latest technologies available.

Denmark topped the rankings for the first time, and was followed by Sweden, Singapore and Finland. The US was in seventh position – down from first last year – and the UK in ninth. Of other EU countries, the Netherlands was the only one to outperform the UK, coming in at sixth. Germany was 16th, Austria 17th and Estonia 20th. Ireland at 21st and France at 23rd were also found to be fully leveraging ICT for development though others, such as Italy at 38th and Greece at 48th, were lagging behind. The other countries in the top ten were Switzerland, Iceland and Norway.

London is the top European city for technology and IT companies to invest in and the capital’s technology sector is currently worth $54 billion, with an annual growth rate of 6 per cent, according to inward investment agency Think London. Almost half of all Californian investment into the capital in the past five years has come from IT and telecoms companies. The convergence of a number of important industries – such as advertising, marketing and media, together with a strong research base – is one of the factors that attracts companies to the city, in preference to other international cities such as New York and Tokyo, according to the agency. In addition, as well as having a very diverse and cosmopolitan business community of its own, London acts as a gateway to the European market. “London’s ecosystem is very attractive,” said Marc Hardwick, research manager at Think London.

A UK company, Transitive Corporation, has won a Grand Prize in the prestigious European Information and Communication Technology Awards. Funded under the European Commission’s Framework Programme for Research, the prizes are each worth $270,000 and are considered the ‘Nobel Prizes’ of the European ICT industry. Transitive, originally a spin-out company from the University of Manchester, was honoured for its QuickTransit software ‘translator’, which allows applications created for one processor and operating system to run on another without any reprogramming. In all, 20 prize winners were selected from a record number of 450 entries from 309 countries.

London set to climb global financial city rankings
The first Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI) – conducted by Z/Yen for the City of London Corporation, with additional data from PricewaterhouseCoopers – has concluded that London is the world’s top financial centre, with New York being the only other city to achieve the status of a global financial centre. The survey compared 46 of the world’s top financial cities and found that London outranked New York in all areas of competitiveness: people, business environment, market access, infrastructure and general competitiveness. Both cities were well ahead of the leading Asian centres, Hong Kong and Singapore, in third and fourth places respectively.

London scored particularly highly on its skills, access to market and regulatory environment, though the report’s authors expressed some concern about the UK’s tax regime. “To maintain competitiveness, the UK must take action to address concerns over its corporate tax environment,” said Michael Snyder, chairman of Policy and Resources at the City of London Corporation. The new index will become a biannual index of competitiveness for the world’s top 46 financial centres.

Another survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that London’s was the sixth largest city economy in the world by estimated GDP at purchasing power parities (PPPs) in 2005, and that it should rise to fourth place by 2020, overtaking Paris and Chicago. Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles are predicted to be ahead of London in 2020, but the UK capital’s economy is predicted to grow at a faster rate than any of these cities, driven in particular by strong growth in business and financial services.

The new research is claimed to be the first to provide a globally comprehensive ranking of the world’s largest 100 urban agglomerations by their estimated GDP at PPPs, taking into account both population and per capita income levels. It draws on data from the UN, the World Bank, the OECD and national statistical offices, as well as PwC’s own estimates. It shows that several mega-cities have economies that are comparable in scale to many national economies. Tokyo and New York, for example, have estimated GDPs at PPPs roughly the same size as those of Canada and Spain, while London has a higher GDP at PPPs than either Sweden or Switzerland.

Capital’s broad appeal for high-value international investors
London has become the first European capital city to sign an agreement to promote two-way investment with China. Under the agreement, the Investment Promotion Agency, part of China’s Ministry of Commerce, will steer Chinese companies towards the city as a centre of investment in sectors such as financial services, creative industries and pharmaceuticals. It will highlight London’s favourable business environment, regulations and policies, which have already made it a gateway into Europe for Chinese companies. In return, inward investment agency Think London will help British investors to find opportunities in China’s high-tech and heavy manufacturing industries and in the services and environmental protection sectors. The UK is already by far the largest recipient in Europe of Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI), and a third of all Chinese investment into the UK goes to London – 15 per cent of the European total.

The UK capital has strengthened its position as a leading global centre for legal services, according to the Legal Services report produced by International Financial Services, London. The city is home to more than 200 foreign-owned law firms, including over 100 US firms – among them the likes of Baker & McKenzie, Latham & Watkins and White & Case. The remainder are mainly from Europe, Australia and Canada. International law firms based in London feature prominently amongst the largest firms in the world, both in terms of revenue and in the number of lawyers they employ. Fee income from the 100 largest law firms in the UK more than trebled between 1997/98 and 2005/06 to reach a record $21.6 billion, according to the report. Legal services make an important contribution to the UK economy: in 2004 they generated $29.8 billion, or 1.4 per cent of the UK’s gross domestic product.

A new arrival in the UK capital is US law firm Tannenbaum Helpern Syracuse & Hirschtritt, which is opening its first international office in London in its first expansion outside its New York headquarters. The new base will enable it to access new and existing clients, which include hedge funds, accountancy firms and other law firms.

Meanwhile, in the financial services sector, Russian bank Vneshtorgbank is consolidating its European operations in London as it seeks to become a beachhead for Russian companies on the acquisition trail. The Kremlin-controlled bank will bring autonomous operations in Frankfurt, Paris, Vienna, Switzerland and Cyprus under the control of its City of London office. The bank, which aims to raise $4 billion in May by listing shares in London and Moscow, offers corporate finance and investment services to Russian companies expanding into Europe.

UK outperforms US in impact of science research
The UK is outperforming the US in the research impact of a number of key disciplines, including health and biological sciences, according to a new report from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). It has increased its share of the world’s most influential scientific papers and its research base is second only to that of the US worldwide. Science and Innovation Minister Malcolm Wicks said: “I’m proud to say the UK produces 9 per cent of the world’s scientific papers and has a citation share of 12 per cent. … We are in a good position – we have excellent science and strong investment. However, there is no room for complacency, with increasing competition from China.”

The DTI’s UK Research Base 2006 study shows that the UK’s share of high-quality papers is increasing, with a 13 per cent world share of the highest-impact papers. The country is ranked second worldwide in seven different scientific disciplines – biological, clinical, environmental, humanities, pre-clinical and health, social sciences and business – and third in mathematics. Its share of PhD awards is 9.4 per cent within OECD countries, and its strong performance has been achieved with relatively lower investment than its main competitors.

To encourage further research, the DTI’s Collaborative R&D competition for funding from its Technology Programme has opened for applications. The competition is designed to provide funding for innovative, marketable projects that will boost the UK economy. Under it, $200 million is available for UK-based businesses to research and develop new technologies ranging from environmentally-friendly low-carbon projects to leading-edge manufacturing. The programme will include $80 million for advanced manufacturing projects, $30 million for energy technologies, $30 million for lightweight materials and $16 million for ICT. More information can be found at: www.dti.gov.uk.


University partnerships to enhance research capabilities
A major new research initiative has been launched in the North of England, with eight universities coming together in a partnership that will enable businesses to access their world-class expertise. The N8 Research Centres partnership involves the research-intensive universities of Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, York, Sheffield, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle, and marks the first time that a group of UK universities has formed a jointly held company – N8 Ltd – specifically to work together with business. Supported by the Northern Way business initiative to the tune of $12 million, N8 will aim to match the research power of the ‘golden triangle’ of Oxford, Cambridge and London. Teams of researchers from the universities will work jointly on projects in energy, sustainable water use, ageing and related health matters, regenerative medicine and molecular engineering.

Three of Scotland’s leading universities are to establish a research partnership in engineering and related disciplines. Aberdeen, Dundee and Robert Gordon universities will come together to form the Northern Research Partnership (NRP), an initiative that is financially supported by $16 million from the Scottish Funding Council. The purpose of the partnership is to raise the international competitiveness of Scottish engineering research and postgraduate training. It will establish groups of research excellence in clearly defined and strategically important areas and the partner universities have set up a common graduate school to support research student activities, mirroring the establishment of similar regional partnerships in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The Babraham Institute in Cambridge, Eastern England, is to coordinate a new European Research Infrastructure known as ‘ProteomeBinders’, which aims to understand how the human genome functions by studying its proteins. The project, funded through the European Commission’s 6th Framework Programme, will aim to establish an open-access resource of binding molecules directed against the entire human proteome, the full set of over 100,000 proteins specified by the human genome. The initiative will bring together 26 European partners from 12 countries, together with two from the US.


Science strategy aims to put North West on world stage
The second Northwest Science Strategy, developed by the Northwest Science Council, was launched on 17 April at AstraZeneca’s R&D centre at Alderley Edge in Cheshire, marking the establishment’s 50th anniversary. The Northwest Science Strategy brings together businesses, universities and other science partners in the region to ensure that it competes internationally, and builds on the UK’s first ever regional science strategy, launched in 2002. The strategy focuses on sectors critical to the region’s economy, such as aerospace, biohealth, chemicals and nuclear, and aims to improve support to companies, create new knowledge transfer networks and encourage investment in specialist skills.

Science infrastructure across the North West has been dramatically improved since the launch of the first strategy in 2002. Major projects include the Daresbury Science and Innovation Campus, the National Biomanufacturing Centre in Speke, Liverpool Digital, Infolab 21 in Lancaster and Manchester’s Core Technology facility. The region’s research base has also been greatly strengthened through investment in the Cockcroft Institute, the new University of Manchester, the Dalton Nuclear Institute and the Northwest Science Fund.

Another institution in the region, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), has received $23 million in new funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support research into human filariasis. This follows a grant of $50.7 million from the Foundation in 2005 for research aimed at combating malaria. The research has been made possible by the creation of a new Centre for Tropical and Infectious Diseases at LSTM, which has effectively doubled its size.

New model will secure future of GM car plant
The future of General Motors Europe (GME)’s car factory in Ellesmere Port in Cheshire, North West England has been secured, with the company making a surprise announcement that the plant will be one of four in Europe to produce its next generation of small family cars to replace the Astra. The $4.2 billion investment programme will also involve plants in Germany, Poland and Sweden.

There had been fears that GME would announce further redundancies at Ellesmere Port under its restructuring plan to reduce production capacity in Europe, which is aimed at cutting costs and restoring its operations to profit. It had already made 1,200 workers redundant after cutting the plant’s three shifts to two, and production of the Astra there was set to cease after 2010. Now, however, the axe is set to fall instead on a plant in Antwerp, Belgium and the jobs of the 2,200 workforce at Ellesmere Port are secure.

When production of the new model starts, the three-shift working pattern will be reintroduced and the company will be aiming to get back to record production levels, according to GME vice-president for sales and marketing, Jonathan Browning. The plant achieved its highest output of 189,000 vehicles several years ago, but production levels have since fallen back to 145,000 in 2006.

In setting out the reasons for the turnaround in the plant’s fortunes, Mr Browning praised the Merseyside workforce: “They have come a long way over the past five years. They have swallowed the bitter pill of the third shift cut last May, and that was a critical step towards getting the right cost structure and employment base. The plant kept its focus on the key operating activities. There has been a 76 per cent improvement in quality since 2002, 10 million hours without any losses due to safety or similar problems and a 13 per cent productivity improvement in the past year alone. There is a track record of taking the hard steps when necessary and GME has confidence in the ability of its leadership.”

An Australian property developer, Macquarie Goodman, has bought luxury car-maker Jaguar’s former site at Browns Lane in Coventry in the West Midlands. The company has purchased 100 acres of land, and plans to create 1,500 jobs in turning it into an office and warehousing park. Jaguar will keep its wood veneering facility on the 17 remaining acres of the site, where it employs around 400 staff. Jaguar is part of Ford’s Premier Automotive Group (PAG), which also includes Volvo, Land Rover and Aston Martin, and has four plants across the UK. Macquarie Goodman currently controls more than 30 office and logistics developments around the country, including Birmingham Business Park at nearby Solihull.

Connaught Motor Company, a company that has produced the world’s first ‘green’ high-performance hybrid sports coupé, is to set up its global manufacturing and R&D headquarters at Llanelli in South Wales. The $24 million investment will create 200 new skilled jobs over the next three years. The Connaught Technical Centre, a purpose-designed $7 million, 60,000 sq ft production unit incorporating R&D facilities, design workshops and office accommodation, will be built at Llanelli Gate, for completion in 2009. Until then the company will lease temporary accommodation in the area, including interim manufacturing space.

Production of the Connaught Type-D sport car will begin this year, with the first customer vehicle due off the production line in early 2008. The limited-edition four-seater Connaught Type-D GT Syracuse will be followed by the hybrid Type-D V10 sports coupé, which will offer a 30 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions compared with other vehicles in its class. Connaught plans to build 100 cars in the first year and 250 in the second, rising to 1,000 vehicles within five years. It will target both UK and European markets.

The South East of England Development Agency (SEEDA) is to provide $400,000 to fund a new training programme for the composites industry. It will support Cogent, the national skills council for the sector, as it rolls out a specialised training programme across the South East, which is home to over 170 organisations with an involvement in composites. Cogent will work with a number of partners – the Isle of Wight College, Southampton City College, the Composite Processors Association and individual companies – to develop a specific qualification for composite technologies.

Meanwhile SEEDA has joined forces with the East England Development Agency (EEDA) and the London Development Agency (LDA) to back a bid to put a new communications satellite into orbit in 2011. Each will invest $24 million over three years to support the competitive pitch to the European Space Agency (ESA) for the Alphasat launch, led by satellite communications provider Inmarsat and satellite manufacturer EADS Astrium. If the pitch is successful, it will bring big economic benefits to the three regions. Among the sites that will carry out research and manufacturing activities is Astrium’s satellite technology centre of excellence in Portsmouth, where the investment will help to secure 315 jobs.

A UK motorsports company has made the unusual leap from high-performance cars to the aerospace industry. Prodrive, based in Banbury in Oxfordshire, is recognised as a leading automotive technology firm, producing championship-winning race and rally cars. Now, drawing on its expertise in performance engineering and composites manufacture, it has produced components for the Atlas V rocket, which blasted off in April from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Atlas V, one of the most powerful commercial rockets ever launched, will be used to study lightning and the ionosphere. Prodrive manufactured special lightweight panels for the satellite that will carry the imaging equipment crucial to the mission’s success.

David Richards, the company’s chairman, said: “This is a first for Prodrive and quite possibly for any motorsport business. However, I believe it will become increasingly common in the future, as the skills and manufacturing capabilities we have in the motorsport industry are ideally suited to the demands of aerospace and other high-tech businesses, where the development of innovative products that work in demanding environments is paramount.”


BA to expand services at London City Airport
British Airways has launched an ambitious expansion plan at London City Airport, increasing its services by 70 per cent to 250 a week, as it bids to dominate the lucrative domestic and continental European market serving London’s financial districts of the City and Canary Wharf. Initially it will increase its flights to Edinburgh to eight daily and to Glasgow to four daily. It will also launch new services to European business centres such as Zurich, Frankfurt, Milan and Madrid. After the expansion, BA CityFlyer operations at the airport will account for about 20 per cent of its passenger capacity. It plans to handle some 650,000 passengers a year.

The new $8.6 billion Terminal Five at London’s Heathrow Airport is on course to open on 27 March 2008, according to the scheme’s planners. The new terminal will undergo six months of testing, involving 16,000 volunteers who will check everything from car parking to flight journeys before it opens for business. Work began on the terminal, the UK’s biggest free-standing building, in 2002. It will serve an extra 30 million passengers a year, and the first flight scheduled to arrive at the terminal will be a BA service from Hong Kong. Heathrow’s existing four terminals will serve an estimated 68 million passengers this year in ageing facilities designed to accommodate around 45 million, and T5 will provide much-needed breathing space at Heathrow, one of the busiest airports in the world.

The government has given the go-ahead for a new $21 million link road between the A1(M) and the A19 in Durham, North East England. The 2.3km single carriageway will provide an improved connection for the city and help to revitalise the local economy, according to ministers. It will also provide environmental benefits to residents by removing a large number of heavy goods vehicles from local roads. Construction of the A688 Wheatley Hill to Bowburn Link Road will commence in May, with completion of the scheme set for the end of 2008.

Regional news
China Youth Publishing Group (CYPG), one of China’s top publishing groups, has opened its first global office in London. CYP International (CYPI) will act as a global hub for the company, helping it gather information and publish books in the UK for distribution in the international market, as well as taking foreign-copyright and foreign-language books to China. CYPG currently publishes more than 600 titles and ten journals a year, including the Youth Digest, which has a monthly circulation of 2.5 million. Zhang Jingyan, president of CYPG, said: “London provides us with the optimum platform for our global operations. As an international centre of publishing and a beacon for the creative industries, it is a stimulating, fast-paced environment and we are excited to become part of it.”

Viadeo, an online business social network that originated in France and which now has over a million members across Europe, has opened an office in London, next to the OXO Tower on the South Bank. The operation works as a private business community that allows members to share information, contacts, consultants and suppliers, or simply to come together to make friends. “What was important about London was that a lot of our service providers – PR agencies, for example – are in London and there is a strong concentration of businesses here. It was really important for us to be a local UK company, not to be a French company in the UK, and London enables you to achieve that,” said Peter Cunningham, country group manager for Viadeo in the UK. The company received extensive help from inward investment agency Think London in setting up its operation.

Abercrombie & Fitch, the US casual luxury clothing brand, is making its first foray into Europe with the opening of a store in London, basing itself in a listed building in Burlington Gardens in the central Piccadilly area. Established in 1892, the famous firm had struggled for some years before a series of takeovers and a listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 1996. It has now begun expanding internationally, opening a store last year in Canada and planning further openings in Europe and in Japan. “We are thrilled by the opening of the London store, which truly will become a worldwide flagship. Its location in one of the most historic districts in the retail world will provide an extraordinary showcase for the Abercrombie & Fitch brand,” said Mike Jeffries, the company’s chairman and chief executive.

US company Handleman, a supplier of home entertainment products, has opened a new multimillion-dollar Automated Distribution Centre in Bolton, North West England, to supply Tesco stores throughout the UK with CDs, DVDs and computer games. The 275,000 sq ft centre, which is capable of operating 24 hours, seven days a week, has created over 200 new jobs in the local area. Handleman already employs more than 300 people elsewhere in the region at its operation in Birchwood in Warrington, and over 1,000 nationally. The addition of the new facility and the related national field merchandising team increases the company’s total UK workforce to over 2,500.

The Hanseatic Shipping Company, a Cyprus-based ship management company, has opened a new office to serve as its northern European base in Newcastle on Tyneside in North East England. The company, part of the Schulte Group, one of the world’s largest ship-owning and management companies, will manage North Sea and Baltic ships from the office. The choice of Tyneside over rival locations such as Rotterdam demonstrates the North East’s worldwide reputation for marine-related skills. “Newcastle won hands down because of the availability of experienced and skilled labour in the maritime industries,” said Philip Harwood, Hanseatic’s general manager. A new International Marine Design Centre is also due to open soon in Newcastle, and will aim to attract $200 million in new business to the area’s marine and defence sectors by 2016.

Online retailer Amazon is to open a new operations base between Swansea and Neath in South Wales in time for Christmas 2007. The distribution facility will create 1,200 new permanent jobs and 1,500 seasonal jobs over the next five years, according to the company. It will ship goods throughout the UK, mainly to Amazon’s largest UK market of South East England, but may also serve customers in northern Europe. Building work on the 800,000 sq ft facility began in April, on a 33-acre site at Jersey Marine that Amazon has purchased from the Welsh Assembly. This will be the online giant’s fourth distribution centre in the UK.

US-based life sciences database specialist Cognia plans to establish a new operations centre in South Gyle in Edinburgh, Scotland, creating up to 75 new jobs. Cognia creates databases in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, helping companies to accelerate drug research and discovery. Its databases collate information that can be scattered across more than 10 million scientific papers, providing a navigable resource containing all the known facts about a particular area of research. The company recently announced a commercial licence agreement with ITI Life Sciences to license text-mining IP developed under a joint programme with Edinburgh University’s School of Informatics. Cognia currently operates a Development Centre in the Scottish capital, with a workforce of 30.

Electronics manufacturing services company Plexus is to move its European Design Centre to larger premises on the Alba Campus in Livingston, Scotland, following a further expansion of its design services team. The US-based company established a design centre in July 2002 which now employs 19 engineers, and it plans to create a further 19 high-value design jobs over the next two years. Plexus currently provides advanced electronics design, manufacturing and testing services, primarily for OEMs and other technology companies in the wireless infrastructure, networking, medical, industrial, defence and aerospace industries. It operates a manufacturing facility at Kelso that employs 300 people.

US software developer KCRS is to establish a European headquarters in Glasgow in Scotland. The company’s products are aimed at tackling sickness absence and the ‘return to work’ process; it believes that its main product, PIHMS, can help organisations across Europe reduce the number of lost workdays, reduce healthcare costs, improve communications and productivity and comply with regulatory requirements. The product works by coordinating data from companies’ existing HR management systems to allow an effective overview of workforce management. KCRS will create 30 new jobs, and initially will be based at the University of Glasgow.

Schlumberger, the world’s leading oilfield services company, has opened a new assembly and test facility at its Completions Product Centre in Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland. The multi-million dollar expansion has increased the Centre’s capacity by incorporating cutting-edge equipment to support the design, qualification and manufacture of specialised products for advanced, intelligent oil and gas well completions. The Centre, at the Monkstown Industrial Estate, now includes a unique deep well simulator capable of simulating downhole temperature and pressure conditions, making it one of the most advanced testing facilities in the world. The investment was supported by Invest Northern Ireland.

Scotland’s financial services sector grew at three times the rate of the rest of the country’s economy in 2006, according to new statistics. The sector has expanded by 55 per cent since 2000 and now accounts either directly or indirectly for one in ten Scottish jobs. The industry’s performance was highlighted at the launch of the second annual report of the Financial Services Advisory Board (FiSAB), a partnership between government, industry and trade unions that works to deliver the Strategy for the Financial Services Industry in Scotland. John Campbell, chairman of Scottish Financial Enterprise and senior managing director of State Street Corporation, commented: “Scotland continues to outperform many of its rival business centres around the world as a preferred location for leading financial services companies, but global competition is fierce and we have to keep moving forward."

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