Business to Business News

Energy performance certificates are all over the news and Internet recently, they are so much in the news that people are starting to use them as a every day word such as E P C and other variations. The term refers to a certificate you need when trying to sell your home. Here are the rules

“Energy Performance Certificate - new rules This bit is important because under new regulations, from October 1st 2008, you - the homeowner - are responsible for the Energy Performance Certificate. So you need to check your estate agent doesn’t trip-up and potentially land you both with a £200 fine, per instance! From October 1st 2008, an Energy Performance Certificate must now be available:

when the property is viewed;

when written information is provided on request;

before contracts are exchanged.

Sales particulars: Displaying the Energy Performance Certificate

As a minimum, the asset ratings graphs (see top picture) from your EPC must be included within the sales particulars (including electronic) if they contain two or more of the following:

A photograph of the building or any room inside the building

A floor plan of the building

A description of the size of the rooms in the building.

Advertising

With window cards and newspaper adverts you are not legally obliged to include the rating graphs, although the Government suggests it would be good practice to do so if they contain any two of the above items.

Commissioned

By ‘commissioned’, the Government means all documents - including the EPC - within your HIP must have been ordered with a commitment to pay. There should also be an expectation that all documents will be made available within 28 days. If they are not (unlikely in most cases), the person responsible for marketing your home must make reasonable efforts to obtain them as soon as possible, or risk pain of penalty (see below). From 31st December 2008 a Home Information Pack must be available from the time it is first placed on the market (subject to Govt review) - This date ends the transition period allowing Hips only to be commissioned before marketing commences.

Enforcement penalty fine (£200)

If you - or your estate agent - is responsible for actively marketing your home, there is pain in store for not obtaining a HIP: £200 penalty fine (repeatable for each day). The EPC, however, is solely the homeowners responsibility; although it would be a daft estate agent that attempts to market a home without an EPC in the HIP because they too would kop for a fine. Estate agents are automatically reported to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) too; with continued naughtiness leading to a banning order.”

Personally I think the whole thing is another way the government is making money and probably putting thousands of pounds worth of claims into there own greedy pockets through the expenses claims that there has been massive uproar over. What do you think of E P C’ s? Technically the information that i given will either make your house more salable or not, as if you are given a rating of F or G then your house will have a high running cost when it comes to things like heating.

Cash strapped motorists struggling to afford fuel costs, have started flocking to pay-as-you-go clubs across the UK.

Reports from the UK’s one of big four car-sharing companies, City Car Club, indicated 46% rise in its membership in last ten months, taking current membership to 2,200.

Vast majority of more than 700 motorists who joined the club this year, were registered in last few weeks, as prevailing credit crunch and ever rising running costs made owning of a car more expensive. They are now using cars of the club, parked at specific places, by paying charges per journey.

Edinburgh’s car club is growing as the fastest clubs in the UK as large number of drivers is abandoning vehicles to cut household bills.

There is big fall in sales of new cars close to 19% in Edinburgh this year, as reported by Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

Keith Stark, manager of the City Car Club, Scotland, informed that number of motorists joining the club has shot up recently due to credit crunch, making it grow as the fastest car clubs in the UK close to surpassing even London in size.

According to RAC’s data analysis, on an average a motorist is able to cut running cost of a family car by £1,300 for journey of 4,000 miles per year by switching to car-sharing.

The UK-based pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline, intends to reopen negotiations with the Department of Health, for the reversal of decision by the National Health Service regarding GSK’s cancer medicine Tyverb.

The company is likely to offer a “price-volume” deal, which would address concerns of the government’s medicine advisory board regarding the high cost of the drug in comparison with its benefits to the patients.

GSK’s Tyverb has already been approved by the European regulator for treatment of late-stage breast cancer. It was launched last year in the US under the name Tyverb, but met with greater resistance in the UK.

A ruling, by the National Institute for Health and Clinical excellence (Nice), against Tyverb, halted the use of medicine in the UK. In fact, Nice made series of rejections of cancer drugs for high prices, including Avastin from Roche of Switzerland and Erbitux from Merck of Germany.

GSK has come out with an innovative price proposal for Tyverb. It is suggesting NHS to put a cap on the total cost of the medicine irrespective of number of patients using it. It proposes a fixed price which would cover the drug cost for several thousand patients. GSK estimates that 70% of the UK patients who fail to get relief through other treatments including Herceptin, would benefit from Tyverb.

US car giant, GM, is hopeful of becoming profitable again in the year 2010, according to a top executive of the firm. In eighteen months, GM has lost nearly £31.36bn. GM closed down many factories and laid-off a lot of staff, however they were still struggling to counter the slow moving economy and increasing fuel prices.

If the car sales recover in the year 2010 and GM continues to cut costs, the corporation would be profitable again, according to Vice Chairman Bob Lutz. He added that at this point of time, the future is very cloudy in terms of development of the market and when it would pick up again.

The company is losing money on almost all of its model lines, according to Mr Lutz. He believes that the prices for fuel efficient small cars would rise as demand grows.

Slowdown of Hummer

The rising cost of fuel has slowed down the demand for popular sports vehicles that GM is most famous for. The company has previously indicated that it wants to sell off Hummer, its iconic brand. Among those who are interested in buying the popular brand are Russian Machines, an engineering company that makes planes, trains and automobile parts and Mahindra & Mahindra, the Indian car maker.

Tata group’s newly owned Jaguar and Land Rover are planning to take both the brands in to £100,000 plus luxury car market, currently dominated by players like Bentley and Aston Martin. David Smith, who was recently appointed as the permanent chief executive of Jaguar and Land Rover, informed that both the brands would produce highly credible products which will attract most people in the market. Mr. Smith was speaking after the second visit of Indian group’s chairman Mr. Ratan Tata, who bought both the companies for $2bn in April.

Mr. Tata had supported the business plan presented to him in April. The plan for next 30 months included the launch of a new model as a replacement to the XJ saloon next year. After going through the prospective projects during his second visit, Mr. Tata got very enthusiastic about group’s long-term business potential.
According to Mr. Smith, it will take some time to enter in to the £100,000 plus car market which has proved quite fertile for Bentley and Aston Martin. Bentley sold 10,000 units last year and Aston proposes to sell similar quantity next year. According to the executives at Land Rover and Jaguar, China, Russia and Middle East are the potential markets for the sale of £100,000 plus price cars.

Ford Research centre in Germany has got the new Managing Director, Dr. Charles Wu who will assume office on July 1. He will continue to function as Director, Manufacturing, Vehicle Design and Safety, Research & Advanced Engineering based in Dearborn, Michigan, USA.

Outgoing MD Professor Dr. Rudolf Menne will be entrusted with the responsibility for government and university alliances for environmental science and traffic policy within Ford Europe. He will continue to represent Ford at EUCAR (European Council for Automotive R&D), and FVV (Research Association for Combustion Engines).

Charles Wu joined Research and Innovation Centre of Ford, in 1974, at Michigan and held various management positions, including Manager of Manufacturing Systems Department (1992-1994) and Manager of Engine Research Department (1994-1996). He also functioned as Director of Materials Research Laboratory and Director of Manufacturing and Vehicle Design Research and Advanced Engineering.

He is Bachelor Science in Mechanical Engineering and did his Ph.D. from the University of London, England.
The Ford Research Centre Aachen, dedicated to basic and applied research, is the only Ford Motor Company research centre in the world outside of Detroit. It interacts and exchanges ideas with suppliers, institutions and universities worldwide.

Ford of Europe registered impressive growth in is sales in last 5 months despite adverse economic conditions worldwide. Its year to date sales in 51 markets rose by 18,400 to 828,300 vehicles, amounting to 2.3 per cent jump compared to the same period last year.

Ingvar Sviggum, vice president, Marketing (Sales and Service), Ford of Europe, attributed the rise in sales to meeting growing appeal of consumers for exciting range of vehicle. He expressed confidence that Ford of Europe would continue to do well.

Five months sale of this year is 683,100 vehicles in the Euro 19 markets (a market share of 8.7 per cent). With 145,200 units sold in Russia, Turkey and Ford’s European Direct Markets, total sales amount to 828,300 units. Ford has recorded a phenomenal growth of 36.6 per cent in Russia with May sales alone touching 18,600 units.

The major contributor in Ford of Europe’s rising sales was its model ‘Focus’, selling 35,100 units, followed by Fiesta (25,300 units), which remained the best-selling imported car in Italy and France.

Holfords, the car accessories-to-bike retailer, is an expansion mode. The management is encouraged by rising demand from UK’s consumers for bikes and car maintenance products, and has plans to open more stores in Europe. The retailer has registered a jump of 11 per cent in its pre-tax profits despite global slowdown in economy. Total sales were £797.4m, up 7.2 per cent.

Nick Wharton, joint managing director of Holfords, states that company is prompted by the impressive performance of its stores in Czech Republic to expand and open first store in Wroclaw in Poland this autumn. Having opened three stores in Czech Republic last year, Holford is planning to open up in Hungary and Slovakia.

According to Wharton, ageing of cars in central Europe is creating a boom for its car maintenance products. He also intends to enter lucrative Russian market, but would be mainly focussed on central Europe for the foreseeable future. Holford operates 17 stores in republic of Ireland.

The average transaction value of Holfords in stores is meagre £20. According to Wharton, this protects the company against credit crunch and consumer downturn. He sees large growth potential in satellite navigation market since only 15 per cent of 33 million cars in UK are equipped with the navigation device till date.

Hornby, the owner of Airfix and Scalextric, posted a 17 per cent jump in pre-tax profits for the year ending March 31. It is now planning a quick turnaround for car firm Corgi, which the model group bought for £7.5 million.

Corgi had sold millions of cars at its peak, but could not post any profit last year. Hornby’s chief executive Frank Martin is confident of rebuilding sales, market share and profits and informs that Corgi’s retailers and collectors are most delighted with the takeover.

Hornby’s sales were up by 19 per cent at £55.7 million, and profits rose by 17% at £9 million. Chairman Neil Johnson is anticipating another good year of high performance not withstanding downtrend in the markets and slowdown of economy. According to Mr.

Martin, Hornby will mainly focus on retailing of Corgi’s range of products and supplies of inventory, during the current financial year. Corgi’s products include Eddie Stobart trucks, London buses and heritage models like MGB Roadster. According to Martin, Corgi’s new products will include Formula One racing cars and earth moving and agricultural models.

Ford has been known for enhancing quality with addition of innovative features, and the new Ford Focus ST is no exception. New improved 2008 Ford Focus ST, which is set to arrive in the UK market, has some amazing features. It has models with three doors, four doors and five doors body. The car has improved interiors, soft feel trim and sharp styling. 

Better sound proofing and well positioned controls are the other improvements, which are bound to enhance the user experience. Apart from visual elements, vast improvement in electronics for the engine will make the car more eco-friendly. The improved engine has lower CO2 emissions.

All body panels except roof, side window and wind screen have been given a new and fresh look. Build quality has been enhanced with usage of better quality plastics. Fuel refuelling system has been made foolproof. This stops putting diesel fuel in a petrol model by mistake. Thanks to lesser noise driving, driving Ford Focus ST will be a pleasant experience.

The car has other features like system for warning about tyre pressure, socket for DVD players and laptop, and LED rear lights. Anti-lock braking, central locking, ABS system, four air bags, height adjustment for driver’s seat and folding rear seat - all of which make Ford Focus the most stylish car.

The price range for the new Ford Focus is £12,000 to £20,500.