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.
The economic downturn could not put a dent in the sales growth of Reckitt Benckiser, the maker of Harpic bleach, Finish dishwater tablets and Strepsils lozenges. It has raised its sales forecast for the full year, since it continued to remain the shoppers’ choice as the premium-priced brands.
Chief executive, Bart Becht, reported a net revenue growth of 10% over 3 months to the end of September and raised like-for-like full year revenue target to 9% from 7%, and upgraded profit target of 11% to a minimum 11%.
Becht informed that the company was aiming for a full year growth rate of 9% on net revenue which would be second best year of growth since the merger in 1999. He considered this as pretty good achievement in prevailing market conditions.
Becht dismissed apprehensions that Reckitt’s brands were vulnerable to customer trading down. He brushed aside concern, with an emphatic “No”, that company was losing business to private labels.
He noted that Reckitt’s revenue growth was mainly due to premium-priced products, which suggested that shoppers were surely trading up. Becht supported his argument by citing success of Finish dishwasher tablets and air freshener Airwick Freshmatic.
Finance director Colin Day informed that profit growth in the fourth quarter might come down marginally since company would be investing in seasonal marketing campaign to ensure continuity of sales momentum into the New Year.
GlaxoSmithKline registered growth in revenues and earnings per share beyond prediction courtesy of the weak pound.
According to the company release its third quarter turnover increased by 7% to £5.88bn and the gain in earnings per share was 6% to 25.2p. But the company saw 3% decline in overall sales on constant exchange rate terms. The fall in sales in US was 13% since many of Glaxo’s products had reached ‘generic cliff’, which is the period when patent runs out and other companies get entitled to produce similar products. The company is predicting full year mid-single digit range loss in sales.
Another big pharmaceutical company Merck is cutting 7,200 jobs, around 12% of current strength, under its restructuring programme. Merck’s 3rd quarter profits fell 28% due to flat sales and generic competition.
Another pharmaceutical giant Pfizer reported 13% fall in US consumption of its best-selling cholesterol drug Lipitor, raising concerns that even stable sectors were unable to escape turmoil in the US retail market.
Andrew Witty, Glaxo’s CEO stated that company would require close monitoring of the impact of global economy changes on the product demand, and would have to look for diversification to overcome risks.
According to Glaxo’s spokeswoman, company’s core business was only marginally affected by the financial crisis. She reported that its asthma drug Advair sales were up 5% in the US and 7% overall.
GlaxoSmithKline announced that it was planning redundancy of 850 jobs in Britain and US in the research and development sections for improving employee productivity and efficiency.
Glaxo employs 15,000 people in its R&D operations globally, of which 5,000 work at sites in London and Hertfordshire.
According to Glaxo’s spokeswoman the company had started consultations on cutting of jobs after reviewing its business operations. She added that it was a hard decision but the changes were aimed at longer-term strategy of investment in key areas of growth for making business more competitive in the challenging environment being faced by the pharmaceutical companies.
The spokeswoman informed that GSK was reshaping its R&D operations to exploit new scientific opportunities for improvement of productivity and this regrettably necessitated the reduction of jobs. She assured that the company would do everything possible to support those likely to be affected by the proposal.
Glaxo’s ex-chief executive Garnier had already outlined plans for massive savings of £700m by 2010. His successor Andrew Witty suggested a review of the company’s strategic priorities informing investors that the industry was facing numerous challenges since a large number of its products had lost patent protection, patients were expecting better medicines and financers were demanding cost-effective health care. He stressed that hard work was essential for obtaining bigger returns from investments on R&D.
Andrew Witty hoped that new priorities would evolve GSK into a balanced group of healthcare businesses.
Drug companies have strongly refuted the charges of over-pricing put against them by the chairman of National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). Prof Sir Michael Rawlins has accused drug firms of making profits by selling new medicines at 10 times of their production cost.
The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) hit back at the chairman for making baseless charges.
NICE was criticised by the industry for not granting approval to the expensive cancer drugs.
According to Sir Michael, it was a pressure tactic by the drug firms to earn more profits by hiking prices. He claimed that the hike was largely linked to profit-driven share prices and the salaries of the company executives, resulting in the increased prices.
Sir Michael adds that pharmaceutical companies had been reaping the benefits of double-digit growth all these years, and are pushing hard to maintain that trend.
ABPI informs that it did not see any linking of drug pricing with employee pay packets or company profits. According to its spokesman, Prof Michael is ignoring the huge contribution of the pharmaceutical companies to public healthcare and its initiatives in reducing drug prices. He points out that drug prices in the UK have fallen by 21% in the last ten years. The spokesman also claims that pharmaceuticals have made massive investments in research and development work, an average £550m, which is bound to reflect in drug prices; a fact that is being overlooked by Prof Michael.
GlaxoSmithKline has been awarded contract by the Department of Health to provide cervical cancer vaccine to girls across UK. GSK’s win is a blow to the rivals Sanofi Pasteur MSD, which is a joint venture between Merck of the US and Sanofi-Aventis of France for sales in Europe.
It was earlier predicted that Department of Health would choose Sanofi Pasteur MSD’s Gardasil vaccine for its 2m courses of HPV vaccine over three years. British scientific advisers were expected to recommend Gardasil on the basis of its protection against broader number of HPV sub-types. They were not prepared to approve Cervarix unless it was priced significantly lesser than Gardasil.
Eddie Gray, president of pharmaceuticals Europe for GSK, described it as great news for girls and women across UK and considered this to be the reflection of confidence in Cervarix’s cancer protection and sustained immune response. He informed that GSK won 16 tenders out of 20 across Europe in the last few months.
Patrick Poirot, vice-president for medical and scientific affairs at Sanofi Pasteur MSD, regretted that schoolgirls in the UK will be deprived of Gardasil’s unmatched cervical cancer protection and its additional benefits, unlike their peers in US, Australia, and Western Europe. He informed that Gardasil enjoys 90 per cent market share in Europe.
DoH in its explanation for approval of Cervarix mentions that it examined the rival vaccines against scientific qualities and cost effectiveness.
The UK pharmaceutical company, GSK, will have to wait for the US approval of its cancer vaccine until 2010. The company has pinned its hopes of phenomenal business growth on the magic Cervarix treatment. It is expecting sales of more than $1bn a year after the introduction of vaccine in the market.
Cervarix vaccine already on sale in north America is posing a tough competition to Merck’s Gardasil vaccine. The analysts are worried that this may lead to delays in the US approval for GSK’s vaccine. GSK has restrained from divulging FDA’s concerns over approval, but market observers believe that the concern is primarily about a chemical that boosts immune response to the vaccine.
GSK has already bagged approval for sale of its Cervarix in 67 countries including Europe. It is quite confident that its long-term efficacy trial data of those vaccinated over past 4 years will substantiate its claim for US approval. Barbara Howe, GSK’s vice- president and director for North American vaccine development, informed that the company is continuing its positive discussion with FDA and is confident about the vaccine’s safety and efficacy.
Four Seasons Health Care is in deep financial trouble. Its £1.5bn of borrowing is due for refinancing in the next three months. It faces a covenant on debt and has breached it already. One of Britain’s biggest nursing and care home groups, it was bought by a Qatari investor 2 years ago.
The financial crisis has triggered tensions between Paul Taylor, founder of Four Seasons’ owner Three Delta and the Qatar Investment Authority. The situation is heading to the worst. Three Delta and its lenders have so far not succeeded in tackling the serious issue of e refinancing. Their problems are further aggravated by the decision of banks to withdraw lending against commercial property which was the main asset base for Four Seasons.
The company has its £1.24bn senior debt due on September 2, and paid a small sum to avoid breach of covenant on its facilities. If the company fails to raise enough debt to refinance its loans, the private equity owners are not likely put up more money to ease the situation.
Attracted by the growth opportunities in health care sector, private equity firms have put in their heavy investments. Since January 2005, the sector registered 370 deals worth £33.3bn. Despite strong industry fundamentals, Four Seasons struggled mainly due to lower occupancy rates. It averaged 84 per cent against the industry average of 90-92 per cent.
GlaxoSmithKline, the UK-base drug group, were given a jolt by its brokers when one of them expressed serious reservations over its new vaccine and another stated that its research arm needed overhaul.
Investment bank Morgan Stanley expressing doubts over launch of Cervarix, vaccine to prevent cervilic cancer, in US until 2014, switched GSK to ‘underweight’.
This has given a severe blow to GSK in its attempts to capture the market currently dominated by Merck and Sanofi-Aventis, cancer vaccine Gardasil which is being sold in US and European Union. The bank says that GSK is facing series of patent enquiries and has lowered its 2010 earnings per share forecast by 10%. The vaccine under clouds of doubts represents a 25% of GKS’ revenue growth in the next 4 years, under such adverse conditions. The bank therefore switched it to ‘underweight’.
US Food and Drug Administration did not approve any adjuvant since the 1930s, and expressed apprehensions that vaccine could cause heart disease in elderly patients.GSK recently declared that the safety profile of Cervarix is very strong as reflected in the analysis involving over 65,000 patients. It saw no significant difference between Cervarix and control groups with respect to auto-immune disorders.