Green & Smart Share Discussion Threads

[simon gordon] 20/5/2007 15:21

Hi Alter Ego,

~London Eye for three years.
~Fujitsu for five years.

Both are mentioned on the GSH website news page.

[alter ego] 19/5/2007 18:58

Simon, is there any indication of the size of the contracts and/or the length?

[simon gordon] 19/5/2007 16:53

GSH are mentioned twice in FM World for winning contracts: London Eye and Fujitsu.

The Fujitsu contract is a new one since the interims. It covers the Fujitsu bulidings in the North of England.

[charterhouse3] 18/5/2007 10:25

Still ticking up - onwards to 500p and beyond !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[simon gordon] 17/5/2007 14:37

Article indicating that Building Emissions are becoming a very hot topic:

NEW YORK, New York, May 16, 2007 (ENS) - Former President Bill Clinton today announced the creation of a $5 billion global effort to fight global warming by retrofitting existing buildings with more energy efficient products, thereby reducing the emission of greenhouse gases.

A project of the Clinton Climate Initiative, the program brings together four of the world's largest energy service companies, five of the world's largest banks, and 15 of the world's largest cities to reduce energy consumption in existing buildings.

President Clinton announced the Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Program at the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit now underway in New York. Mayors from across the United States and around the world are at the summit to strategize on climate change issues.

Former President Bill Clinton has created the first global program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing buildings.

"Climate change is a global problem that requires local action," said Clinton. "The businesses, banks and cities partnering with my foundation are addressing the issue of global warming because it's the right thing to do, but also because it's good for their bottom line."
"They're going to save money, make money, create jobs and have a tremendous collective impact on climate change all at once," he said.

Urban areas are responsible for approximately 75 percent of all energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Buildings account for nearly 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and in older cities such as New York and London this figure is much higher.

[charterhouse3] 16/5/2007 14:38

normally 24 hours so I suspect there was something else going on between the market makers !!!

I bought a few more today at 468.75 and they have appeared quite quickly.

Having said that I have received letters from my brokers for the majority of my purchases saying that the trade has no settled in the market although I can treat them as being mine (for dividend purposes etc). Eventually a letter arrives stating that the trade has settled and the shares have been officially transferred to me.

Strange but at least the share price is heading north !!

CH3

[alter ego] 16/5/2007 14:30

charterhouse, still not showing. For someone who doesn't know, just how long are trades allowed to be unreported?

[charterhouse3] 15/5/2007 16:07

the trades are not showing but expect delayed confirmation of some serious purchases

Will be heading close to 500p in the next day or two I reckon.

;o)

[alter ego] 11/5/2007 13:41

Simon, you need to get out more :-))

[simon gordon] 10/5/2007 15:30

The above is of real-time paint drying...

[alter ego] 10/5/2007 15:20

quiet? yes but there's not a lot to say until we see news of disposal of the Scarr Hall stake I think. Maybe even then it will take time for the market to price these as a "normal" stock and not one controlled by the founding family.

[charterhouse3] 10/5/2007 11:53

This board has een quiet lately !!

The share price has been creeping up nicely. Even chartists would suggest that we are ready for a break onto new highs.

CH3

[simon gordon] 29/4/2007 10:58

Background data on how GSH operates:

C0MMUNICATION IS KEY TO PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT - 30.03.06

It goes without saying that a company is only as good as its people. Nowhere is this truer than the FM sector, where day-to-day operational performance is judged against measurable Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and stringent evaluation is the norm. As the sector becomes increasingly service-led, the ability to attract and retain good quality, motivated staff from a relatively limited pool is a critical form of competitive differentiation.

So if skills shortages and staff retention are now two of the biggest issues facing the sector, how do you make the most of what you have got? Mark Longley, HR Director of expanding FM provider, GSH was the recent recipient of a BIFM Award for introducing an innovative communications strategy alongside its 'Excellence Through People' (ETP) Programme. In this article he explains how the strategy was put into practice and what the benefits have been.

ASPIRATIONAL THINKING

The objective behind GSH's internal communications strategy is to create a positive HR culture 24/7, based on encouragement, opportunity and a belief that 'if you're good enough, you're old enough! A package of inter-active employee communication initiatives designed to fill in the gaps between three month appraisals or individual training courses is designed to ensure staff stay involved and aim high.

The process starts during induction. First impressions are vital and the objective is to welcome people into the company on an individual basis and explain what is expected of them. 'Buddy schemes' are implemented as appropriate. However the process of learning is not all one way. At the end of every induction week, new staff are invited to suggest where GSH may be able to learn lessons from their former company.

PROJECT TALKBACK

This element of 360 degree channel of communication with all employees continues via a series of monthly team meetings designed to keep staff up to date. Project Talkback enables employees to hear the 'Team Brief' first-hand from key managers and then put forward ideas or questions, giving them the opportunity to contribute to the development of the business.

Meetings are based on a set format allowing information to be passed up and down. It is an approach that has been particularly welcomed by engineers working on customer sites that do not necessarily visit a GSH office. The personal aspect is essential and means staff can receive immediate answers to their questions.

CONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT

The principle of continuous individual development is integral to GSH's Excellence Through People programme. It is based on four key Investors in People principles namely: commitment, planning, action and evaluation. All staff join the existing structured development programme and receive job specific training. The goal is to create a comprehensive approach to employee development at all levels in order to actively encourage internal promotion and career progression.

Every year an employee profile is completed by the direct line manager. This enables individuals to be assessed on their potential and what support they need. Individual performance development plans are structured around quarterly appraisals. The emphasis is on the importance of recognition and valuing employees on a formal basis. Performance is reviewed and targets set for the next quarter, whilst also facilitating succession planning.

TAILORMADE TRAINING

A wide range of employee development programmes are available reflecting that an average of 15% of the previous year's profit is invested in a dedicated training fund. Apprentices are recruited annually by GSH and all 40 of the current program have joined a BEST (Building Engineering Services Training) programme consisting of a four year modern apprenticeship.

As well as enjoying the same statutory and pension benefits as other full-time employees, apprentices have their driving lessons and first test sponsored in full. Funds are provided to help them buy 'the tools of the trade'. On completing their apprenticeship, staff become fully qualified service engineers with a trade and invariably join the company. External recognition is evident from GSH apprentices winning their H & V News Awards category for two consecutive years.

Management recruits automatically join the six-month GSH Management School, successful completion of which means graduation and full management responsibility. Success is measured through assessment on a proficiency system based on an 'Evaluation Matrix' covering six modules. Critically, the scheme does not represent an exclusive club. All existing non-management employees are also invited to apply to join and gain additional skills in people and financial management etc.

In order to keep staff up to date with issues across the Business, GSH has produced a new version of the 12 page staff magazine "Aspire". The biggest difference is not size, but editorial tone, with the new version clearly written by and for employees as opposed to having a 'house style and content' imposed from top level management.

Furthermore, GSH has recently completed a Staff DVD which involved the participation of some 200 employees throughout the country, from Glasgow to London and Cardiff to Halifax. It has proved a huge success in bringing GSH people together and encouraging greater communication at all levels.

RESULTS

Communication is central to an FM staff development strategy. If from the outset people are made aware that the company's culture is that they should aspire to do the best job they can, then that is a good start. But even more importantly, this message must be communicated regularly to staff throughout their career through appraisals, training and even in their own staff magazine.

Get that right and deliver on your development promises and there will be an immediate return in terms of a pro-active ethos typified by higher service levels, exceptional client and staff retention and below industry average absenteeism and sickness. Get that wrong and the results really don't bear thinking about.

[simon gordon] 27/4/2007 19:18

I have been dwelling on a portion of post 160:

'There are also many little flashes of enlightenment, called kensho, which are intense forms of those everyday noticings that surprise us or please us because they seem to reveal a truth, or to be exemplary, or to connect us again, momentarily, with the sense of awe. Haiku is a momentary, condensed poetic form and its special quality is that it is perfectly adapted to give the reader that little instant of kensho insight.'

The corporate-like Haiku that Colin Tennent has given shareholders for Kensho, in my mind are:

ANNUAL REPORT - 17/11/06

A major opportunity for growth in the UK is the expansion of our building fabric business.

The fabric maintenance market in the UK is heavily fragmented and worth £5 billion. We view this as a tremendous opportunity to grow this part of the UK business.

The USA remains a major opportunity for the group...we are investing in developing the management team and infrastructure to support dramatic growth.

I am convinced that the trend towards outsourcing of building services and maintenance will continue to grow regardless of changes in the economy or government policy.

DELTA ACQUISITION - Press Release - 23/03/07

GSH is pursuing an aggressive strategy of growth....

---

Shareholders can judge these corporate-like Haiku against what Colin Tennent delivers in the future, as these are the business strategy points that the he is telling us he wants GSH to achieve - the enlightenment.

As a shareholder I am seeking enlightenment, to feel a oneness with the share I hold. I seek Bliss, in other words, I seek PROFIT.

I know to maximise my profit I will have to sit and meditate in GSH for many years. These corporate-like Haiku and future ones will be mantras.

---

I realise that in previous postings in which I have used the term 'supply chain' that this is incorrect and the correct term is 'infrastructural efficiences.'

[hanoversquare] 27/4/2007 09:50

KBC suddenly making a charge on the bid this morning - current spread 445/450.

We could be ready for the next surge upwards.

[alter ego] 25/4/2007 09:52

Ok Simon, thanks. To be honest, 08 is far enough away to be comfortable with a modest uplift. I much prefer positive surprises as time passes to unfulfilled expectations. Current expectations should pose few problems to worry the share price imo.

[simon gordon] 24/4/2007 16:01

Yes, it is the first '08 update for ages.

The last KBC note was issued a year ago, and DL had an old forecast for '08. Maybe KBC have issued a new note.

The '07 margin forecast is 5.26%, so not much uplift to '08 which is 5.43%.

[alter ego] 24/4/2007 15:42

Simon, am I right in thinking it's the 08 forecast that's changed?

[simon gordon] 24/4/2007 13:32

Digital Look forecast by KBC Peel Hunt:

31-Jul-07
T/O - 150m
PBT - 7.9m
EPS - 26.8
DPS - 8.4

31-Jul-08
T/O - 175m
PBT - 9.5
EPS - 32.18
DPS - 9.4

[simon gordon] 24/4/2007 08:07

Th,

No thanks.

[theophilus] 23/4/2007 20:14

Sorry this is a bit off topic - well a lot lately but I have been following Nanette (NAT).

I have made a few posts on the appropriate thread but would be grateful to hear other opinions.

Obviously risky but somehow interesting and I have done well with my small holding.

The chart over recent weeks tells a story.

The connection with Lehman Brothers Real Estate gives an aura of respectabiliy.

Cheers

Th.

[simon gordon] 19/4/2007 10:49

This is the best article I've come across since the inflation data hit the fan:

Is it too late to tame the inflation monster?

We risk a return to the inflationary mentality of the 1970s

By Anatole Kaletsky

The foundations of Gordon Brown's economic strategy really did start to crack on Tuesday, just as the Tories were tabling their motion of no confidence in him in the House of Commons. But what threatens the Chancellor's economic reputation has nothing to do with "pension raids", or fiscal imprudence or any of the other trumped-up charges that the Tories tried to heap on Mr Brown. It is, in fact, a shock for which the Chancellor could hardly be blamed at all, but which poses a far greater threat to his ability to govern the country successfully than any of his alleged offences against pensioners, taxpayers or health service employees.

The shock in question is the news that Britain's inflation, instead of stabilising and then gradually subsiding as generally expected, is accelerating sharply and maybe even spiralling out of control. To use the word "spiralling", with its connotations of the destructive wage-price spirals of the 1970s and 1980s, may seem alarmist. After all, the 3.1 per cent official inflation figure announced on Tuesday is only 0.1 percentage point outside the tolerance zone agreed with the Governor of the Bank of England when Mr Brown mandated him in 1997 to aim for a 2 per cent inflation target - and to write a letter of explanation if this target was missed by more than one percentage point.

Why, then, do I use such hyperbolic language? Because the stage-managed correspondence of Mervyn King, the Governor, with the Chancellor is by no means the worst of this week's economic events. More disconcerting than the jump in the inflation figure itself is the economic backdrop against which it has occurred. This week's 16-year inflation record coincided with the pound rising above $2 for the first time since 1992. The strengthening of the pound normally should have subdued inflation, yet prices have gone up much faster in Britain than in the rest of the world. Inflation in Europe, America and Japan has recently subsided as oil prices have stabilised; why then are British prices moving the other way?

The only reasonable conclusion is that underlying inflationary pressures in Britain - not just from oil and food, but also from consumer goods and services more broadly - are now considerably stronger than in other advanced economies.

To make matters worse, these pressures are likely to intensify because of a statistical quirk unique to Britain: the divergence between "official" inflation, as measured by the 3.1 per cent increase in the recently introduced consumer price index (CPI), and "headline" inflation, as presented by the 4.8 per cent increase in the traditional retail prices index. The RPI has been the main gauge of inflation in Britain for 50 years and government departments, trade union bargainers and employers still use it as the benchmark for setting wages, pensions and financial payments. Many people believe that the CPI measure understates significantly the true cost of living in Britain, because it excludes such crucial elements as mortgages and council taxes.

Normally, the two indices move together, with an average gap of only about half a percentage point, so the difference doesn't matter very much. In the past year, however, they have diverged widely, with CPI inflation drifting only slightly higher than it was a year ago, while the RPI figure has soared to levels not seen since 1991.

The debate about whether the CPI or the RPI is a truer measure of inflation is normally of interest only to academics, but when the disparity becomes as wide as it is today this technical dispute suddenly acquires political and economic significance. When inflation on both measures was very low, as it was between 1999 and 2005, public scepticism about the CPI did not matter. But when RPI inflation is running at almost 5 per cent, while the Chancellor insists that public sector pay settlements must all be based on his official 2 per cent CPI target, large swaths of the population will start to feel systematically cheated by government statistics.

This sense of injustice will be aggravated by the Government's continued use of the RPI for uprating pensions and index-linked investments. On present trends, therefore, pensioners and investors will receive 3 per cent higher "inflation protection" annually, than what is on offer to most employees.

As this injustice is fully appreciated, the next step may be for people to treat everything they hear about inflation from politicians and central bankers as a fraud. The step after that will be to assume a naturally accelerating inflation rate year after year - and finally to expect ever-higher wages to compensate for these ever-higher prices. In other words, a return to the inflationary mentality of the 1970s and early 1980s could soon be on the cards.

Such a psychological reversion would jeopardise all Britain's recent economic achievements. Even a moderate revival of the inflationary behaviour of the 1980s would quickly force interest rates much higher, triggering the meltdown in housing and the wave of personal bankruptcies long predicted by the prophets of doom.

While interest rates and inflation remain subdued, it has been perfectly rational for consumers and businesses to keep increasing their borrowings. But should inflation ever return to the levels of the 1980s and early 1990s, the whole new British economy, which is built on foundations of cheap long-term credit, would collapse like a house of cards.

To prevent such a disaster, the Bank of England must act quickly to curb inflationary expectations - one way to do this would be to raise interest rates next month by more than the traditional quarter point.

The Bank can no longer afford only to indicate the various temporary factors, such as rising oil prices, that have boosted inflation - and then wait complacently for these trends to reverse of their own accord. Restoring credibility to the 2 per cent inflation target is now a matter of urgency. And time is not on Britain's side.

In the next year or two, all the main risks are likely to be in the direction of faster growth and inflation. By late 2008 the entire world economy should be in a coordinated boom, with America pulling out of its present slowdown, Japan reviving, Europe bouncing back from this year's tax rises and China continuing to grow at an explosive rate. With the global economy firing on all cylinders, inflationary pressures are bound to intensify from 2008 onwards. If the Bank of England does not get prices back under control this year, it could be too late to tame the inflation monster.

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For UK-centric equity investors I think this is potentially the biggest Bearish point going forward.