Content about Labor

July 5, 2010

Builders' merchant Travis Perkins has agreed to purchase plumbing and heating company BSS Group for £557.6 million.

Builders' merchant Travis Perkins has agreed to purchase plumbing and heating company BSS Group for £557.6 million.

 

The cash and shares deal values BSS shares at 435.8 pence, a 4.7% premium on Friday's closing price of 416.2p. It is the largest acquisition by Travis Perkins since the £950 million takeover of the Wickes DIY chain in 2005.

 

July 1, 2010

American Sugar Refining is to buy the sugar business of UK food processing company Tate & Lyle for £211 million ($299 million) in cash, it has been announced. 

June 28, 2010

URS Corporation has announced it is to buy UK design and engineering consultancy Scott Wilson Group for $242.5 million.

The proposed acquisition will expand URS’s infrastructure capabilities in the UK across a range of markets, including rail and transit, transportation infrastructure, and ports and harbors.

June 25, 2010

Bybee Stone Company custom-cuts Indiana limestone at a plant that dates to the Civil War. Keith Regan learns how the family-owned business is a go-to subcontractor and sustainable supplier for new construction and historic renovation projects as high-profile as the rebuilding of the Pentagon after the September 11 attack

Even before terrorists flew hijacked airplanes into the Pentagon building outside Washington, DC on September 11, 2001, Bybee Stone Company had already worked on several projects atthe headquarters of the US military. When efforts to rebuild the Pentagon were put on a fast track, Bybee’s existing relationships and its unique skill set helped it become the cut-limestone supplier for the project.

June 25, 2010

The world’s largest dry-cooled power station—the largest power station in Africa—is under construction near Lephalale in South Africa. It will not only boost power production by 4,800 megawatts but will also play an important role in job creation in the region. Project manager Roman Crookes talks to Gay Sutton about the project

June 25, 2010

In just five short years, Hunter Roberts has become a major player in the general contracting marketplace, building projects across a wide range of sectors, including residential, healthcare, commercial and institutional. Keith Regan explores the company’s primary objective: to personalize and streamline the construction management process for project owners

The founders of Hunter Roberts Construction Group all gained high-level experience while working for a large, local company and shared a common vision: to apply their knowledge in a flexible, more client-focused environment.

June 25, 2010

Ram Power, Corp. was formed through a business combination of three geothermal energy companies to develop projects in North and Latin America that offer a return on shareholders’ investment, as David Hendricks learns from executive vice president Dan Schochet

Ram Power, Corp. is a renewable energy company based in Reno, Nevada, focused on developing, owning and operating geothermal power plants. It was founded in 2008 as Ram Power, Inc., by former senior executives from Ormat Technologies, which is also in the business of geothermal energy development. “We decided to form Ram Power because we wanted to have a piece of the action, and working at Ormat wasn’t as much fun as it used to be years earlier,” says executive vice president Dan Schochet, whose primary responsibility is business development.

June 25, 2010

Ric Larson finds that a combination of modern business management strategy, innovative ideas and old-fashioned adaptability have made Werner Ladder Company the world’s largest manufacturer of aluminum, fiberglass and wood ladders, as well as scaffolding, staging and other climbing products

June 25, 2010

Companies operating in isolated areas must focus their attention on a robust retention strategy, among other things. As Alan Swaby learns, the extra effort is frequently worthwhile

Like many an African mining operation, Zimplats’ Ngezi mine lies in splendid isolation, 150 kilometres south-west of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare and is surrounded by...bush! Even though there is no expat workforce to push costs up, this remote location means that Zimplats has had to put in place competitive conditions of service in order to retain the full gamut of mining, engineering, geology and metallurgical skills it needs to keep the largest platinum resource in the country running effectively.

June 25, 2010

Opportunities often come about by chance but making the most of what lands at your feet is a matter of good management, as Alan Swaby learns

Sixty-five kilometres south of Örebro, in sparsely populated forest land, lies one of Sweden’s oldest mining operations. For 152 years, Zinkgruvan has extracted zinc, lead and silver from this central Swedish location. These days, the business is 100 per cent owned by the Canadian company Lundin Mining, which controls mining operations in a number of European countries as well as a partnership in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

June 23, 2010

BASF, the world’s largest chemicals company, has agreed to buy its smaller rival Cognis for €3.1 billion including debt, it has been announced.

Germany-based BASF will buy Cognis from its owners—the US investment bank Goldman Sachs and the UK private equity group Permira—at an equity purchasing price of €700 million.

BASF said that it expects the household products additives maker to help it weather economic turbulence. BASF's core chemicals and plastics business currently relies on industries such as automotive and construction, both of which have been hit hard by the global economic crisis.

June 22, 2010

The French certification company Bureau Veritas has agreed to buy the commodities testing and inspection firm Inspectorate for £450 million from UK-based Inspicio, it has been announced.

Inspectorate ranks among the global leaders in commodities testing and inspection, a market which covers a wide range of inspection and laboratory testing services for oil and petrochemical products, metals and minerals, and agricultural products.

Founded in 1885 and headquartered in Witham, UK, the company operates from 150 laboratories in 60 countries, employing over 7,000 people.

June 22, 2010

Canada’s Biovail and US-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals International have said that they will merge in a $3.2 billion deal.

The merger will create a major Canadian-American player in the world of specialty pharmaceutical companies. Retaining the Valeant name, it will focus on four areas, including treatments for the skin and for neurology, and is expected to realize more than $175 million in cost savings by the second year.

June 22, 2010

The road to excellence is long and winding, but if you do one thing better today than you did yesterday, you are moving forward. Business Excellence will keep you moving—and we mean business.

Welcome to the new look Business Excellence website.

At the leading edge of new business thinking, Business Excellence is your one-source portfolio of news, features, blogs, videos and newsletters on all that is excellent in industry.

Since the idea of continuous improvement was derived from the Japanese term kaizen, CI has migrated from automotive to manufacturing in general, and from there to any type of business that aspires to be world class.

June 21, 2010

AkzoNobel has announced the sale of its National Starch business to Corn Products International for $1.3 billion in cash.

National Starch, a subsidiary of the former UK group ICI, was taken over by Netherlands-based AkzoNobel as part of its acquisition of ICI in January 2008, but isn't considered part of AkzoNobel's core business. AkzoNobel is the largest coatings and specialty chemicals company in the world.
In 2009 National Starch had revenue of $1.2 billion from sales of specialty starches to local and multinational customers in the food, papermaking, consumer and industrial markets. With 2,250 employees around the world, it operates 11 plants in eight countries.

June 21, 2010

Sanofi-Aventis Canada has announced it is buying the assets of Montreal's Canderm Pharma Inc. for an undisclosed sum.

Sanofi-Aventis said that buying Canderm will allow it to consolidate its dermatology products under the Canderm umbrella to create a Canadian leader in its field and to double its Canadian healthcare sales.

 Founded in 1972, Canderm, which is based in the Montreal borough of St. Laurent, had 2009 sales of $24 million. It holds about 10 percent of the non-prescription anti-ageing skincare market in Canada.

The company's product range includes cosmeceuticals and dermatological products, injectable dermal fillers and over-the-counter products.

June 18, 2010

Open-pit and underground operations in northern Finland

May 1, 2010

More than meeting demand
Long-term relationships, shrewd investments and an excellent reputation have enabled mining company Benicon to thrive even as others falter. Andrew Pelis talks to CEO Gideon van Heerden to find out more.
It is the nature of today’s business world that small, successful companies tend to get swallowed up by the bigger corporations. Outcomes can be mixed; but for one South African mining entity, being bought out gave it just the impetus it needed for astronomical growth.

May 1, 2010

Building on the brand
Indian property developer Godrej Properties is gearing up for its next phase of expansion. Managing director Milind Korde explains to Gay Sutton how good communications and long-term partnerships lie at the heart of its operations.
Much has been written about the miracle of the Indian economy and its rise to become one of the major global powers of the 21st century. Boosted by economic reform, Indian industries and businesses are emerging as power houses on the world stage, while segments of the community are experiencing dramatic cultural and lifestyle changes. These changes are easily visible—if you were to look at the skyline of Mumbai today, you could be forgiven for wondering if you were looking at Manhattan or Hong Kong.

May 1, 2010

A refined approach
India’s largest oil refinery is bringing rewards to the local community as well as to its shareholders. Jeff Daniel reports.
If Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemical Limited (MRPL) of India was a football team, it would be high in the Premier League. After all, it’s the largest and most successful refinery in the whole of the sub-continent, employing some 1,250 people and generating not far short of £5 billion in sales.

May 1, 2010

A journey, not a destination
As part of the renowned Tata Group, Voltas Limited has improvement in its DNA but as its vice president of Business Excellence Prashant Karkare explains to John O’Hanlon, its definition of this word extends far beyond financial results and reaches deep into Indian society at large.
Voltas is a diverse engineering group, publicly quoted and India’s largest exporter of electromechanical projects—recent major examples include the world’s tallest building Burj Khalifa, where Voltas installed HVAC, plumbing and electrical systems, and Ferrari’s massive new theme park in Dubai where the company won the $330 million contract for the electromechanical work.

May 1, 2010

Valued resources
Companies operating in isolated areas must focus their attention on a robust retention strategy, among other things. As Alan Swaby learns, the extra effort is frequently worthwhile.
Like many an African mining operation, Zimplats’ Ngezi mine lies in splendid isolation, 150 kilometres south-west of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare and is surrounded by...bush! Even though there is no expat workforce to push costs up, this remote location means that Zimplats has had to put in place competitive conditions of service in order to retain the full gamut of mining, engineering, geology and metallurgical skills it needs to keep the largest platinum resource in the country running effectively.

April 1, 2010

Hidden talents
A strategic decision to widen its operational scope has unearthed new mining opportunities for one company, as Jeff Daniels learns.
It takes a certain type of person to leave terra firma and choose a career in the navy. And the qualities suited for roaming the oceans of the world are as different again when it comes to choosing to go below the surface and become a submariner. 

April 1, 2010

The heart of steel
Assmang’s properties are in the Kalahari manganese field in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province, which contains some 80 per cent of the world's known high-grade manganese ore reserves, vital to the world’s steel industry. John O’Hanlon reports on major recent and projected investment at one of Africa’s largest manganese mines.
Assmang’s name is a contraction of Associated Manganese Mines of South Africa, as it was originally known when it was founded in 1935. For many years it specialised in manganese and chrome extraction, to which it added iron ore production in the early 1990s. Today it is jointly owned by African Rainbow Minerals Limited and Assore Limited and currently has three operating divisions based on its three commodities: chrome, manganese and iron ore.