ASSA ABLOY has announced that they have acquired Caldwell, manufacturers of fenestration hardware. This continues the growth of ASSA ABLOY as a business. This is the statement they provided on their website: ASSA ABLOY has acquired Caldwell, a manufacturer of fenestration hardware for window manufacturers. "I am very pleased to welcome Caldwell into the [...]
I was shown an advert from a Facebook forum by a friend of mine the other night. It was advertising a fitter's position at a company. The wage was £50,000 per year, with van and labourer supplied. That’s a hell of a generous deal and perhaps signals an effort to obtain a new fitter [...]
Whether we want to talk about it or not, the UK economy is on the brink of something bad. Inflation is out of control, the cost of living is soaring and the chances of the UK falling into recession are already highly likely. This isn’t a UK problem. The US, EU and other Asian [...]
Earnings season continues in the UK fenestration market, with Safestyle UK posting their interim results for the first quarter of this year. This is the statement provided by the company: Alan Lovell, Chairman of Safestyle UK plc, the leading UK focused retailer and manufacturer of PVCu replacement windows and doors for the homeowner market, will make [...]
The other day a client from March 2020, just before lockdowns came into force, came back to me to get a composite door re-priced at today’s prices. The scale of the rise was rather drastic. Composite door price up 40% The type of composite door that was being quoted wasn’t anything remarkable. A Black [...]
The team that acquired Window Widgets in 2019 announced the formation of the Q19 Group and the acquisition of Profoil Limited, the deal was completed on the 13th May 2022. Profoil, based in Kettering, provides foiling services to the fenestration and building materials markets in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The Q19 [...]
It has been confirmed that there is another industry casualty today as newly updated records on Companies House show that Crystal Clear Group Limited has also gone into administration. This follows the confirmation that The CMS Group in Scotland has also entered into administration. Crystal Clear Group Limited in admin I did receive knowledge [...]
In one of the year's biggest casualties so far, The CMS Group in Scotland (CMS ENVIRO SYSTEMS LTD) has fallen into administration as of May 10th 2022. This is one of the largest fenestration sector companies in Scotland. As our sector begins to contemplate a much more difficult trading environment, it calls to question [...]
In another sign of the ongoing major squeeze on available skilled labour, new data shows that in three areas of the UK, the average weekly wage of tradespeople has broken the £1000 barrier. The demand for skilled workers will only rise further as all areas of construction struggle to recruit fast enough to meet [...]
Earnings season continues as the biggest publicly traded companies in UK fenestration announce their full 2021 financial results. Safestyle is the latest to announce theirs and as expected, they show a very profitable 2021 as the entire industry benefitted from pent up demand from homeowners and a cash glut thanks to furlough payments and [...]
As expected, inflation in the UK continues to rise. In March, inflation rose to a 30-year high of 7%, up from 6.2% in February. Crucially, this still doesn't take into full account the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the energy price cap rise which came into force at the beginning of April. Therefore, [...]
Near the end of March, we saw a double-dose of bad financial news. First, inflation rose to 6.2%, which exceeded forecasts of 6%. Rising inflation has prompted the Bank of England to start to raise interest rates from record lows to 0.75%. The BoE is expected to keep raising rates until inflation comes under [...]
As is to be expected, persisting and rising inflation, coupled with the commodity spikes after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a new wave of material price increases are incoming. Unlike 2020 and 2021, where the industry was going through a boom period, these latest increases set to hit are against a rapidly changing economic [...]
This is a press release from Improveasy: Austin Barcley, CEO and original founder of Improveasy, has completed an MBO for a controlling stake in the business. Austin, along with key personnel Chris Antrobus - ECO Funding Division, and Jeff Poole - Consumer Finance, is aiming for continued growth for the Altrincham based business. Michael [...]
The war in Ukraine grinds on, and with each day the humanitarian crisis grows. Millions of people are being displaced within the country and are fleeing to their neighbours in Eastern Europe. But as the war in Ukraine continues, the fallout of the conflict is now very much working its way into various markets [...]
It seems rather frivolous and frankly quite pathetic to be talking about glass energy surcharges when you consider the carnage and suffering that is being endured by the Ukrainian people right now. But the war in Ukraine is a conflict that will have effects around the world, and UK fenestration will not be immune [...]
Social Media