Speedy Hire said its tools and building equipment hire business returned to sales growth in the final quarter of 2010 despite the contraction in the construction industry.

The Merseyside-based company, which operates from 325 sites, reported an 8.8% increase in revenues excluding equipment sales compared to the same period the previous year, while equipment sales increased 23%.

Output in the snow-hit construction industry fell 3.3% in the quarter but Speedy achieved growth by focusing on resilient sectors, such as water, waste, energy and transport.

Although Speedy's sales growth slowed to 2.1% in January it said it could return to profit at an underlying level in its second half, providing that it continues to trade well in the next few weeks. It made a £4.6 million underlying loss in the first half of its financial year to the end of September.

Shares in Speedy were up 3% after it said its focus on growth markets and previous efforts to restructure the business left it well placed to benefit from any recovery in the market.

Increased rates meant the company lifted revenues despite a 6.2% reduction in the volume of equipment on hire compared to the previous quarter.

Wayne Gerry, an analyst at Investec Securities, described the update as "mixed but encouraging". He added: "Although Speedy has still to trade through two important months, a third consecutive quarter of rate improvement bodes well for the UK business."

However, he downgraded his profits forecast to take account of losses from earlier in the year when two of Speedy's customers - social housing group Connaught and building firm Rok - went into administration, wiping a combined total of £1.9 million from its revenues. Its international arm is also growing less quickly than expected, he added.

He forecast that the business will make a pre-tax loss of £800,000 in the year to March 2011, whereas previously he had estimated pre-tax profits of £1.8 million. But he still expects Speedy to return to making a pre-tax profit in 2012.

Copyright © 2011 The Press Association.

The popular music video game Guitar Hero is being axed by the company that publishes it after nearly six years, reports the BBC.

Activision Blizzard, which makes the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft series, says it's ditching the franchise because "the popularity of music-themed video games has faded".

The company is also cutting 500 people from its global workforce of 7,000.

Activision Blizzard has revealed that other games it's cutting will include DJ Hero and True Crime.

The company says music games are expensive to manufacture, between the licensing fees for the songs and the cost of making the hardware such as plastic guitars and microphones.

It will, however, continue to sell and support its catalogue of Guitar Hero titles.

Activision Publishing Chief Executive Eric Hirshberg said: "We simply cannot make these games profitable based on current economics."

Fourteen different versions of Guitar Hero have been released since its launch in 2005 including Guitar Hero World Tour and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock with celebrity specials from Aerosmith, Metallica and Van Halen.

The company says a new digital platform called Beachhead will now focus on the money-making Call of Duty franchise.

Since its launch in November, Call of Duty: Black Ops has smashed retail records and pulled in more $1 billion (£621.9m) in sales worldwide.

Last year, Viacom sold the unit behind the Rock Band video games because it was also losing money.

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Household brands Crosse & Blackwell and Fray Bentos have been taken over by food and drinks group Princes, reports the BBC.

The £182m acquisition comes after Premier Foods decided to sell off its tinned food operation.

Premier's factories include plants at Long Sutton in Lincolnshire and Wisbech in Cambridgeshire.

Liverpool-based Princes also has a long-term licence to make baked beans and pasta under the Branston and Batchelors brands.

The sale, which is subject to a number of conditions, comes less than a month after Premier offloaded its meat-free business Quorn for £205m to cut its debt, which stood at £1.4bn in June.

Princes, which was established by Simpson & Roberts, began trading canned meats and vegetables in Liverpool in 1880.

It has grown from importing canned fish to supplying products ranging from fruit juice, tinned meat to microwave meals and sandwich spreads.

Analysts said the firm would have annual revenues of £1.5bn following the deal.

It will also have a total of 13 production sites and a 4,500-strong workforce.

Premier is also selling the brands Farrows and Smedley's but it is retaining its Ambrosia branded tinned desserts operations in Lifton, Devon, which is being retained.

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Shoppers marched back to the high street in January as better weather helped retail sales post their strongest performance in 10 months, but house prices did not enjoy the same boost as the freeze ended, surveys showed. This report from the Telegraph.

The month started strongly for retailers as consumers ready to shop after the snow flocked to post-Christmas sales and rushed to beat the VAT rise on January 4, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC), although sales eased back later on.

Like-for-like retail sales rose 2.3pc year-on-year, the BRC said, the strongest growth since March last year and an improvement on the 0.3pc fall in snow-struck December.

In contrast, the monthly survey from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors found house prices kept falling, as the market stayed "sluggish" and new stock was in short supply.

Most surveyors said prices were unchanged, while 31pc reported a drop. That was the best split since July but still well into negative territory.

The differences between the regions are becoming more marked, the survey showed, as price expectations in London turned positive, but elsewhere expectations were for a fall in the next three months.

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Two schoolboys from West Sussex are using a £50,000 competition prize to launch a start-up business recycling used textbooks among students online, reports the BBC.

Thomas Williams and James Seear, both 17 and from Horsham, won the Young Start-Up Talent award for people in the Gatwick Diamond business area.

Mr Williams, from Christ's Hospital School and Mr Seear from Collyers College, test ran Recyclabook locally.

"We've proved the concept works and is profitable," said Mr Williams.

Target market
Students forward used text books to the company which buys them, then sells them to next year's A-Level students.

"During a trial month late last year we received some 300 books and paid students a total of £500 which was covered by selling just 17% of our stock," said Mr Williams.

"Being students ourselves we feel that we are in a unique position to comprehensively grasp the target market."

The pair beat thousands of other 16 to 21-year-olds to make it to the final five in the Young Start-Up Talent project and pitched their idea in a Dragons' Den-style presentation.

They said they were confident their fledgling company would not interfere with their schoolwork as demand tended to be concentrated in school holiday periods, particularly at the end of the summer term.

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UK house prices rose by 0.8% in January compared with the previous month, according to figures from the Halifax. BBC published this report.

But Halifax, now part of the Lloyds Banking Group, said that prices had fallen 2.4% compared with a year earlier.

The typical home in the UK now cost £164,173, it said.

Overall during 2011, the lender is expecting little change in property values, although others have predicted prices to dip.

"We expect limited movement in house prices overall this year. There are, however, likely to be some monthly fluctuations with the risks on the downside," said Halifax's housing economist Martin Ellis.

"The prospects for the market in 2011 are closely aligned with the performance of the wider economy. Consumer confidence has fallen recently, partly as a result of nervousness about the economic outlook."

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PC makers are halting sales of some machines because of problems with the latest Intel chips, reports the BBC.

The problem centres on a chipset that helps a central processor communicate with other parts of a PC, including memory and hard drives.

About eight million of the faulty chipsets, called Cougar Point, have been distributed so far, said Intel.

HP, Dell, Samsung and Lenovo have stopped selling some machines built around Cougar Point.

The manufacturers said affected customers would get refunds, replacement parts or new machines.

Seven models of computer made by Samsung and four by Dell, plus laptops and desktops from Lenovo and HP, have used the faulty chipset.

The discovery of the bug has also prompted HP to cancel a mid-February event at which it planned to launch a range of business laptops to be built using Cougar Point.

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At the eleventh hour Chelsea secured Spain star Fernando Torres for a staggering £50m. But why do people buy under pressure? This report from the BBC.

The deal, which came just as football's transfer window - a month-long opportunity to buy players - was about to end, has shattered the transfer record for a player moving between British clubs.

Although most people don't have these sums to spend, buying in a time crunch is something we can all relate to.

Whether it's buying Christmas presents on Christmas eve, eyeing the clock as the sales draw to a close, or picking a purchase a couple of minutes before your train departs, we've all felt rushed into making a decision.

So what happens when shoppers buy under pressure?

Consumers are more likely to do what the retailer wants. And they want you to spend more money, says retail psychologist Tim Denison.

"If you are under time pressure, you are basically looking for cues and shortcuts in the process," he says. "You'll be more likely to look at products that the retailer has positioned in places for you to pick out easily."

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Companies that use automated telephone calls that leave householders hearing nothing can now be fined up to £2m, reports the BBC.

So-called silent calls often occur when firms dial several numbers at once but then fail to have a staff member lined up to speak when a call is answered.

Ofcom has fined nine businesses for making such calls, with Barclaycard receiving the biggest penalty allowed under the old rules of £50,000.

Ofcom said more than 9,000 complaints were made about silent calls last year.

More than 70% of victims told Ofcom they received two or more calls in a day from the same company.

Ofcom said it would not hesitate to impose the new £2m maximum fine, which was approved by Parliament last September.

'Significant distress'

Modern call centres use automated dialling equipment to make dozens of calls at once.

Ofcom said many cases of silent calls were a result of the technology used to detect answer machines failing to recognise a "live" consumer and cutting off the call before a representative of the company is connected to speak to them.

Although the use of automated systems will not be banned, companies have been told to employ such practices more carefully.

Ofcom said silent calls could cause "significant distress" to consumers, which could be made worse by receiving such calls repeatedly.

Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards said: "Silent and abandoned calls can cause significant consumer harm.

"Ofcom has given sufficient warnings to companies about silent calls and is ready to take appropriate action against those companies who continue to break the rules."

The maximum fine was raised to £50,000 in 2006.

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Research by the Bank of Scotland also showed that prices still trailed behind the rest of the UK. The average home north of the border sold for £111,780 in 2010 - an 83% increase on £61,039 in late 2000.

Penicuik in Midlothian recorded the biggest increase, where the average house price climbed by 179% from £61,824 to £172,476 at the end of 2010.

Irvine (172%) and Peterhead (171%) were the next best performers.

Across the UK as a whole, house prices rose by 91% over the same period.

But the Scotland gains trailed behind the rest of the UK, with only Greater London and the South East recording smaller rises over the decade.

The biggest house price increases were in the north of England, where they went up by 130%, followed by Yorkshire and the Humber (125%) and Wales (108%).

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