United Utilities raises dividends despite dip in profits

 

·         First half profits are £308.6m, below estimates of £312m

·         Company targets improved performance following water quality issues over the summer

·         United Utilities recommended as a ‘buy’ for income investors as it targets strong dividend growth over next five years

 

As United Utilities publishes its half-year results, Ian Forrest, Investment Analyst at The Share Centre, explains what they mean for investors.

 

“United Utilities has reported first half underlying operating profits of £308.6m, which represents a 10% fall from last year and was below analysts’ forecasts of £312m. Operating profits were additionally impacted by new regulated price controls, an increase in depreciation and other costs.

 

“The company announced in September that it would take a £30m hit from compensation payments following a water quality issue in parts of Lancashire over the summer.

 

“However, investors should acknowledge that United Utilities believes it can further improve its operations over the next five years. It aims to provide the best service to customers at the lowest sustainable cost and in a responsible manner.

 

“Subsequently, we maintain our ’buy’ recommendation on United Utilities for income investors as it continues to target delivering dividend growth of at least RPI inflation each year through to 2020.”

 

 

OpenCloud Connect Elects New Board

The board of OpenCloud Connect (OCC), the open source movement which is the driving force behind a new wave of network innovation and higher levels of industry collaboration, has approved its 2015-2016 Board of Directors, and reaffirmed its mission to advance vendor-neutral industry standards for cloud connectivity.

 

 

 

With virtual machine populations running into the millions across geographically dispersed datacenters, plus the rise of SaaS and other cloud based services, companies face many business and technical challenges. OpenCloud Connect provides a unique consensus-building framework for industry stakeholders to collectively develop solutions that address the challenges of integrating multiple clouds, managing security and policy models across multi cloud and carrier environments, and enabling applications and networks to exchange status requirements and changes.

 

 

James Walker, President of the OCC, said, “Our aim over the next few months is to enable our members to start aligning their external API interfaces to the OCC’s standard interface definitions.  There are huge benefits to enterprises, including dramatically reducing the cost of integrating their suppliers, allowing them to enforce a single consistent security policy across all their network and cloud services, as well as opening up new business opportunities.

 

 

I’m extremely excited and proud to be at this stage where all the hard work done over the last two years, will be visible and start delivering the promised benefits our members believe so passionately in.”

 

 

The new Board of Directors who will serve for a year in office were elected during the 2015 Annual Members Meeting in Dallas on November 16, 2015.

 

 

 

Serving on the OCC Board of Directors for 2015-2016 are:

 

Chairman:

 

Jeff Schmitz is Executive Vice President of Spirent, where he is responsible for leading the business segments that deliver solutions for Wireless Networks & Devices, Service Assurance, Positioning & Automotive, and Customer & Network Analytics. Jeff serves as Chairman of the OCC, where he led the OCC in defining key initiatives to address the growing demands of delivering cloud services.

 

 

President:

 

James Walker is Vice President, Managed Network Services for Tata Communications, and is responsible for leading the company’s VPN line of business – covering enterprise and wholesale Ethernet, MPLS, managed IPSec and datacentre interconnect services. James launched OpenCloud Connect in May 2013, and has served as President since OCC’s formation.

 

 

Treasurer:

 

Doug Wills is vice president of marketing for Akanda, Inc, an OpenStack network virtualization start-up that delivers routing-as-a-service inside VMs and Linux containers. Wills has 20 years software and network infrastructure experience, working for Cisco, Ericsson, Juniper and Microsoft.  At Juniper, Doug was responsible for its network operating system and several software defined networking programs and was Juniper’s lead representative at the Open Networking Foundation, OpenStack, MEF and CloudEthernet Forum.

 

 

Plamen Minev is a Director of Engineering at Cisco’s Chief Technology and Architecture Office (CTAO). He leads a team focused on next generation network and systems management architectures for cloud and communications service providers and large enterprises.

 

 

Vinay Saxena is Distinguished Technologist at HP, and acts as the Chief Architect for HP’s NFV business.  In this role, Vinay is responsible for defining the overall NFV technology architecture, strategy and future vision including the evolution of the solution plan of record.

 

 

Dr. Mehmet Toy is Distinguished Engineer of Comcast, co-chair of OpenCloud Connect Programmability Working Group and chair of IEEE Cable Networks and Services Committee. Currently he is leading the development of Business Ethernet Services over DPoE (DOCSIS over EPON).

 

 

Dr. Hongwen Zhang is a co-founder of Wedge Networks. As Chief Technical Officer, he is instrumental in developing Wedge’s high performance security platform. Dr. Zhang holds a Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Calgary; an M.Scin Computer Engineering from the Institute of Computer Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Fudan University. With more than two decades of high-tech leadership experience, Dr. Zhang is a co-inventor and holder of several patents in the area of computing and networking. Prior to establishing Wedge Networks, he was a co-founder of the 24C Group Inc., which pioneered the first digital receipts infrastructure for secure electronic commerce. Dr. Zhang was previously principal of Servidium Inc., now ThoughtWorks Inc., a global leader in agile development methodology.

 

 

Dawane Young is the Division Vice President of Platforms and Applications for Verizon’s Partner Solutions organization. Dawane’s team engages in Security, Data Center Collocation, Professional Services, Internet of Things (IoT) and Cloud sales opportunities with partners and resellers globally.

 

Dawane holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications from James Madison University.

 

Big Apple Buddy, an American online concierge, gives tech lovers in UK exclusive access to U.S Black Friday sales this year

 

Thanksgiving in America is not only for turkey and family gatherings, but also for Black Friday that starts on November 27^th, and offers the best deals of the year for tech gadgets. Cyber Monday brings another batch of steep retailer discounts. However, shopping for hottest deals in technology is currently available only to Americans, as the biggest U.S. stores won¹t ship abroad. Big Apple Buddy, a New York-based shopping concierge, aims to change that. The company will ship your chosen items from Amazon or Best Buy, at the best discounted price, right to your home address in UK.

 

Amazon - that doesn¹t ship most items internationally - offers some great deals this year, such as the $35 Fire tablet, 20% off Samsung Galaxy tablets and $99 Jawbone Up3. The sales are starting in waves beginning on Friday, November 20^th and go on through Black Friday.

 

Best Buy is another popular American store for Black Friday shoppers, with a huge inventory of smartphones, tablets, wearables and cameras. You can find all Black Friday deals on Best Buy¹s website. Among them, you will see $399.99 Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 ($100 off), $299.99 Huawei Swartwatch ($50 off) and other great deals.

 

If you are not in America to get these deals, you can simply go to Big Apple Buddy¹s website, and shop as if you were there. Big Apple Buddy will order your items directly from the U.S. stores, and deliver in 2-4 business days. All costs are set out in a free quote with a minimum service fee of $40 per order. The product cost and shipping charges are passed on without markup.

 

With just a few clicks your dream tech gadget - whether from Amazon or Best Buy - will arrive to your doorstep.

 

Big Apple Buddy was founded by two Australian ex-lawyers in New York, who launched the startup after having had the experience of shipping latest gadgets and fashion items from America to friends and family in UK. They realized that many of the newest tech gadgets and fashion brands were only for sale in American stores.

 

Big Apple Buddy takes care of the entire shopping process from start to finish, including discount negotiations with the stores, packaging, shipping and providing personalized product and shopping advice, just as your best friend in New York would do. Their concept is all about developing personal relationships with customers.

 

Cross-border shopping is the fastest-growing branch of e-commerce, and there are different ways to acquire desired tech gadgets from the U.S., such as eBay. However, it takes a personalized, experienced shopping concierge to help you navigate online discounts during the busiest shopping weekend of the year in America. Big Apple Buddy - that has a growing base of customers in 150+ countries around the world - aims to deliver the most personal and efficient service to its clients, bringing famous American shopping weekend to UK, too.

 

This year, everyone is invited to the American Thanksgiving feast.

 

 

To get more information, visit www.bigapplebuddy.com.