Dec 14, 2017 - Rubicon's proposal to sell a 45 percent stake in local Clearwood manufacturing business falls within the independent adviser's valuation range. The forestry biotech's shareholders will vote on the transaction at a special meeting in Christchurch on Jan. 12 on whether to approve the sale of its interest in Tenon Clearwood Ltd Partnership for US$14.2 million, which is the cost of its investment in the company in April, plus its share of the reduction in the company's net debt since then. That is estimated to be worth a combined US$15.3 million. The buyers include affiliates of Rubicon's two biggest shareholders, Knott Partners and Libra Fund LP.
Rubicon's independent directors have recommended investors take the deal, with Steve Kasnet saying the deal fell within Grant Samuel's independent valuation range of the stake, the exit would provide funds to make two looming payments on its ArborGen business, and simplify the company's structure providing the opportunity to cut costs.
"We believe that these three factors – the removal of any overhang in the stock price relating to uncertainty as to the funding source of the deferred ArborGen acquisition and subordinated debt payments, simplifying Rubicon to be a pure-play on the ArborGen business, and the achievement of cost savings, will all be beneficial to building positive momentum in the RBC share price," Kasnet said in a letter to shareholders. "The sale will then make Rubicon a ‘pure-play’ for investors on the ArborGen business upside, and with Rubicon’s financials moving forward then only being ArborGen-based, investors will have greater transparency of ArborGen’s financial results."
Grant Samuel valued Clearwood at between US$51.3 million and US$61.5 million, with Rubicon's stake worth between US$13.6 million and US$18.2 million.
"In Grant Samuel’s opinion, based on the analysis of the merits outlined above, the terms of the proposed transaction are fair and reasonable to the shareholders of Rubicon not associated with Knott and Libra," the report said.
If the deal doesn't go ahead, Grant Samuel anticipates Clearwood will need more capital to reduce its level of debt.
Grant Samuel has valued the business twice in the past 12 months in relation to the sale of former NZX-listed Tenon's business sales. The most recent of those was earlier this year, ending an 18-month process run by an investment bank.
Kasnet said because the offer was the same price as the earlier transaction, the independent directors chose not to run another sales process as there was no benefit to shareholders.
Rubicon shares were unchanged at 19.5 cents, and have dropped 11 percent so far this year.
Source: Sharechat || December 14, 2017 |||
Dec 14, 2017 - The New Zealand Productivity Commission today released its draft report - Measuring and improving state sector productivity. “The state sector spends more than $40 billion every year on public services. Measuring productivity is essential for knowing if the money is being well spent.” Says Chair of the Productivity Commission, Mr. Murray Sherwin.
“Constantly improving productivity across an economy is the essential source of improved incomes and wellbeing. While most businesses have a pretty good idea of their productivity performance, the public sector is much less likely to focus on its productivity. In part, that is because it can be harder in the public sector to measure what is being produced.”
“The Commission has worked with government agencies to develop a number of case studies. These illustrate the methodological issues encountered when measuring the productivity of public services. We found that much of the data required to measure productivity already exists. It can be dispersed and not readily accessible but those matters can and should be fixed.”
The draft report is available online and seeks stakeholder views on lifting state sector productivity.
“Measuring productivity is not an end in itself. Rather it’s a starting point for discussing better ways of doing things. Stimulating innovation in the state sector is key to improving productivity. There are many examples of local innovation but they don’t tend to spread very far or fast. This needs to change if we want a more efficient and effective state sector.”
The inquiry terms of reference asked the Commission to provide guidance on how to measure productivity in “core” public services (health, education, justice, social support) and provide advice on developing the systems, culture and capability to measure and improve state sector productivity.
Submissions on the draft report are due 1 March 2018.
| A Productivity Commission release || December 14, 2017 |||
Dec 14, 2017 - Alliance Group is exceeding its target for achieving gains from its business strategy and forging ahead with plans to further lift the co-operative’s performance, farmer shareholders were told at the co-operative’s Annual Meeting in Te Anau today. Murray Taggart, chair of Alliance Group, said the co-operative’s ongoing programme of strategy projects captured $48.8 million in value this year.“The value captured from our strategy projects is a major factor driving our ability to offer competitive farm gate pricing and invest in the company.“Alliance’s improved profitability means we will be distributing $11.4 million in pool payments to our farmers’ bank accounts this week“Once again, this demonstrates the fundamental benefit of a co-operative, where every dollar we make is either reinvested for the future or returned to farmers.”The company experienced a more positive trading environment during 2017, said Mr Taggart.“Although market volatility and weather events remain a constant threat, the level of supply and demand for our farmers’ produce look set to underpin strong pricing, particularly for sheepmeat and venison.“However, we are acutely aware of the impact the drier conditions are having on our farmers’ businesses and we’ve responded by bringing on additional processing capacity across our plant network.”Alliance Group Chief Executive David Surveyor said the co-operative is moving steadily in the right direction, but the company would not be resting on its laurels. “We have successfully navigated the first phase of transforming the business and we are now focused on stage two to ensure this transformation is sustainable.“We recognise there is a lot of hard work ahead of us to lift the performance of the co-operative to the level our shareholders expect. The good news is there are a number of exciting and innovative initiatives in the pipeline.”The key priorities next year would be growing the value add part of the business and capturing more value from the co-operative’s global markets, said Mr Surveyor.Alliance Group has already invested in developing a food service business in the UK and purchased the Goldkiwi Asia business in Singapore, now known as Alliance Asia.“Strengthening Alliance’s in-market presence is vital if we are to capture greater value and these investments are only the first steps down this path.”Alliance is also exploring opportunities to capture more revenue from co-products.“Our $800,000 investment in a new blood processing facility at our Mataura plant is just the start. We have a number of other exciting value capture projects underway.”The pool distribution payments will be paid into farmer shareholder’s accounts on Friday 15 December. The distribution will be as follows: Lambs: $1.80/headSheep: $1.00/headCattle: $10.00/headDeer: $7.50/headCalves: $1.00/head Directors Dawn Sangster and Russell Drummond were re-appointed to the Board unopposed in October.
| An alliance Group release || December 14, 2017 |||
Dec 14, 2017 - Air New Zealand and Virgin Australia have today announced changes to one of their key alliance routes driven by an improved demand outlook. The two airlines are set to provide customers with an expanded schedule of flights on the Auckland-Brisbane route, with up to five extra flights per week delivering an additional 38,000 seats between April and October 2018. This means customers will now be able to choose from up to 34 return services per week. In addition, Virgin Australia will be re-timing its weekday Auckland-Brisbane service to provide a better evening schedule proposition for the alliance, with the choice of departure times of 4:00pm, 6:00pm and 7:30pm allowing for more flexibility for customers. Air New Zealand Chief Revenue Officer Cam Wallace says the new services are timed for seamless connections to domestic ports at both ends of the route. “Demand for trans-Tasman travel continues to be strong and it’s a market we’re focused on growing. Together with Virgin Australia, we’ll offer up to six daily return flights between Brisbane and Auckland next winter - a capacity boost of more than 10 percent compared with the same period this year.” Group Executive for Virgin Australia Airlines Rob Sharp welcomed these changes, saying that the alliance will continue to look for opportunities to offer better connections and flight frequencies between Australia and New Zealand for its customers. “Virgin Australia is pleased to see the growth in demand for these services and these network changes. Our alliance with Air New Zealand is committed to providing customers with flexible travel options to and from New Zealand and the updates to the flight schedule reflect this.” Flights will be available to be purchase shortly at www.airnewzealand.co.nz and www.virginaustralia.com.
| An Air New Zealand release || December 14, 2017 |||
Dec 13, 2017 - When pulling up to a traffic light, most drivers get pretty close to the car in front of them, leaving just several feet of space between their bumper and the next. The practice of packing tightly at traffic lights is widely accepted. Traditional thinking says the closer a car is to a traffic light, the more likely that car will be to pass through the intersection before the light turns red again.
Thanks to new research by Virginia Tech College of Engineering professors and students, drivers now have a good reason to dismiss this faulty line of roadway intuition. The results could be useful in Ethiopia, where traffic management is a serious engineering project.
The study, published this month in the New Journal of Physics, used video cameras attached to drone helicopters to capture footage of cars accelerating through a traffic light on the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute's Smart Road. By systematically controlling the packing density of the cars, the researchers discovered that any decrease in distance to the light was completely offset by the time it took for cars to regain a comfortable spacing before drivers could accelerate.
Drivers who pack tightly at intersections do not increase their chances of making it through the light, and tailgating at traffic lights can also lead to more rear-end collisions.
"We varied the bumper-to-bumper spacing between cars by a factor of 20 and saw virtually no change in how much time it took for the cars to pass through the intersection when the light turned green," said Jonathan Boreyko, assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering and mechanics. "The results mean there's no point in getting closer to the car in front of you when traffic comes to a stop," he said.
The inspiration for the research first came to Boreyko when he was sitting in traffic one day. Noticing that cars had to wait for the car in front of them to regain a safe spacing before they could start moving again, he hypothesized that, contrary to popular opinion, it might actually be better for cars to stop farther apart from each other when idling at a traffic light.
He teamed up with Farzad Ahmadi, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in Virginia Tech's engineering mechanics program and the study's lead author, to investigate.Using 10 volunteer drivers in identical vehicles, the researchers staged a series of experiments at the traffic light on the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute's Smart Road. Drivers systematically lined up at the light in a set of distances ranging from 1.25 to 50 feet, and a drone helicopter hovering overhead captured controlled bird's-eye-view footage of the traffic as drivers accelerated through the light.
Analysis showed that the time required for all cars to pass through remained relatively fixed, give or take about one second, for spacing distances up to 25 feet.
The two researchers used the thermodynamic concept of latent heat, the energy that a system loses during melting or evaporation, to describe what happens to cars stopped at a traffic light. Vehicles are jammed into a "solid phase" at a light and must waste energy "melting" back into a "liquid phase" before they can actually move through the intersection.
Boreyko and Ahmadi wondered if latent heat would have such a dramatic effect on other systems, such as slow-moving pedestrian traffic. Should people waiting in lines space themselves closer together or farther apart in order to move through more quickly?
The researchers set up a second round of experiments in The Cube at Virginia Tech's Moss Arts Center, a highly adaptable theater and laboratory equipped with synchronized cameras. Undergraduate students added a few conditions to their senior design experiments on human crowds to test Boreyko and Ahmadi's hypothesis.
"Latent heat had almost no effect for a line of pedestrians," said Boreyko. "The closer people got to each other, the faster they could empty the line. We realized that people move very slowly, but can accelerate very quickly, which minimizes the lag effect we saw with the cars at the traffic light."
The study's findings suggest that both pedestrians and drivers alike could see considerable benefits when taking a mindful approach to packing density in lines.
"Pedestrians waiting in a line should get as close to each other as possible if it's important for the line to empty quickly," said Boreyko. "But when you encounter a traffic jam or stop at a light, keep a safe and comfortable distance. You can just maintain whatever spacing you had when you were driving at full speed. You won't lose any time, but you'll reduce the odds of an accidental rear-end collision."Ahmadi agreed with Boryeko's conclusion.
"When my father was teaching me how to drive, he told me that to prevent an accident, you should stop so you can easily see the rear bumper of the car in front of you at a traffic light," said Ahmadi. "I've never done that until I analyzed the data of this experiment."
For more traffic management, find out how these machine learning techniques aim to reduce traffic.
| An engineering.com release || December 13, 2017 |||
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242