Business Briefs - April 22

The FCA said the size of the fine – the highest imposed for transaction reporting failures to date – “reflects the severity of MLI’s misconduct, failure to adequately address the root causes over several years despite substantial FCA guidance to the industry and a poor history of transaction reporting compliance, consisting of a Private Warning issued in 2002 and a fine of £150,000 in 2006.”

The FCA said it used a penalty of £1.50 per line of incorrect or non-reported data for the first time rather than the £1.00 per line used in the three most recent transaction reporting cases because past fines have not been high enough to achieve credible deterrence.

Dozens of apprentices and graduates around Scotland are set for employment after Scottish Water announced the preferred bidder for a major part of its new £3.5 billion investment programme.

ESD (Efficient Service Delivery), a joint venture between Galliford Try, MWH Treatment and Black and Veatch, is the preferred bidder for a contract worth around £560 million over the next six years.

ESD will oversee the delivery of projects including work on reservoirs, water treatment works and pumping stations, which will help build on the significant improvements made to water services for the benefit of Scottish Water customers in recent years.

Scotmas, a Kelso-based, family-owned chemicals firm, is looking to expand into new markets after securing a £1.3 million funding package from HSBC.

The Borders company specialises in water purification products used in industry, agriculture and healthcare.

As part of an expansion strategy, it has targeted markets such as provision of safe drinking water in the developing world as well as applications in the oil and gas sector.

Recent contract wins include supplying additional water disinfection systems for desalination plants in Doha in time for the Qatar World Cup in 2022 and a contract to help provide clean water to villages in southern India. The funding package includes export trade finance and invoice finance.

The first phase of plans to build a new £100m data centre campus in Fife have been given the green light.

Queensway Park Data Centres Ltd wants to build two cloud hosting facilities at Queensway Park in Glenrothes.

The first of these will cover an area of more than 90,000 sq ft and is hoped to be ready for occupation towards the end of 2016.

Helius Energy, the renewable firm backed by Scottish entrepreneurs Alastair Salvesen, Angus MacDonald and Ann Gloag, has taken steps to move into voluntary liquidation.

This week will see the last day of trading for Helius shares on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), the company has announced, with the board now seeking a liquidator in a bid to return capital to shareholders.

The move comes after Helius offloaded its 50 per cent shareholding in the Helius CoRDe renewable energy plant in Rothes, Speyside, and confirmed it was no longer proceeding with plans to develop projects in the port of Avonmouth, in Bristol, and Southampton.

Scotgold has raised £450,000 following the appointment of Vicarage Capital as the company’s joint broker.

New shares were placed at 0.005p with new shareholders, unnamed clients of Vicarage, which banked brokerage fees of 6per cent or £27,000.

Scotgold said the funds would be used to complete its ongoing technical studies.

The Edinburgh trams inquiry into why the project took so long and overran its budget could take as long as two years to complete.

The inquiry, led by Lord Hardie, will unlikely call witnesses before the autumn which means the report is not expected to be published before well into 2016.

The Scottish Government has been criticised for taking a “hands off” approach to the trams project after it invested £500 million.

When former first minister Alex Salmond announced the inquiry, government officials said it would be completed “quickly and efficiently”.

Springfield Properties has received full approval for its bid to bring 595 new homes to Dundee after councillors previously blocked one half of its planned development.

The developer had to submit two applications for the proposed £150 million Dundee Western Gateway village as it spans land owned by two different parties.

Both applications wererecommended for approval by city development director Mike Galloway but the city council only approved one of the submissions amid bizarre circumstances at the planning meeting.

East Lothian Council has agreed to contribute almost £75,000 towards a project that could bring around £1 billion into the economy of the Lothians.

The Edinburgh City Region (ECR) Deal is a joint project between East Lothian Council,Edinburgh, Fife, Midlothian, Scottish Borders and West Lothian Council. The local authorities will work together with the Scottish and UK governments to put forward a funding bid for a group of projects which will boost the economy of the area.

Projects included in the bid, across the city region, are likely to involve transport, housing, regeneration, energy, tourism and broadband – with the ambitious aim of boosting the economy by five per cent per annum over a 10 year period following the investment.

The initial business case will involve a contribution of up to £25,000 from East Lothian, then a further maximum of £50,000 to develop a detailed business case.

It is expected that the plan will draw in around £1bn in funding from the government, with an additional £3.2bn being pulled in from the private sector. The initial deal is expected to be agreed in early 2016.