Johnson Controls raises 2025 profit forecast on sustained demand
Data centers worldwide have enjoyed a boom in demand as businesses increasingly invest in artificial intelligence technology.
Johnson Controls - which makes liquid cooling systems used for IT equipment at data centers, as well as specialized security and fire systems - has benefited from this trend.
The Cork, Ireland-based company now expects 2025 adjusted profit per share of $3.60, the top end of its previous forecast range of $3.50 to $3.60.
Excluding items, the company reported second-quarter profit of 82 cents per share, compared with analysts' estimates of 79 cents per share, per data compiled by LSEG.
Total revenue for the quarter ended March 31 was $5.68 billion, up 1.4% from a year earlier. Analysts, on average, were expecting revenue of $5.64 billion.
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The Herald Scotland
3 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Scots firms get nothing from £350m of SNP-backed ferry deals
It can be revealed that there has been no agreement with Remontowa for any Scottish input in terms of providing products or other support or supply services for the construction of seven new electric ferries for Scotland signed off by CMAL at a cost of £147.5m. The only Scottish benefit is the company agreeing to match CMAL's charitable funding of £9000 a year and that 21 Scotland-based shipbuilding apprentices would get to attend an unstipulated number of sessions for training purposes when the vessels are delivered including involvement in sea trials. When Turkey landed a second £115m contract in 2023 to build two ferries for longsuffering islanders in a bid to shore up the nation's ageing ferry fleet, the only Scottish benefit set down was that an undefined number of Scottish apprentices would get an unspecified period on attachment at the Turkish yard. The community benefit of the first £91m contract award for two ferries given to Turkey was that up to three Scottish apprentices would gain one week's work experience at the Cemre shipyard every year over the course of the three year build and a total of £30,000 to CMAL's fund to support projects across Scotland. As of the start of last year, of the 58 companies providing products or services for ferries being built in Turkey - all are from overseas or based in England. Details of the lack of Scottish input has produced a new wave of anger over how vital vessels are being procured and has come two-and-a-half years after there was a political row over steel being sourced in China for two of the ferries being built in Turkey. CMAL then confirmed that steel from China was being used because sourcing materials from war-torn Ukraine had been ruled out. CMAL is directly funded and overseen by the SNP-led [[Scottish Government]], which provides loans and capital grants for ferry contracts and infrastructure projects. It comes amidst the continuing fall out over state-owned Inverclyde shipyard firm Ferguson Marine failing to win any of the publicly funded contracts to build the 11 ferries. Calls to the [[Scottish Government]] to give an uncontested direct award of ferry contracts to its shipyard were dismissed by deputy first minister Kate Forbes who cited legal risks. Ferguson Marine was told that the Ferguson bid for seven of the ferries did well in the technical evaluation but could not match the overseas yard on price. Read more: Why did ministers back awarding of Scots ferry contracts to foreign firms? Public inquiry demand over 'scandal' of hundreds of Scots jobs lost in ferry fiasco 'Laughable': Turkey-built ferry to be delivered seven years faster than fiasco ship Cost to repair CalMac ferry now £2m more than to buy replacement 'Final nail in coffin'. Scots fiasco firm loses out on big ferry contract to Poland 'Material uncertainty' over Scots ferry operator future amidst £45m funding hike 'Mismanagement': Public cost of Scots ferry fiasco firm hits £750m amidst overspends One industry body as said that overseas yards enjoyed more state support and cheaper labour costs, often able to undercut UK yards by 10-20%. The UK's refreshed national shipbuilding strategy has called for a minimum 10% social value element in public tenders to offset that. A 10% social value evaluation element is required where appropriate for high value public contracts in other parts of the UK but is not mandatory in Scotland. But CMAL said it did not include social value - which includes the likes of employment, training or environmental benefits - in the scoring for the small vessels contract because it was worried about a possible legal challenge. That came as concerns continue over wildly delayed and massively over-budget delivery of Glen Rosa and its sister ship Glen Sannox which both due to be online within first seven months of 2018, to serve Arran. In the midst of the delays and soaring costs, Ferguson Marine, under the control of tycoon Jim McColl, fell into administration and was nationalised at the end of 2019 with state-owned ferry and port-owning agency Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd and the yard's management blaming each other. Glen Sannox finally started taking passengers in January, while Glen Rosa's latest schedule for delivery is between April and June, next year - eight years after it was due. According to the latest Scottish Government details from last year of 58 companies said to be supporting the Scots ferries' build in Turkey, just one has any Scottish connection. Norway-based Kongsberg have an agreement in place with Cemre Marin Endustri for 50 retractable fin stabilisers for the first two vessels. They have a production facility based in Dunfermline. Chris McEleny, the ex-leader of the [[SNP]] group on [[Inverclyde]] Council who has long been fighting for direct awards of ferry contracts to [[Ferguson Marine]] as well as spin-off community benefit clauses said: "The renewal of Scotland's ferry fleet should've presented a pipeline of work that would've seen the creation of 1000 jobs, seen the Clyde re-emerge as a shipbuilding powerhouse and bring the Inchgreen dry dock back into industrial use. "It is Scotland's shame that this work, and the community benefits that should've come with it have been outsourced to abroad. For decades our ships proudly carried the badge of honour 'Clyde Built'. Now they will sail under a wind of shame that says built in Turkey or built in Poland paid for by us." He added: "CMAL is only focused on the bottom line and they couldn't care less in regard to where ferries are made from. "This is the ultimate failure of Government as it is their job to see the bigger picture to ensure that when we spend millions of pounds renewing our ferry fleet that the procurement exercise builds capacity in our community by upskilling the workforce, guaranteeing apprenticeships and ensuring that Scottish suppliers receive work." Former community safety minister Ash Regan said it was "obscene that a country with a shipbuilding heritage like Scotland's is sending hundreds of millions of pounds of contracts to Turkey and Poland". This means that instead of Scotland's vast amount of public money helping to sustain, build and secure more jobs and better resilience within our own manufacturing sector the Scottish taxpayer is instead subsidising jobs overseas instead of creating them in Scotland. The Alba Edinburgh Eastern MSP added: 'This is not how to show the ambition of a country driving towards independent statehood - this is settling for the devolved disempowerment of managed decline within a failing UK. 'It seems that time and time again community benefits - which are a legal requirement - in our procurement either receive lip service or the only communities that benefit from public sector procurement are those not in Scotland.' Ministers and CMAL have previously been condemned for the lack of community benefits which are defined in the ground-breaking Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 as a "contractual requirement" relating to training and recruitment and the availability of sub-contracting opportunities. The Scottish Government in its commentary on the Act said: "Community benefits have contributed to a range of national and local outcomes relating to employability, skills and tackling inequalities by focusing on under-represented groups. The Act aims to achieve the maximum use of these requirements in public procurement." The ground-breaking Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 when it was brought in was seen by many as a welcome move away from contracts awarded only on the basis of the lowest price towards those which offer the best long-term outcomes for Scotland's communities and the environment. Public contracts valued at £4m or above have specific requirements in relation to community benefits in the authority area that a contract is issued. These should include training and recruitment, the availability of sub-contracting and supplier opportunities, and that it is intended to improve the economic, social or environmental well-being of the area. If no community benefits are sought in a contract, a statement must be published justifying the decision. CMAL has previously denied that there is a breach of procurement laws saying there was no legal requirement to consider community benefits. They have said that the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations requires contractors to treat economic operators "equally and without discrimination, and restricts CMAL from artificially narrowing competition by unduly favouring or disadvantaging any particular economic operator". They have said that to narrow the supply base to a particular location like Scotland could be construed as "favouring manufacturers, particularly as there is a limited supply base in Scotland, leading to potential challenge". In the initial two ferries contract award to Turkey, CMAL had invited four overseas companies to bid to build the two vessels bound for Islay - and excluded Ferguson Marine. Scottish Government-controlled Ferguson Marine, failed to get past the first Pre Qualification Questionnaire hurdle in the Islay ferries contract. CMAL said of the agreement with Norway-based Kongsberg that eight retractable fin stabilisers have so far been purchased and sourced in Scotland. A spokesperson said: "CMAL follows robust procurement process and complies with all applicable Scottish procurement law. The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 does not legally require community benefits to be included in contracts. "However, at the SPDS [Single Procurement Document Scotland] stage of the procurement process for the small vessel replacement programme, we highlighted our commitment to community benefits, and advised yards there would be an option to include them in tender responses. None of the bidders included details of community benefits. "During contract discussions with Remontowa shipyard, two community benefits were agreed and included before signing. 'While Scottish public authorities can include social value considerations in procurements, they are not permitted to set requirements which would unlawfully discriminate against foreign shipyards and must at all times treat all bidders equally.'
Times
8 hours ago
- Times
Digital streams won't kill the radio star, says Nova supremo
In January 1988, Kevin Branigan and Mike Ormonde, two 15-year-old budding entrepreneurs, appeared in an interview in the Sunday World newspaper. The Dubliners had set up an 'illegal' radio station, Signal FM, in the shed of Ormonde's family home in Rathfarnham and reckoned they were Ireland's youngest owners of a pirate station. The article, complete with photos of Ormonde 'at the controls' and Branigan 'cueing up a record', recorded how the pair spent IR£600 of their pocket money on the venture. They had '100 per cent backing' from their parents, who knew the boys wanted to work full-time in radio and saw it as an education. 'We were both obsessed with radio and had met as 12-year-olds cycling over to see the original Nova in Rathfarnham. It was an enormous, professional operation despite being a pirate radio station,' Branigan says. Nearly four decades on, he and Ormonde own the entirely legit Radio Nova, Classic Hits Radio and Sunshine 106.8 and are fully paid-up members of the licensed independent radio sector. Last month Bay Broadcasting, their company, announced the seven-figure acquisition of Galway Bay FM from the Connacht Tribune Group. Galway's most popular radio station, with a market share of 34 per cent — higher than RTE Radio 1 and Today FM — will add 132,000 weekly listeners to the Bay Broadcasting audience. Branigan says the acquisition makes Bay the second-largest independent radio group in the country, behind only the German-owned Bauer Media Audio Ireland. 'The acquisition propels us into a different league in that it moves us into the status where we become something of a radio group,' Branigan says. 'When you add the listenership of all of our radio stations together, it brings us up to 810,000 a week, which we believe is a really healthy number.' While Ormonde is still a director and shareholder, Branigan heads up Bay Broadcasting, which includes Classic Hits Radio, Ireland's only multi-city radio station, which is broadcast to eight counties including Dublin, the commuter counties, and Cork, Limerick and Galway; and Radio Nova, which has a licence for the Dublin region. The company owns a 46 per cent share of Sunshine, an easy-listening radio station available across Leinster, which is run by Seán Ashmore, a one-time DJ on Signal FM. All three radio stations are operated from Castleforbes House in Dublin's north docklands, which is also home to the offices of the Pearl & Dean and Adtower businesses owned by Ormonde's investment company Step Investments. The Galway Bay FM acquisition will result in the headcount across the various radio stations rising from about 60 to 85. Bay Broadcasting does not release consolidated accounts for its various businesses but Branigan says the group is profitable. He expects turnover to hit €11 million this year, rising to about €15 million in 2026, driven by both growth across the group and the acquisition of the Galway station. Branigan has long pitched Bay Broadcasting as the plucky David to the powerful Goliath of media conglomerates such as Bauer, owner of Today FM and Newstalk, and Onic, owner of Q102, FM104 and Cork's 96FM. • Who's behind the local media land grab in Ireland? The privately owned Bauer operates in 14 countries and has €2.2 billion in annual revenues. Onic is part of the international media group News Corp, which last year had revenues of more than $10 billion and counts The Sunday Times, New York Post, Dow Jones and TalkRadio in its stable. Branigan is never one to shy away from fighting his corner. Last month Bay Broadcasting secured a temporary injunction against Bauer, preventing it from launching the brand Greatest Hits Radio on the digital platform DAB+ in the Republic of Ireland. Bay has argued that the name was too close to its Classic Hits Radio and initiated the proceedings after discussions with Bauer came to an impasse. Bauer temporarily changed the brand to GHR. The parties are due back in court on Tuesday. Classic Hits is a client of Media Central, Bauer's media sales house, which provides advertising solutions to media agencies. Bay also takes news content from Bauer. 'It is undoubtedly going to have an impact on all of the commercial areas that we deal with Bauer in. I don't think they've thought it through and that's a shame. They should have more respect for us,' he says. Branigan revels in his role as an industry firebrand. Last year, in response to the government committing itself to a three-year funding model for RTE, he told The Irish Sun: 'It doesn't surprise me at all because the government always rolls over when it comes to RTE.' He would like to see a 'more transparent' state-owned broadcaster. 'Nothing has changed since the Oireachtas committee meetings,' he says. Last summer he also wrote a letter to Kevin Bakhurst, director-general of RTE, and Catherine Martin, then minister for arts, offering to buy 2fm for €10 million. He was told the national pop music station was not for sale. • RTE's real-life drama creates problems for Kevin Bakhurst Branigan insists the offer was not a publicity stunt. 'It was a genuine attempt to buy it. It doesn't seem to be performing very well but we felt it could be turned around and that it would be a big opportunity for us to get bigger. It would have put us into a completely different league, having a national station.' National exposure is a core ambition. Branigan has repeatedly applied to extend Nova's licence across the country. 'Once every three years there is an opportunity to suggest that your licence area be extended. I've tried many times but I haven't managed to convince them [Coimisiun na Mean and its predecessors] yet.' He is as obsessed with radio now as he was as a child being raised with his two siblings in Stillorgan, the son of a school teacher, Ciarán, who taught at St Mary's College in Rathmines, which Branigan attended. 'All I wanted to be since the age of ten was to be in radio. I just love radio,' he says. Leaving school, he convinced his education-focused parents that a law or engineering career was not for him and they allowed him to do a communications degree at Dublin City University. After graduating in 1993 he got a job at Reelgood Studios, a production house. Outside the day job he had not given up on pirate radio. He and Ormonde set up Kiss 103 FM. At that stage the vast majority of pirate stations had closed following the introduction of the 1988 Radio and Television Act and the imposition of heavy fines on advertisers that patronised the pirates. Kiss ran for eight months, was raided three times and had its signal jammed on multiple occasions. 'The gardai would come in and raid us, take all our equipment and within a few hours we would be back up and running again,' Branigan says. 'I'd never condone illegality now but pirate stations are where a lot of people got their start. So many great broadcasting talents that are around today, such as Brian Dobson and Colm Hayes, began in pirate radio.' Branigan became a producer at East Coast Radio before being appointed head of production at Dublin's FM104. In 2000 he diverted his attention away from radio when he set up a website that lists adult education courses, and a jobs search engine. The company behind both sites, Jazbury, is still operational, employs six people and had a small profit of just over €16,000 in 2023. Through Bay Broadcasting, Ormonde and Branigan joined a consortium including Thomas Crosbie Holdings, The Irish Times, the radio executive Dermot Hanrahan and the businessman Ulick McEvaddy to apply for a licence for 4FM, a radio station targeted at the over-45s. The station launched in February 2009 in the midst of the recession and with an investment of €1 million. Losses quickly racked up and it struggled to gain audience share. 'There was a tense board meeting and the majority of the shareholders wanted to hand the licence back and close the station down,' Branigan says. 'We brokered a deal that we would take over all the debts if they gave us all their shares.' In 2011 the station rebranded from the 'stodgy' 4FM to Classic Hits Radio. It has grown its market share to 3 per cent. 'We had some really very difficult years but we finally began to come out the other side at the end of the last decade, in 2019,' Branigan says. Radio Nova was launched in 2010 with the backing of Hanrahan's Vienna Investments, Des Whelan, founder of WLR FM, and the late tech tycoon Pat McDonagh. Bay bought the shareholders out in 2017. In the meantime, the company had bought into Sunshine in 2013 when Seán Ashmore was rebranding the station from Country FM. There was an element of faking it till it made it when it came to promoting Nova. Latest JNLR (Joint National Listenership Research) figures show the station has a 9.4 per cent market share among adults in Dublin from 7am until 7pm. Sunshine has a share of 8.9 per cent. 'From the moment that Nova came on air we always tried to project that we were bigger than we actually were. We presented ourselves as being the underdog who was trying to fight the big guys, the likes of the FM104s and the 98s. We just got bigger to the point that we finally did become No 1 two and a half years ago,' Branigan says. He bristles at the idea that radio is a sunset industry as intimated in a recent trade publication by Al Dunne, a former shareholder in 4FM and co-founder of Q102 — 'a cheap potshot from somebody who isn't involved in the industry any more'. 'People have been [heralding the demise] of radio for years. Remember the 1980s hit song Video Killed the Radio Star? Yet radio carries on as a really strong medium. The independent sector employs 1,500 people in Ireland,' he adds. Branigan points to the entry of Bauer into the Irish market in 2021 when it paid €100 million for Denis O'Brien's Communicorp and its subsequent local radio acquisitions. 'Why would Bauer be buying radio stations if they thought radio was going to die?' As reported in The Sunday Times, DMG Media Ireland is in talks to enter the market with the purchase of WLR FM from The Irish Times group. 'There is a great future in radio. For me the pandemic was a defining moment. It showed once again, as radio has done many times, that it is such an important medium and that it isn't a medium that's going to fall out of fashion,' Branigan says. He said the number of people listening to Bay's radio stations online had grown significantly in recent years. Radio shows are turned into podcasts, allowing listeners to tune in at their convenience. 'Our ambition would be to expand further. We don't have any specific plans or any discussions going on … but we believe that there are big opportunities. Radio is a really strong medium and it will continue to surprise people.' Age: 53Lives: Leopardstown, DublinFamily: single; father of four sons — Alexy, 14, Ciarán, two, and twins Jack and Kevin, one — and a stepdaughter, Katie, 23Education: communications degree from Dublin City UniversityFavourite book: Jack Reacher series by Lee ChildFavourite film: I love any of the Star Trek films, and the TV shows too Working day: I generally get up at 6.45am and spend about 45 minutes with the kids and start working at 7.30am. I take Ciarán to the creche at about 9am and then go into the office. I spend my day having lots of meetings. I have a really good management team, with a can-do attitude. I come home at about 4.30pm or 5pm and then catch up at nighttime. Downtime: I spend time with the kids, and I like to go on walks.
Times
8 hours ago
- Times
Meet the woman behind the €1.4bn Dalata buyout coup
Liia Nõu, chief executive of Pandox, the Swedish hotel investment group, reveals on a Microsoft Teams call that she has just taken up golf. Her favourite player? Rory McIlroy. Having just agreed to pay €1.4 billion for Dalata, Ireland's largest hotel group, Nõu has displayed the touch of a master. Even Alf Smiddy, a senior independent director at Dalata up to 2021, and a critic of the proposed deal, saluted Pandox and its largest shareholder, Eiendomsspar, for the 'textbook execution' of a takeover bid. 'They played a blinder — confident, fast, savvy and strategic,' Smiddy posted on LinkedIn last week. He is dismayed, however, at the 'surrender of the Dalata board'. Eiendomsspar, which owns 36 per cent of Stockholm-quoted Pandox, teed up the transaction. It built a stake in the owner of the Clayton and Maldron hotel brands in the wake of a capital markets day last October. Five months later, the board of Dalata announced a strategic review, including a formal sales process (FSP). 'That opened up the opportunity to Pandox,' Nõu says.
