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Newport Engagement Hub: Powering positive change in the city

Newport Engagement Hub: Powering positive change in the city

One of the Hub's flagship collaborations is its involvement in the Business in the Community (BITC) Newport Place Programme, a collective of 15 anchor institutions working together to create lasting positive change for Newport. As a founding partner, USW has taken a leading role - hosting listening events that bring together local business and community voices to shape needs-led initiatives.
These insights have directly informed the design and operation of the Engagement Hub itself, ensuring it is a welcoming and useful space for both business and community partners.
The Hub is also supporting initiatives that widen access to education. USW's partnership with The Brilliant Club has enabled the launch of the Newport Parent Power Chapter - a programme engaging over 100 parents and carers from under-represented communities to build confidence and familiarity with higher education.
Nia Oatley, Communities Manager for The Brilliant Club, said:
'The University of South Wales' generosity in hosting Parent Power Newport meetings at their Newport Engagement Hub has been truly transformative. Their support provides us with a welcoming, accessible space where parents can connect, collaborate, and drive real change. This partnership empowers our community, strengthens our mission, and ensures that every parent's voice is heard.'
Through Startup Stiwdio and community connections, the Hub is supporting graduate ventures, providing work-based learning opportunities, and enabling co-designed curriculum developments that reflect the skills needs of local employers.
Julie-Anne Baker, a graduate entrepreneur, shared how the Hub has supported her journey:
'The Engagement Hub has provided me a space where I can safely operate my business from and feel connected to both other start-ups and gain support from individuals experienced in running businesses. The programmes like the business development programme have helped me to quickly gain a deeper understanding of business models and rapidly grow my private practice.'
The Hub is also proving valuable for established professionals and industry partnerships. David Champs, Director of Revive Development Consultants Ltd, said:
'Working from the Engagement Hub has facilitated valuable collaboration with USW as an academic partner. I've benefited from a Global MBA intern, support from the CEMET team, and access to workspace and technology that's been instrumental to the development of my consultancy.'
USW's involvement in programmes such as BITC Newport, Newport Parent Power, and a wide range of grassroots civic collaborations reflects a bold and meaningful approach to engagement - one that puts people, place, and purpose at the centre.
The Newport Engagement Hub is not just a university facility - it is a shared community asset, helping Newport to grow in a way that is inclusive, connected and genuinely impactful.
Whether you're a business looking for flexible workspace, a community organisation in need of a welcoming venue, or a local resident with an idea to explore - we'd love to hear from you.
To find out more about using the Newport Engagement Hub, or to arrange a tour of the space, contact the team at uswexchange@southwales.ac.uk.
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My husband found me in Yellow Pages … we built our firm on love
My husband found me in Yellow Pages … we built our firm on love

Times

time4 hours ago

  • Times

My husband found me in Yellow Pages … we built our firm on love

'All you need is love,' sang the Beatles. For Sakina Buoy, co-founder and chair of The Somerset Toiletry Co, which she started with her late husband, Roger, in 1999, the same is as true of business as it is of romance. 'It's a different kind of love, but business is all about love, isn't it? It's about loving your employees, loving what you do, and, for me, loving the creative process.' It's an approach that has helped the company, which makes affordable but inventively packaged bath and body products, stand the test of time. In the past 26 years it has contended with the global financial crisis, Roger's death from cancer in 2016, and the pandemic. Today the business, which employs 72 people, is in rude health: it generated sales of £13.7 million and a pre-tax profit of £674,000 in the year to December 31, 2023. Buoy says her husband was the entrepreneurial brains of the operation, but given that the company had sales of £8.2 million when he died, she has demonstrated plenty of business smarts too. To say Buoy's professional career started in a completely different sphere would be something of an understatement. 'If you told me in my twenties I would be a business person, I would have fallen on the floor,' she laughed. Now 65, she was born in Wigan but grew up in Manitoba, Canada, after her family moved there for her father's job as a nuclear engineer. 'I grew up on this tiny island where almost everybody was employed by Atomic Energy of Canada. I gained an appreciation for bears and skunks and it was quite idyllic.' They moved again, this time to Montreal, where Buoy went to university and gained a degree she would then use to help with a national effort to deinstitutionalise mental health services in Canada. ''I specialised in working with people with Down's syndrome,' explained Buoy, who described it as a beautiful but emotionally challenging job. Next, she got involved in politics in the Canadian city of Edmonton, and, 'embarrassingly for my dad', became secretary for an organisation called Edmontonians for a Non Nuclear Future. 'It wasn't about nuclear power plants,' she recalled, 'but the military use of nuclear weapons.' This was followed by a trip to India, where she spent time in ashrams and on yoga and meditation retreats, leading to an interest in essential oils. By the age of 26, and now a qualified aromatherapist, Buoy returned to the country of her birth and made it her home. She moved to Devon a few years later and met Roger, who was seeking an aromatherapy expert to help him with a business he was working on. 'He found me in the Yellow Pages,' smiled Buoy. That business, called Applewoods, sold luxury soaps and other toiletries. Launched in 1992, it had 28 stores around the world at its peak but encountered difficulties when the 1997 Asian financial crisis hit. The couple had to prop up the company until it was sold at a cut-down price, and that depleted their personal wealth. When they took out a loan to start again with The Somerset Toiletry Co, it was secured against the family home — a decision that weighed heavy on Roger, said Buoy. 'We had the conversation when we had our kids that he never wanted to lose the house, and I would always say to him: 'I don't care if we live in a two-up, two-down.' This was our life and our passion; I was never afraid about losing money — it has never been of huge importance to me.' The couple's stretched finances, however, meant that they 'worked on a shoestring' for the first few years. Their selling point was carefully designed packaging and creating products that were as natural as possible. 'If it's 100 per cent natural, you're going to be keeping it in the fridge. Our USP is making products that are really affordable but are still beautiful and have really good ingredients,' said Buoy. The initial plan had been to sell products direct to consumers, but when the Buoys attended a trade fair in Birmingham in 1999, they met buyers from the fashion and homeware company TJ Maxx, the American owner of TK Maxx, who asked if they could make private-label products to be sold under their own brand name. 'Because we were a young business, we said yes and ended up doing private-label products for the first 11 years,' said Buoy. The Somerset Toiletry Co has produced own-brand products for other large retailers including Laura Ashley and Anthropologie. But the financial crash of 2008 forced the married co-founders to reconsider their strategy when orders from key clients dried up. 'That was a huge challenge for us — we nearly lost the business,' said Buoy. They retrenched, choosing not to take salaries, and 'went back to working on a shoestring'. They also diversified into distributing their own products, so that they weren't over-exposed to any fall in demand for the private-label lines. It's now nearly 50:50, said Buoy. 'We knew that if there was another crash, we had lots of customers and we would be much more insulated.' To ensure consistency of pricing and quality, the pair entered into a joint venture in a factory in Porto, Portugal, called Castelbel, where their products were made for ten years. Roger made the decision to sell the couple's 60 per cent stake shortly before he died in 2016. 'He had an inkling he was going to die, and he wanted to die knowing that no matter if I screwed things up or not, there was money in the bank.' Buoy won't divulge a sale figure but confirms that their stake fetched a seven-figure sum. Although Roger had suffered from ill health his entire life, first because of a heart condition and then two different forms of cancer, his death was 'shocking', said Buoy. 'I don't think you can really plan for somebody you love dying. I think we all thought, although he was obviously very unwell, that he was like Superman.' Buoy later decided that she needed support with the finances and, in 2019, Brett Bateman was hired as chief executive. Last year the company opened a new, larger factory in Somerset to make its products, and the longer-term plan is for her two sons, Zantore and Xavier, to take over the business. Buoy, who still works for the company on the creative side three days a week, said the present climate for UK entrepreneurs was the hardest she'd known. 'Britain has always been a huge country for small and medium-sized companies, but I don't even know if this government likes business,' she said. Despite this, her passion for The Somerset Toiletry Co is undiminished. 'I still love creating things. 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CK Hutchison ports deal deadline likely to be extended as geopolitics weigh, sources say
CK Hutchison ports deal deadline likely to be extended as geopolitics weigh, sources say

Reuters

time15 hours ago

  • Reuters

CK Hutchison ports deal deadline likely to be extended as geopolitics weigh, sources say

HONG KONG, July 25 (Reuters) - CK Hutchison's ( opens new tab plan to sell most of its $22.8 billion ports business is unlikely to be finalised anytime soon, with political brinkmanship set to continue, and sources saying that a Sunday deadline for exclusive talks was likely to be extended. The Hong Kong conglomerate's plan to sell the business, which would include two ports along the strategically important Panama Canal, to a consortium led by BlackRock (BLK.N), opens new tab and Italian billionaire Gianluigi Aponte's family-run shipping company MSC, has become politicised amid an escalating China-U.S. trade war. Negotiations for the deal, which covers 43 ports in 23 countries, are on an exclusive basis between CK Hutchison, controlled by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, and the consortium for 145 days until Sunday, according to the terms announced in March. The deal talks, however, are unlikely to collapse if the two parties do not ink a pact by Sunday, with three people close to the ports-to-telecoms conglomerate saying the parties could extend the deadline to continue exclusive negotiations. The first part of the deal - definitive documentation to sell two port operations near the Panama Canal - was also not signed by an April 2 deadline set in the sales announcement. The people declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. BlackRock declined to comment. CK Hutchison and MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, which CK Hutchison said in May was the main investor in the consortium, did not respond to requests for comment. U.S. President Donald Trump hailed the deal as "reclaiming" the Panama Canal, after his administration previously called for the removal of what it said was Chinese ownership of the ports near the canal. But in April, China's top market regulator said that it was paying close attention to CK Hutchison's planned sale and that parties to the deal should not try to avoid an antitrust review. Beijing's stance on the planned deal was made public after pro-China media launched a stinging criticism, saying China had significant national interests in the transaction and it would be a betrayal of the country. "I think at this moment it's not very optimistic that they can directly sell the ports to the consortium," said Jackson Chan, global fixed income senior manager at FSMOne Hong Kong, which has clients holding CK Hutchison bonds. "The market has already digested the news, even if it announces next week that it won't sell anymore, I don't think it'll be a shock because the market understands it wouldn't have a large impact on its operations." CK Hutchison shares, which jumped 33% the following two days after the deal was announced in early March, erased all of the gains by mid-April. But since then it regained lost ground along with the rise in the broader Hong Kong market index (.HSI), opens new tab. The outlook for the deal has been clouded further in recent days, with a separate source telling Reuters that Chinese ports operator China Cosco Shipping Corp (COSCO) was also looking to join the consortium to buy the ports business. COSCO is requesting veto rights or equivalent power in the entity that will take over 43 ports from CK Hutchison, Bloomberg News reported this week, citing people familiar with the matter. COSCO did not respond to a request for comment. Responding to Reuters' emailed queries on the deal prospects and possible involvement of COSCO in the consortium, a White House official said: "As the president said, we didn't give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we're taking it back." The official did not elaborate. The existing consortium would likely allow COSCO into the deal, said Cathy Seifert, an analyst at CFRA Research. "The bigger risk to the deal being consummated, in my opinion, is likely the Trump administration, which is likely to block a deal that would include China," said the New Jersey-based analyst who tracks BlackRock. Ballingal Investment Advisors strategist David Blennerhassett, who publishes on the independent online research platform Smartkarma, said the addition of COSCO in the consortium was likely to enrage Trump. "Trump, who has a handful of issues already on his plate, would be incandescent," he said.

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