Latest news with #Munro
Business Insider
6 hours ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Ord Minnett Reaffirms Their Buy Rating on Service Stream Limited (UFY)
Ord Minnett analyst Ian Munro maintained a Buy rating on Service Stream Limited (UFY – Research Report) today and set a price target of A$2.15. The company's shares closed last Wednesday at €1.06. Confident Investing Starts Here: Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks right to your inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter According to TipRanks, Munro is a 4-star analyst with an average return of 11.2% and a 55.26% success rate. Munro covers the Industrials sector, focusing on stocks such as Qube Holdings, Freightways, and Service Stream Limited. Currently, the analyst consensus on Service Stream Limited is a Moderate Buy with an average price target of €1.13, a 6.60% upside from current levels. In a report released on June 11, Citi also maintained a Buy rating on the stock with a A$2.00 price target. The company has a one-year high of €1.12 and a one-year low of €0.66. Currently, Service Stream Limited has an average volume of 5. Based on the recent corporate insider activity of 6 insiders, corporate insider sentiment is negative on the stock. This means that over the past quarter there has been an increase of insiders selling their shares of UFY in relation to earlier this year.
The Herald Scotland
10 hours ago
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Barrhead Travel story in Glasgow surely offers some lessons
And it was somewhat astonishing to hear the price of a week's holiday in Majorca in 1979 was £50. However, what really hit home as the story of the first 50 years was told was the astute and entrepreneurial decision-making of Barrhead Travel's founder, the late Bill Munro, at various key stages of the development of the business. These included, from Barrhead Travel's earliest days, opening when others were closed, something that was a driver of the establishment of the business in the first place, and Mr Munro's embracing of the internet when it brought major change to the sector. In many ways, it appears Mr Munro built the business by making the right decisions and doing relatively simple things very well indeed. That might sound straightforward enough. However, that is from the position of reflecting on the story of Barrhead Travel from where it is now, having observed the various key stages. What is clear is that Mr Munro had tremendous vision, assessing trends in the sector and reacting shrewdly and at times boldly. The wisdom of the decisions and strategy that paved the way for the creation of what is now a major UK-wide travel agent, from a single shop in Barrhead on the outskirts of Glasgow in 1975, might seem apparent enough with hindsight. However, Mr Munro did not have the benefit of hindsight as he navigated huge changes in the industry. He did just fine without it, achieving a degree of success that is remarkable. Other major events in Barrhead Travel's history - highlighted by president Jacqueline Dobson at last Thursday's dinner – include the responses of the business to the collapse of major package holiday and airline company Thomas Cook and to the coronavirus pandemic. Barrhead Travel has also undergone a change of ownership. It was sold to US-based Travel Leaders Group in 2018, and was by that time one of the UK's biggest travel agents. Barrhead Travel celebrated its 50th birthday at a dinner at Glasgow's Old Fruitmarket last week. (Image: Barrhead Travel) Travel Leaders Group is part of Internova Travel Group, which has its head office in New York. Mr Munro died aged 80 in October 2024. A Barrhead Travel spokesman said then: 'It's been almost 50 years since Bill Munro founded Barrhead Travel. His bold vision fundamentally changed the landscape for high street travel agents across the country. He made a tremendous contribution to the overall travel industry as well as becoming an influential figure within the Scottish business community.' This legacy was plain at Barrhead Travel's 50th birthday dinner, which was attended by the founder's daughter, Sharon Munro, who stepped down as president of the business at the end of 2018. Another legacy which was evident was a focus on people within Barrhead Travel, which employs more than 560 people. Read more While the many opportunities given to young people by the business over years and decades through its apprenticeship approach were highlighted, what was also to the fore was the long service of staff throughout the business, including across the executive team. Far too often in the business world these days, the importance of such experience is overlooked, to the ultimate cost of companies which take such a lamentable view. Ms Dobson highlighted the length of service of many of Barrhead Travel's employees. She said: 'I started my career as an apprentice, and many of my colleagues did too.' Jacqueline Dobson has been with Barrhead Travel for 25 years. (Image: Barrhead Travel) Ms Dobson highlighted the fact that she had been with the business for 25 years. And she emphasised she was 'certainly not alone' in having been with Barrhead Travel for that length of time or longer. The business characterises its own journey as follows: 'Since it was founded in 1975, Barrhead Travel has expanded from a traditional 'bucket and spade' travel agent to a multi-faceted travel group offering bespoke holidays and cruises to all corners of the globe.' And it highlights the fact that 'in addition to its retail network which spans over 90 locations across the UK, the group has a number of specialist divisions including touring and adventure, cruise and USA'. The business has indeed come a long way, and its current US-based owner has backed the continuing expansion of Barrhead Travel. What was notable, however, was Ms Dobson's emphasis last week on how the 'heart of the business' is the same as it was 50 years ago. She said: 'While so much has changed, the heart of the business remains the same. We're here to solve problems, support our people, and ultimately deliver unforgettable holidays. 'Our resilience over the decades has only strengthened our belief in what we do. It's our people, our customers, and our communities that have shaped this journey. Celebrating 50 years is not just about looking back, it's about looking forward with confidence, staying true to our roots while continuing to evolve.' Ms Dobson declared that, as Barrhead Travel looks ahead, 'there are no signs of slowing down, with plans for continued investment and expansion on the high street as well as launching new technology'. She highlighted the fact that 'the business has had a record-breaking year, with January 2025 being the most successful month in its 50-year history'. And Ms Dobson emphasised: 'It believes its founding principles, customer service, innovation, and community are as relevant today as they were in 1975.' It is good to see the founding principles of Mr Munro 50 years ago continue to deliver growth and success for what is such a well-known Scottish business. There seemed to be a genuine warmth in the room last week from the various travel industry partners with which Barrhead Travel works. And Ms Dobson's emphasis of the degree to which the business values its people also came across passionately, in stark contrast to the kind of buzzword bingo you hear on this front from some corporates. Many might have doubted when the internet began to revolutionise travel that businesses like Barrhead Travel would continue to thrive but, while many but certainly not all of its competitors have found the journey more difficult and at times impossible, the operation founded by Mr Munro back in 1975 has gone from strength to strength. Hopefully, Barrhead Travel will continue to prosper and prove resilient through the ups and downs of future decades, and it will have the continued backing of its owner to build on the success achieved over the last 50 years.
National Observer
a day ago
- National Observer
A city in war-torn Ukraine has a mass transit policy some Torontonians are begging for
The lions are everywhere, once you start to look. Riding the trams in Lviv, Ukraine, it becomes impossible not to see the city's namesake animal on shop signs, company cars and the sides of buses. But the scenery goes by fast. Even as national resources have been diverted towards the defence force in the country's eastern areas, Ukraine's fifth-largest city has managed to implement a transit signal priority (TSP) setup this year for streetcars in the city's centre, giving trams expedited green lights that help them go 10 to 15 per cent faster on formerly clogged stretches. In a fully implemented TSP system, a bus or streetcar that is approaching an intersection sends a signal to the traffic light at that intersection, receiving a green light. Such systems can be a quick boost for cities looking to increase the share of commuters using public transit, rather than single-occupancy automobiles, key drivers of the global climate emergency. Lviv has installed such a system, despite facing significant challenges related to Russia's invasion. That leaves some Torontonians asking why Canada's largest city can't seem to fully do in peacetime what Lviv has done in the middle of a war. "TTC [Toronto Transit Commission] has a very ingrained habit of finding external causes to blame for their problems and to avoid internal review, assuming there's nothing to fix," said Steve Munro, a local transit blogger who has won the Jane Jacobs Medal for urban design, in an email to Canada's National Observer. "I really don't think the city or TTC are really on top of what technology is available elsewhere for TSP and there is more focus on developing something new for Toronto as if it doesn't exist yet." A recent Australian study says that Toronto has the slowest streetcar service of all the large world systems for which structured data is easily available. And while the city's transit index from the group Walk Score has improved since a decade ago, that improvement has been negligible — 0.1 points on a 100-point scale, compared with 7.4 points of improvement for nearby New York during the same period. New York's current transit score is 88.6, while Toronto's is 78.2. If Toronto is to bounce back from its poor transit performance, Canada's largest city might look to a Ukrainian city for answers. The lack of strong transit options in a city — even in car-happy North America — can hinder its ability to attract employers and population, with some large North American employers now citing good transit as a must-have when making facility location decisions. Traffic lights, though they may seem distinct from transit, are actually a significant part of the city's failure to build a thriving transit system. Traffic signals in Toronto are run by the city's transportation services department who, Munro said, are "frankly more oriented to roads than transit traffic. Their attitude is that if traffic moves well, transit benefits too. The 'rising tide lifts all boats' theory." But not all boats are being lifted. The feeling of frustration among Toronto transit riders has been percolating since at least October, when a Toronto-based user posted a video on Reddit under the title " Why no transit signal priority on St. Clair?" The video shows single-occupant vehicles chugging slowly through protected left turn after protected left turn, blocking the intersection as the streetcars jammed with people go nowhere. Reactions to the video ranged from posts blaming former mayor Rob Ford to a lamentation that the thought of adding 10 seconds to a commute to allow trams full of passengers through, "literally kills drivers" — a rhetorical flourish that appeared to be meant figuratively, based on the context of the discussion. The user who posted the original video confirmed that, as of May, the left turn blockage they documented in October still exists. Extra relevance now The topic of transit signal priority is of greater importance to riders now than ever before, as the Eglinton Crosstown light rail extension is coming along. The project is an undertaking that extends Toronto's existing streetcar system with a line that is part subway, part streetcar. The provincial government broke ground on the final tunnelled segment of the project in April. While the tunnelled sections do not include traffic crossings, they will add additional riders to street-level segments of the line when complete. With more riders in the overall system, there will be more need to move people through, including the parts that could benefit from the green lights that a fully activated TSP provides. According to Amer Shalaby, a civil engineering professor at the University of Toronto who has researched how traffic signals and transit should interact, just because existing TTC streetcars have transit signal priority devices installed "doesn't mean that TSP is implemented at all intersections." In some cases, he said, a city may buy a TSP solution for their transit vehicles, then fail to use it adequately due to political pressure or miscommunication. One project by the city, at least, seems to lend weight to the idea that TTC streetcars aren't doomed to be slow. In November 2017, the city launched a pilot project on King Street to give priority to streetcars on a roughly three-kilometre stretch from Bathurst to Jarvis streets, with private vehicles deprioritized. "Over the course of the following year, the pilot demonstrated, relatively quickly and cost-effectively, its ability to move people more efficiently on transit without compromising the broader transportation road network," the city wrote in a press release. The city made the transit priority corridor permanent in 2019. Deputy Mayor Ausma Malik, a fan of the King Street project, told the CBC that enforcement of traffic laws, along with good street design, is vital if transit priority projects are to work correctly. "Better enforcement has been our first and very significant step, and as the data shows, the addition of traffic agents along King has resulted in quicker travel times for transit users and safer travelling for pedestrians and cyclists," she told the outlet in 2024. For a brief moment, it looked like Toronto might be heading toward faster rail routes at a time when new understandings of climate change were putting pressure on cities to improve their transit options. Slowest in the world For some transit watchers, though, the King Street project feels like too little, too late, with a recent Australian study saying Toronto has some of the slowest tram routes in the world. "Who wins and who loses these policy battles, [which] may play out every time a traffic light is reprogrammed, a street is reconfigured, or a redevelopment takes place?" the study's author, Jan Scheurer, wrote in an email to Canada's National Observer. "My guess is that transit interests only rarely win in Toronto, but why is that so?" he asked, wondering whether pro-transit voices and institutions are too weak, or whether, despite strength, those institutions and thought leaders have come to accept Toronto's status quo as sufficient. And Toronto-area leaders' alleged attitude problems potentially extend beyond complacency over slow trams: A June 10 investigation by Jack Hauen in the Trillium found that before GO expansion partner Deutsche Bahn (DB) and its client, Metrolinx, parted ways, DB staffers "pushed for ambitious, European-style changes, while some of the Crown agency's leadership resisted, insistent that things work differently in Canada." The Trillium piece paints a grim picture of a regressive leadership stuck in the 20th century on the topic of mobility. "While the agency's GO Expansion web page still describes a plan for 15-minute service or better on the main lines," Hauen wrote, "sources mourned the more ambitious version of the project, which they said would have made suburban cores feel fully connected to downtown Toronto, and made rail a top choice for riders looking to travel within the Greater Golden Horseshoe. "A lot of people within the agency didn't understand that," a former Metrolinx employee told Hauen. "Or they didn't want it." To be fair to the current mayor, Munro says, the city previously had pro-car mayors "for a long time, and this sets the tone for staff. Although Mayor Chow is pro-transit, she hasn't been in office long enough to force a cultural shift, something that takes years." Munro's "long time" period full of pro-car mayors stretches well before the start of the century, argues Jason Slaughter, a Canadian transplant to Amsterdam who writes and speaks professionally about transit. "For the first few decades of subway building, Toronto would build a subway line under a streetcar line, and then remove the streetcar," he states in a recent video essay, saying that, unlike some European cities, where the systems were viewed as complementary, "this was a stated goal of the subway system. It was built less as a way to improve public transit, and more as a way to make room for cars on the surface." Both Slaughter and Scheurer emphasize policy preferences change over time, and there are still chances for Toronto to bounce back from its poor transit performance. "[It's important to understand] urban streets as contested spaces, or constant policy battlegrounds between stakeholder interests," Scheurer wrote to Canada's National Observer. For its part, despite the success of its King Street pilot project, the mayor's office won't say whether it's looking at putting some traffic light systems directly under TTC control. Canada's National Observer left a half-dozen requests for comment via phone and email over the course of 16 days. No one responded. On June 16, Robert Fico, prime minister of Ukraine's neighbor, Slovakia, which has been a pro-Russian voice in recent years, acknowledged with approval what most European Union leadership circles have tacitly agreed on for years: Ukraine is likely to become part of the EU once the current war ends. If the experiences of Slovakia and the other Visigrad countries are any indication, this means that money is about to start flowing from the bloc to Ukraine's infrastructure needs, funding roads, bike paths and transit all over the country. Tram systems in cities like Lviv, in other words, will not be standing still. They're about to get even better.
The Advertiser
4 days ago
- The Advertiser
Woman in court over tragic fatal pedestrian accident at Stroud Showground
A WOMAN, 68, accused of causing a tragic fatal pedestrian accident at the Stroud Showground in the build up to the close-knit country town's annual show has had her matter mentioned in court for the first time. Valerie Ann Munro was allegedly behind the wheel of a car that struck two women - aged 72 and 82 - at the showground on Cowper Street about 1.30pm on April 24. Port Stephens-Hunter police said they were called to the showground after reports of a crash and paramedics treated the two injured pedestrians at the scene before the 82-year-old woman was taken to John Hunter Hospital in a critical condition. Ms Munro was taken to Maitland Hospital for mandatory testing. Police say they established a crime scene and commenced inquiries into the circumstances of the crash before being notified about 9.30pm on April 25 that the 82-year-old woman had died in hospital. The Stroud community were rocked by the "freak accident" and at the time of the tragedy had been preparing for the annual Stroud Show, which ran from April 25 to 27. Following further inquires by Port-Stephens Hunter police, Mrs Munro went to Maitland police station on May 7 and was issued a future court attendance notice for a charge of negligent driving occasioning death. The matter was mentioned for the first time in Raymond Terrace Local Court on Monday. Ms Munro did not enter a plea and the matter was adjourned until July 28. A WOMAN, 68, accused of causing a tragic fatal pedestrian accident at the Stroud Showground in the build up to the close-knit country town's annual show has had her matter mentioned in court for the first time. Valerie Ann Munro was allegedly behind the wheel of a car that struck two women - aged 72 and 82 - at the showground on Cowper Street about 1.30pm on April 24. Port Stephens-Hunter police said they were called to the showground after reports of a crash and paramedics treated the two injured pedestrians at the scene before the 82-year-old woman was taken to John Hunter Hospital in a critical condition. Ms Munro was taken to Maitland Hospital for mandatory testing. Police say they established a crime scene and commenced inquiries into the circumstances of the crash before being notified about 9.30pm on April 25 that the 82-year-old woman had died in hospital. The Stroud community were rocked by the "freak accident" and at the time of the tragedy had been preparing for the annual Stroud Show, which ran from April 25 to 27. Following further inquires by Port-Stephens Hunter police, Mrs Munro went to Maitland police station on May 7 and was issued a future court attendance notice for a charge of negligent driving occasioning death. The matter was mentioned for the first time in Raymond Terrace Local Court on Monday. Ms Munro did not enter a plea and the matter was adjourned until July 28. A WOMAN, 68, accused of causing a tragic fatal pedestrian accident at the Stroud Showground in the build up to the close-knit country town's annual show has had her matter mentioned in court for the first time. Valerie Ann Munro was allegedly behind the wheel of a car that struck two women - aged 72 and 82 - at the showground on Cowper Street about 1.30pm on April 24. Port Stephens-Hunter police said they were called to the showground after reports of a crash and paramedics treated the two injured pedestrians at the scene before the 82-year-old woman was taken to John Hunter Hospital in a critical condition. Ms Munro was taken to Maitland Hospital for mandatory testing. Police say they established a crime scene and commenced inquiries into the circumstances of the crash before being notified about 9.30pm on April 25 that the 82-year-old woman had died in hospital. The Stroud community were rocked by the "freak accident" and at the time of the tragedy had been preparing for the annual Stroud Show, which ran from April 25 to 27. Following further inquires by Port-Stephens Hunter police, Mrs Munro went to Maitland police station on May 7 and was issued a future court attendance notice for a charge of negligent driving occasioning death. The matter was mentioned for the first time in Raymond Terrace Local Court on Monday. Ms Munro did not enter a plea and the matter was adjourned until July 28. A WOMAN, 68, accused of causing a tragic fatal pedestrian accident at the Stroud Showground in the build up to the close-knit country town's annual show has had her matter mentioned in court for the first time. Valerie Ann Munro was allegedly behind the wheel of a car that struck two women - aged 72 and 82 - at the showground on Cowper Street about 1.30pm on April 24. Port Stephens-Hunter police said they were called to the showground after reports of a crash and paramedics treated the two injured pedestrians at the scene before the 82-year-old woman was taken to John Hunter Hospital in a critical condition. Ms Munro was taken to Maitland Hospital for mandatory testing. Police say they established a crime scene and commenced inquiries into the circumstances of the crash before being notified about 9.30pm on April 25 that the 82-year-old woman had died in hospital. The Stroud community were rocked by the "freak accident" and at the time of the tragedy had been preparing for the annual Stroud Show, which ran from April 25 to 27. Following further inquires by Port-Stephens Hunter police, Mrs Munro went to Maitland police station on May 7 and was issued a future court attendance notice for a charge of negligent driving occasioning death. The matter was mentioned for the first time in Raymond Terrace Local Court on Monday. Ms Munro did not enter a plea and the matter was adjourned until July 28.
Business Recorder
6 days ago
- Business
- Business Recorder
Copper, other metals drop
LONDON: Prices of copper and other industrial metals fell on Friday, weighed down by a stronger dollar as investors sold risky assets after Israel attacked Iran. Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange shed 1.3% to $9,573 a metric ton in official open-outcry trading, the weakest since June 3. The dollar index climbed and world stock markets tumbled after Israel launched a large-scale military strike on Iran. A firmer dollar makes commodities priced in the US currency more expensive for buyers using other currencies. 'The market is de-risking on copper and aluminium,' said Alastair Munro, senior base metals strategist at broker Marex. 'The key now will be whether the risk managers in the USA start to knock on the money managers' door saying you've got to reduce risk ahead of the weekend.' US Comex copper futures dropped 2.1% to $4.74 a lb, bringing the premium of Comex over LME copper to $875 a ton. Munro said much of the selling was by Commodity Trade Advisor (CTA) investment funds, which are largely driven by computer programs, while Chinese participants emerged at the lows to do some buying. In China, the most-traded aluminium contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) gained for the third straight day, up 0.4% at 20,425 yuan per metric ton, outperforming other SHFE metals. 'Aluminium, compared with the other metals, has been performing rather strongly recently as demand from the domestic market has been robust, while SHFE stocks have been declining,' a Hangzhou-based analyst from a futures company said. Aluminium stocks in SHFE warehouses fell to 110,001 tons in the week ended June 13, the lowest since February 2024, having tumbled by 54% since late March. Among other metals, LME aluminium gave up 1.2% in official activity to $2,486.50 a ton, zinc fell 1.8% to $2,594, lead slipped 0.6% to $1,984 and tin dropped 0.8% to $32,400, while nickel rose 0.2% to $15,170.
