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IMAGINATION TECHNOLOGIES SELLS PURE RADIO BUSINESS FOR 2.6 MILLION D
igital radio business Pure has been sold to Austrian company AVenture AT GmbH for a cash sum of £2.6 million. The deal marks AVenture’s first investment in a consumer electronics brand, and in the UK.
Pure parent Imagination Technologies Group plc said the business, with its assets and liabilities, is being sold on a cash- and debt-free basis and the Austrian buyer has also been granted an option to acquire one of the Group’s properties in Kings
Langley, Hertfordshire for £4.5 million. The cash will be used to reduce the Group’s debts. In the year to 30 April 2016, Pure’s loss before tax was £7.9 million. The business had gross assets of £5.2 million.
Imagination Technologies said that the sale of other non-core cash consuming activities is progressing with ongoing discussions with several interested parties. A small part of IMG Systems was sold in September for a minimal consideration.
GOVERNMENT ASKS WHIRLPOOL TO EXPLAIN ITS STANCE ON FAULTY TUMBLE DRYERS A Government select committee has written to Whirlpool asking if it intends to change its advice to consumers on the use of faulty Hotpoint, Indesit and Creda tumble dryers and, if not, to explain why not.
“This fire has highlighted just how dangerous faulty white goods can be.”
Whirlpool has stated since the safety notice was issued for the products almost a year ago that consumers can continue to use
The Shepherd’s Bush flat after the fire
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GET CONNECTED OCTOBER 2016
them provided they are not left unattended during operation. Since then, there have been numerous incidents involving the appliances. This latest move by the Government followed a call from London Fire Brigade for Whirlpool to change its guidance after a fire caused by a faulty Indesit dryer in an 18-storey high-rise block in Shepherd’s Bush during August damaged flats on five floors of the building (See GC’s September issue). Mid September, lain Wright MP, Chair of the Business, lnnovation & Skills Committee, wrote to Whirlpool UK Managing Director Maurizio Pettorino requesting an update on the situation concerning the repair of the faulty products. In his letter he referred to correspondence between the two in February this year in which Pettorino had said it would take 10 weeks to schedule a repair date, and that dates for repairs were
© Photograph: London Fire Brigade
being scheduled out to January 2017. “You also said you were ‘confident that this timeline will be reduced’ as you continued to register customers and recruit more engineers and call centre staff,” the MP wrote. Mr Wright added that a Which? article in April reiterated Pettorino’s confidence that waiting times would reduce, but he noted that some customers were still having to wait until January 2017 for repairs to take place. “Given that a number of months have passed,” the MP said he would welcome an update on what progress has been made in reducing waiting times for customers to get replacements; whether it still takes 10 weeks to schedule a repair date and, if so, why this delay; how many customers are still awaiting repairs, and what the timeframe is for completing them. “I have personally had constituents writing to me to express concerns about difficulties in arranging replacements and in dealing with your customer service desk,” he wrote. “More importantly, the risk posed by faulty dryers is also clearly apparent, as demonstrated by a potentially fatal tower block blaze in London in August 2016, which London Fire Brigade attributed to a faulty lndesit tumble dryer. “ln light of this, I would like to understand whether you intend to change your customer advice, given London Fire Brigade has urged that customers should not use their appliance until it has
been checked and repaired. lf not, please explain why not.” Mr Wright also expressed concern that the problem with the dryers only came to light after the completion of the acquisition of lndesit by Whirlpool and said he would welcome an explanation as to why lndesit had not previously been aware of or acted upon the fire risk. London Fire Brigade reiterated its call for Whirlpool to change its advice to consumers in October after a six-week investigation into the cause of the tower block fire, stating that it “strongly disagrees” with the company’s advice and urging anyone with one of the models in question to immediately unplug the machine and stop using it. The Brigade’s Director of Operations Dave Brown said: “This fire has highlighted just how dangerous faulty white goods can be. Disappointingly, though, Whirlpool have still not changed their advice to consumers. “Following the conclusion of our investigation we are now appealing once again for them to change their advice and bring it into line with our own. “Thankfully, there were no serious injuries in the Shepherd’s Bush fire but we may not be so lucky if it happens again.” Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Minister for Small Business, Consumers and Corporate Responsibility Margot James MP has now said she will write to Whirlpool to set out her concerns and expectations.