Inside Track | The view from inside outsourcing

High street under the spotlight

I notice that the newspapers are carrying more stories this week on the bids that private-equity consortia are making on high street retailers – the latest one being the bid for Kesa Electricals (they own the Comet stores and were part of Kingfisher until 2003) by a consortium apparently led by KKR and (possibly also) Permira. (Covered in lots of papers naturally, but the Business Telegraph page is concise).

These are pretty significant deals – this latest one apparently around £1.7bn – and hot on the heels of the rejected bid for HMV (also by Permira) this week.  One thing's for sure – the market likes the optimism from the PE firms as shares in retailers strengthened, presumably because of expectations that more take-over activity is on the way – it was also only recently that House of Fraser was in the sites of Apax Partners. Kingfisher shares became the best performer in the FTSE 100 this week. And of course Archie Norman and John von Spreckelsen (former CEO of Somerfield) are setting up separate buy-out funds to take on companies in distress – presumably retailers as their primary targets.

It'll be fascinating to see when and where this will all end – it seems to be a pretty congested marketplace. It'll also be interesting to see where the primary focus of post-acquisition activity will be… Shaking up the management teams one assumes.

Check out the Retail Bulletin website which is a useful round up of all things retail.

The start of the season

I got so hooked on doing the Nasscom blog  a few weeks ago that I found myself waking up at 1am in my hotel room in India to do another posting on something that I'd forgotten to comment about earlier in the day.  Sad I know, but true.

I've decided to keep my addiction going by setting up an all new blog to comment on 'stuff' – mainly related to the commercial sector that I run for Xansa – goings-on in retail, utilities, logistics, telco – but also, no doubt, about anything that I feel worth probing or commenting on.

Talking of which...

It was great to see Renault triumph once again http://www.renaultf1.com/en/ at the opening Grand Prix in Bahrain on Sunday. An example of tactical genius from the team around the pit stop 18 laps from the end of the race which saw Fernando Alonso sneak ahead of Schumacher – and then some stunning driving to stay ahead under severe pressure to the end of the race.

It was also great to see Xansa's logo on the side of the car for the first time after having viewed the mock-ups and the launch of the new car pre-season.

Nothing like the buzz of seeing it for real, in the heat of battle in the first GP – particularly as they won. We continue to progress well through our first year as Renault Formula 1's official 'software services partner' and our team is growing both in the UK and in India as we undertake support of RF1's software systems. 

Long may RF1's success continue (and yes, I am looking forward to attending a race or two this year)... Incidentally, take a look at the RF1 blog for insight into the team and their progress.