Daily Archives: November 21, 2019

SECR Reporting Are you recording and reporting? – Financial Director

Posted: November 21, 2019 at 5:43 pm

In 2018 The Companies (Directors Report) and Limited Liability Partnerships (Energy and Carbon Report) Regulations 2018, Statutory Instrument 1155, was passed which made changes to the level of reporting required within the Directors Report with effect for financial years commencing on or after 1 April 2019. We are therefore in the first reporting period.

This legislation implemented the consultation work carried out by The Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, BEIS, which resulted in the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting policy, commonly referred to as SECR. This was required after the end of the Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme and widened the scope to include many more organisations and types of organisation as well as specifying performance reporting in the Directors Report. The SECR reporting has not replaced other required reporting regimes such as ESOS, GRG and sector Climate Change Agreements.

The increase in scope over the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, has brought in many companies who are currently reporting under ESOS, widening the catchment to broadly 11,900 organisations. As the title implies LLPs are within the scope. All quoted companies need to comply but other limited companies or LLPs will also be obliged to do so if they hit two of the following criteria:-

There is a de-minimis hurdle but this is set at a very low figure of 40 MWh that it is difficult to see it coming into play.

The situation with group reporting is interesting and different to CRC reporting in that subsidiaries may be excluded if they do not meet the criteria in their own right. It would be worth checking the detail on this before reporting though as the rules are complex. It is thought there may be a tendency to overreport for marketing purposes.

Rickard Gustafson, who heads up Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), tells Financial Director how he is adapting the carrier to a fast-changing environment.

Dr Anne-Marie Coles,of the Institute for Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability (PEGFA), University of Greenwich, says the link between finance and climate change needs to be understood.

All companies will need to develop their sustainability strategy to survive and prosper, says Mike Rosenberg, associate professor of strategic management, IESE Business School.

What is needed to be reported depends on whether the organisation is a quoted company or not. All companies in scope will be required to report usage of Gas, Electricity and direct Transport, plus the greenhouse gas implied within the usage and at least one measure of intensity relevant to the industry.

These measures could be similar to those used in activity-based costing, such as floor area for retail, or output for manufacturing, and in many cases more than one could be used as long as they are consistent over time. In addition quoted companies are required to include global emissions in tonnes of Carbon including other gases as required by the Kyoto protocol, and if possible Scope 3 emissions from the supply chain. A narrative on steps to reduce emissions is also required in the Directors report. The requirement for the reported figures to be externally verified is not mandatory, but it is expected consistency will be applied.

Although there is no direct penalty for not complying with SECR specified it could result in Companies House rejecting the Directors Report and a subsequent late filing penalty. We will not know how this is enforced until accounts are filed in late 2020. BEIS have not (so far) put in other non-compliance penalties such as exist with the ESOS scheme.

During the initial year of reporting a prior year comparison is not required, but will be from then on.

The inclusion of many more organisations within scope has brought tracking of energy use, and KPIs on energy into the routine accounting arena rather than periodic exercises on annual or periodic compliance reporting. This could result in duplication within an organisation as Sustainability Managers are also capturing much of the data required to comply within their systems. In larger organisations some of this data can reside within an Enterprise Resource Management system, but LLPs and mid-sized organisations may have not invested in that level of shared data and may have a major data collection and aggregation task in linking consumption to intensity drivers.

One solution to this is to look at what systems are being applied in the energy sector that have been built around reporting and recording energy usage. By utilising this type of system, where energy usage is directly feeding off meter readings, KPIs aligned to SECR reporting can be brought in as part of the monthly report. With some systems it is also possible to combine this data collection and consolidation with billing validation allowing consistent data between usage recording and the accounts.

About the author: Martyn Young ACMA is a director of ZTP, an energy software and management consultancy.

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EQ Bank migrates core system to the cloud as it gears up for open banking in Canada – BetaKit

Posted: at 5:43 pm

Toronto-based EQ Bank, the digital arm of Equitable Bank, has announced it is migrating its entire core banking system to the cloud. The bank claims this would make it the first licenced bank in Canada to be fully hosted in a public cloud architecture.

Our recent move to the cloud means were not only ready for the future of banking in Canada, were driving it.

EQ Bank, which was launched as a full-service digital banking solution in 2016, said this migration will reduce overhead costs, make its system more flexible, prepare itself for innovations like open banking, and strengthen its security foundation. Equitable Bank chief information officer and senior vice president Dan Dickinson said the company is attempting to ditch the traditional industry approaches of what he called armchair technologies, meaning traditional banking philosophies.

According to a report on cloud banking released by Deloitte, a cloud architecture would allow financial institutions and enterprises to synchronize, by allowing them to share data and drive more integrated decisions. Accenture worked with a bank on its cloud architecture, reporting that the bank was better able to support development efforts, simplify its operating environment, and increase productivity.

EQ Bank will base its system on Temenos T24 Transact, a core banking software that is cloud-native and cloud-agnostic. Temenos software is built using API-first and DevOps principles and is available on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. EQ Bank will be using Azure.

Dickinson said the scalability and flexibility is the whole premise of the cloud. If the bank hits high volumes, for example, it can change its resource capability and scale up to hold demand without customers experiencing a slowdown.

That kind of flexibility helps us a lot, and that leads to the cost [benefit], because in an old world, what youd have to do is buy the hardware that would support you for your busiest time of the year, he told BetaKit. The rest of the year, maybe youre not fully utilizing that hardware.

Not all attest to the cost-effectiveness of cloud banking, however. Frank Wasson, CEO of First Entertainment Credit Union, told Forbes the idea that cloud banking is cheaper is a myth, and that his organization found it was sometimes more expensive than would the organization could do for itself.

RELATED: CIBC launches new banking platform for small and medium-sized business

Dickinson argued that the benefits of cloud banking are pretty widely documented, but he agreed that cloud banking is not necessarily less expensive, contrary to EQ Banks argument that the cloud will reduce overhead costs.

I think originally, people thought itd be much less expensive just out of the gate, he said. What youre doing is youre actually paying for more flexibility, agility, and security, which is maybe a little bit different than what the story has been on cloud for years.

A 2017 report from Accenture Consulting found that while banks and firms are exploring or using the cloud on some level, many are still hesitant to undertake a full-scale transformation.

Wed love to see more competition in the market and more Canadians needs being met.

Dickinson said the security aspect of the cloud has raised a big question mark among firms who are concerned about the potential risks, and affirmed that financial institutions should have the right controls and processes to ensure security is well looked after. Cloud providers are already known for having have rigorous security standards, Deloitte noted in a report.

Dickinson also touched on the clouds ability to help EQ Bank with open banking. If open banking goes the way that we really are hoping that it does go, and over time, theres huge consumer demand for this, then we want to be ready for that, Dickinson told BetaKit. We believe its the customers data, its theirs to look at and we didnt want infrastructure speed or lack of scalability to stand in the way of them being able to get to their data.

Open banking is a system intended to offer consumers more control of their data, by allowing their banks to distribute their personal information to third parties through the use of open application programming interfaces (more commonly known as APIs). It would allow, essentially, for more of EQ Banks startup competitors to emerge on the banking scene, but Dickinson said EQ Bank doesnt have a problem with this.

RELATED: Department of Finance Canada launches consultations on open banking

We dont try to be everything to everyone, Dickinson said. Were actually excited at the idea of other software players, payments players, or advisory players being able to come into that space. Wed love to see more competition in the market and more Canadians needs being met.

EQ Banks parent, Equitable Bank, has also shown its support for challengers to financial incumbents, injecting capital into Toronto-based startups Wealthsimple and Borrowell, as well as partnering with a number of FinTech startups.

We challenge ourselves to innovate every day, which is why weve built our digital infrastructures not only to provide state-of-the-art digital experiences for today but also in anticipation of open banking, said Andrew Moor, CEO and president of Equitable Bank. Open banking will transform and modernize our industry enormously, benefitting consumers, businesses, and the economy alike. Innovation is in EQ Banks DNA, and our recent move to the cloud means were not only ready for the future of banking in Canada, were driving it.

Image courtesy EQ Bank

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Market Experts Weigh in on the Next Major Mergers & Acquisitions in Media – Observer

Posted: at 5:41 pm

AT&T and Time Warner, Disney and Fox, Comcast and Sky. Which conglomerates are on the hunt for major mergers and acquisitions? Pixabay

A food chain is defined as a hierarchical series of organisms dependent on the next as a source of food. This suggests that the entropy of the unchecked wild is merely instinctual, natural order masquerading as chaos. Sharks eat minnows, lions eat gazelle, and the whole world keeps on turning. We understand that the natural world is governed by such linear survivalism, but rarely do we acknowledge that the unnatural world we createdthe one of business and economicsis also dictated by the same Darwinian laws.

The strong prey on the weak, or, at the very least, eye every conceivable opportunity to grow strongereven at a cost to others.In the media and entertainment landscape, this is regularly accomplished through mergers and acquisitions. AT&T acquired Time Warner in a landmark $85 billion deal; The Walt Disney Co. gobbled up 20th Century Fox for $71 billion; Comcast dropped $39 billion on Sky; and Viacom and CBS re-merged to form a new company valued at roughly $30 billion. Scale in media is purely carnivorousone company feeds on another. Its almost Shakespearean in its lethal simplicity.

SEE ALSO: Hollywood Is Running Out of Room, and It Might Be Hurting Your Favorite Movies Most

While major dominoes have already fallen, there is undoubtedly more still to come. A tiger cant change his stripes, after all, and the increasingly volatile entertainment media industry cant be satiated in a time of conglomerate hunger. So we talked to a handful of industry experts in an attempt to identify realistic potential mergers and acquisitions on the horizon.

Mary Ann Halford, a former Fox EVP and senior advisor at OC&C Strategy

Halford believes the first question to tackle under this umbrella topic is identifying the major players who are still left in media and entertainment. To her, that list that includes AMC, Discovery, Lionsgate, Sony, Imagine Entertainment and MGM Entertainment.

Of course, regarding Discovery and Lionsgate, Liberty Media (controlled by John Malone) has a significant interest, which could make for interesting dealmaking, Halford said.

Steve Birenberg, Founder of Northlake Capital Management

An expert in the financial field, Birenberg is eying Lionsgate for an acquisition. Im not exactly sure by whom, he says, but ViacomCBS makes the most sense if and when they prove their merger is working and their stock prices is way, way up from here.

Despite ongoing speculation throughout the industry, Birenberg does not believe Apple will acquire a studio as he doesnt deem it necessary to further their product services priority. If Apple were to acquire anything, I think Roku would be the smart move, he noted.

Similar to others quoted here, he views Discovery Communications as a prime target, thanks to its high floor non-fiction strategy and healthy balance sheet. While no obvious partner comes immediately to mind, there are non-traditional alternatives that Discoverys unscripted content lends itself to.

Paul Dergarabedian, Senior Media Analyst for Comscore

Dergarabedian believes we are witnessing the greatest amount up upheaval in the media industrys history. From a practical perspectivebecause there is so much content that it can be overwhelmingthe future may revolve around consolidation, he says. The question on his mind is: How do we get all of this content in one place?

Outside of Roku and Apple TV housing streaming apps for several services, the competitors are not concerned with making it easy for consumers to access a wealth of content. The sheer volume of options may be the primary barrier of adoption for some.

Future merges will be dictated by technology with unexpected players that may not even exist yet driving the industry, he predicts. We need to open our minds to the intersection of technology and content. Sony was a tech-first company when they acquired Columbia Pictures; Netflix began by selling DVDs and is now a full-blown studio. If we travel 20 to 30 years back, we couldnt have envisioned the entertainment industry of today with streaming and everything. So the future will likely be a manifestation of what were not even aware of yet.

Mark Williams, Chief Revenue Officer, Americas, for Merrill Corporation

Williams notes that merger and acquisition deal-making in the technology, media and telecom (TMT) sector remains healthy, with $324.2 billion in 2018 and growth expected to continue in 2019 and beyond. As we discussed in our recent Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) M&A Spotlight panel, this is a result of technology being so embedded in the business world, that the M&A opportunity lies not within technology or a specific industry, but at the intersection of them both, he said.

Based on discussions from Merrills(TMT) M&A Spotlight panel, interactive content such as video gaming may provide the greatest growth potential within TMT moving forward. This lane is expected to emerge as a long-term catalyst for M&A deal-making, Williams explains.

Gaming has evolved, becoming very social, multi-player, and online driven. This shift can be attributed to technology itself. People tend to start playing video games on their mobile devices, and in time, as players become more committed to gaming, they often subscribe to cloud-based platforms.

Dock David Treece, Senior Financial Analyst at FitSmallBusiness.com

On Disneys earnings call earlier this month, CEO Bob Iger said the company was not looking to add any major pieces following the acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox over the last 15 years. But how long will this stance hold, especially with Iger stepping down in 2021?

It makes sense that Disney would slow down merger and acquisition activity in the near future as it tries to absorb Fox, but this break will likely only be temporary, Treece said. In the meantime, I think we can look for additional acquisitions from Netflix, which has only dabbled in acquisitions today.

Treece expects Netflix to target smaller production companies and minor streaming services that offer technological innovations that Netflix would like to own. He also pinpoints Discovery as a potential mover-and-shaker.

Each of these companies has net revenue over $1 billion annually (about 10 percent of Disneys net earnings) and will likely try to take advantage of Disneys slowdown to grow strategically to compete with the new giant of Disney-Fox.

Sam Williamson, Founder of Streaming Movies Right

Williamson highlights a specific niche that Apple should target if it is indeed hunting for an acquisition.

What weve noticed is that horror is where Netflix have a clear advantage over Disney, and many people love the horror content that Netflix puts out, he said. So if Apple want to enter this horse race, the next big acquisition we may see could be Apple attempting to acquire one of the more successful horror studios so they can place more horror content on their platform.

Williamson notes that Netflix is producing at least one decent horror film per month while Disney has a bank of horror films to last them for a while. Though Apple has signed a multi-picture pact with indie studio A24, the latters production cycle generally produces three horror movies per year. I dont think that output would be enough to draw people away from Netflix, so theyll likely have to step up the production of content, he says.

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Richard Tobin of Brooklawn accused of conspiring to initimidate minorities – Courier Post

Posted: at 5:41 pm

Retired Cpl. Joseph Logue talks about receiving a mortgage-free home in Collingswood on Wednesday. Adam Monacelli, Cherry Hill Courier-Post

CAMDEN A Brooklawn man whose computer allegedly held a video of a white-supremacist attack set to music faces a federal charge of conspiring to intimidate minorities.

Richard Tobin, 18,is accused of directing members of a racially motivated violent extremist group to vandalize synagogues in two Midwestern states, according to a criminal complaint filed in Camden federal court.

The complaint does not name the group but describes it as a self-styled white protection league that promotes an extreme form of survivalism and preparedness.

It alleges Tobin and other members engaged in online discussions in September that focused on recruiting prospective members, promoting the creation of a white ethno-state and encouraging violence against minorities.

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The complaint accuses Tobin of no violent crimes, but alleges documents in his computer showed how to make plastic explosives and how to arrange barrels inside a rental truck to be used as a bomb.

In a recorded interview, Tobin described once being enraged by the number of black shoppers at a Central Jersey mall, FBI Special Agent Jason Novick said in an affidavit accompanying the Nov. 12 complaint.

A Brooklawn man is charged in Camden federal court with conspiring to intimidate minorities.(Photo: Jim Walsh, Courier-Post)

"That day, he had a machete in his car, and he wanted to 'let loose' with it," Novick said.

Tobins computer, seized during a Nov. 8 raid at his home, held numerous photos, videos and Internet activity which reflects an obsession with neo-Nazi propaganda, terrorism and acts of brutal and mass violence, Novick said.

One video showed a man using a shotgun and assault rifle to kill worshippers at a mosque, while a soundtrack played Another One Bites the Dust, the affidavit says.

It notes the video was made on March 15, 2019, the day a white extremist attacked two mosques, killing 51 people, in Christchurch, New Zealand.

According to the affidavit, Tobin and group members communicated through encrypted messages, chat rooms and online platforms between Sept. 15-23.

It says a swastika and a three runic symbols used to identify the group were found painted on a synagogue in Hancock, Michigan, on Sept. 21. The temple on Michigan's Upper Peninsula is almost 1,200 miles from Brooklawn.

Similar vandalism was found one day later at a synagogue in Racine, Wisconsin, about 850 miles from South Jersey.

Tobin admitted his role in the vandalism, which he described as Operation Kristallnacht,according to Novick.

Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, was the name originally given to the widespread destruction of Jewish properties in Germany in November 1938.

Representatives of the targeted synagogues said the bigotry had brought their communities closer together.

This really is not in line with the character of this community, David Holden, president of Temple Jacob in Hancock, said in an online statement. What is more in character is the responses not just of kindness, but actual engagement by numerous people who saw what had happened and acted.

He said people with no connection to the temple pitched in to help paint, scrub and power wash."

I would like to thank the thousands of individuals who showed their love and support, Rabbi Martyn Adelberg of Beth Israel Sinai Congregation in Racine posted at the temples Facebook page.

Tobin described different emotions in an FBI interview, Novick asserted

According to the affidavit, Tobin reported that he experienced depressed feelings for the last three years, and had thoughts of suicide by cop or becoming a suicide bomber regularly."

Jim Walsh is a free-range reporter whos been roaming around South Jersey for decades. His interests include crime, the courts, economic development and being first with breaking news. Reach him at jwalsh@gannettnj.com or look for him in traffic.

Help support local journalism with a Courier-Post subscription.

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A brief history of John Krasinski’s transformation into a guy who absolutely loves the CIA – Business Insider

Posted: at 5:41 pm

For a long time, John Krasinski was America's boyfriend. His most famous role Jim Halpert on "The Office" became his de facto identity, and he appeared to shareJim's defining character traits: sensitivity, intelligence, humor, unabashed Snow Patrol fandom.

But as you and I both know insert a knowing look at the camera here nothing gold can stay, and now Jim Halpert is waxing poetic about the CIA.

The interview went viral on Twitter yesterday. While the clip itself appears to be from 2018, when "Jack Ryan," Amazon's splashy show about Men Who Blow Things Up, initially premiered, it elicited a strong reaction for good reason: Listening to Jim Halpert talk about how he "nerded out" when he got to the CIA and how we should "be saying thank you every single day" to the organization is an incredibly jarring experience. (The endless stream of Jim Halpert reaction gifs in the replies doesn't hurt, either.)

As MEL's Miles Klee argued, "one can no longer deny that Jim from 'The Office' is a cop." Judging from the responses on Twitter, many people were surprised by Krasinski's transformation. But this is merely the latest chapter in Krasinski's curious journey from lovably rumpled sales guy to special-ops acolyte.

In 2016, he starred in a movie about Benghazi directed by wait for it Michael Bay, which was criticized for, among other things, being inaccurate. (He also got buff.)The same year, he also talked about how he almost played Captain America, the ultimate stars-and-stripes macho man.

In 2018, he directed and starred in "A Quiet Place," which centered on a family that must remain silent lest they tip off the murderous aliens inhabiting the planet. Though it was generally well-received, it was also deemed a "fantasy of survivalism" with questionable politics by The New Yorker. Some criticized its gender dynamics, while others wondered about its ostensibly pro-gun messaging. It also featured Krasinski in a familiar role: bearded white patriarch fighting back against "foreign" enemies.

Yet nothing has done more to solidify his patina of red-blooded Americana than his role as Jack Ryan. The first season of the series, which is based on the novels by Tom Clancy, was described as a "patriotic nightmare" by Vanity Fair, and focused on Ryan's hunt for a terrorist named Mousa bin Suleiman. The second season hasn't fared much better: It's been criticized for its muddy and one-dimensional portrayal of the region's politics, and for its conflation of American intervention with American heroics.The trailer even drew outrage from Venezuela's culture minister Ernesto Villegas, who called it "crass war propaganda disguised as entertainment."

Meanwhile, in a different interview about the show, Krasinski claimed that many people who work for the CIA are "apolitical," which seems questionable given the group's history in several different countries, but who's counting?

Anyway, Jim Halpert is gone, and now we have a veritable Abercrombie model devouring a piece of steak with his bare hands instead. You win again, 2019.

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