January Round Up
New year, new rules, new roles, new names...
Items of interest that are on the periphery or weren’t quite meaty enough to write a single post about (yet) include:
All sorts of noise about the EU’s standardised charging regime becoming law at the end of 2024. From what I’ve read, the EU have been trying to standardise charging systems since 2009. The scale of the WEEE problem is clearly enormous and if certain manufacturers had conformed a decade ago, maybe legislation wouldn’t have been necessary. You may or may not like the decision (I see it as a positive step and I'm not planning on changing my refurbished IP12 because I’ve got a drawer full of cables) but lack of due consideration is never something I have found EU procedures to be guilty of1.
Bolttech announced a new Group Head of Transformation2 which despite sounding all a bit corporate for a funky scale-up highlights the fact that there’s plenty for the new hire to go after and offers a timely plug for my Bolttech (Europe) Research Update. In other people news, Assurant are transferring their Head of Mexico to become the Head of Europe and current Head of Europe, Christian Formby heads across to the US for a Specialty Property role3. Good luck everyone.
Samsung kicked off a new Galaxy Trade-In programme4 in partnership with Likewize. The programme allows customers to trade-in their Galaxy device at anytime, different from the current trade-in option for a credit on a new purchase. Samsung stated the programme will pilot a launch in South Korea (appears to be for Galaxy Tablets?) and France (though the trade-in programme still appears to be run by Evollis?). Expect further geographic expansion in 2025. It’s unclear what this means for the like of MTR, Foxway, CTDI, etc. all of whom currently provide Samsung with trade-in services in major European markets. Regardless, Samsung are no doubt likely to benefit from Likewize’s experience in running Apple’s trade-in programme across multiple markets. Back in November I touched on OEM trade-in programmes becoming increasingly important in my UK market trade-in analysis.
Not sure why, but the new year seems to have prompted quite a few new entity names: Amtrust Europe Limited changed it’s name to Amtrust Speciality Limited5. Likewize Repair Limited changed it’s name to LWRNPC1 Limited6, catchy. Genuine Solutions, the Surbiton based expert in mobile distribution and recovery seems to have gone through a connected-party pre-pack administration (hmmm) to restructure their debt and save jobs (good) ending up with the new name SPB Realisations Limited(?), whilst the holding company changed it’s name from Genuine Solutions Holdings to Genuine Solutions Distributions. Confused? Well, me too, this mechanism is not for the faint-hearted. Speaking of administration, other than the recovery of debtor balances, there’s been no further news regarding Phoenix Cellular, which filed for administration in June last year.
Servify, the product lifecycle platform and protection provider based in Mumbai, announced they had reduced losses to INR 93.81 Cr which if I’ve remembered my Indian numbering system correctly, translates to about -£8.7m or -€10.4m. Revenues increased from to INR 754.51 Cr (~£70m/€83.6m)7. In Europe, I think they had partnered with AmTrust to deliver a Samsung programme in Austria and, there was a short-lived trade-in program in Malta. In the UK, according to their latest filed accounts (2024), they’ve been awarded new contracts with “Apple (AC+) and Samsung” along with a licence to sell insurance products (the year prior). Hmmm, I’ll keep an eye on that, especially as my sceptic radar pinged when I read they’re chasing unicorn status with a $100m raise and preparing for an IPO (within 24 months) about which the CEO had no comment8 .
Peace,
sb.