News In Brief

Prosegur Signs Up to Climate Pledge

Prosegur, including its cash business Prosegur Cash, is the first security group to sign up to ‘The Climate Pledge’, a commitment to achieve net zero carbon by 2040. The Climate Pledge initiative was created by Amazon and Global Optimism in 2019 and 53 companies are now signed up to it.

Prosegur will measure and report on its greenhouse emissions and implement initiatives to improve efficiency, increase its renewable energy use and reduce its use of polluting materials. For any remaining emissions the company will use offsets to achieve the net zero carbon target. The offsets will be quantifiable, real, permanent and socially beneficial.

Prosegur regards signing up as evidence of its commitment to sustainability, a cornerstone of the company's development strategy. It has already started work on decarbonisation, having hybridised and electrified its fleet of operational and commercial vehicles. Prosegur Cash operates the world’s first 100% electric armoured lorries, is limiting its use of plastics and is increasing its recycling of plastics and oils.

In addition, Prosegur has put the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals into its corporate strategy, signed up to the UN Global Compact and is part of the FTSE4Good index.

Nanotech Expands Feature Portfolio

Nanotech Security Corp, developers of security features based on nano-optics that are used in the government and banknote markets, has announced the acquisition of a patent portfolio from Adigy Canada.

The portfolio comprises six patents, three in Canada and three in the US, relating to innovative methods for creating customised optical devices.

They include a nano-media information carrier based on pixelated nano-structures combined with an intensity control layer, and two methods for fabricating colour image display devices comprising colour pixels, one from a generic stamp and the other from pixels that are selectively activated and/or deactivated by material deposition.

According to Nanotech, the IP enables the efficient production of an optical device by prefabricating a foil substrate with nanostructures and using printers or lasers to selectively cover those structures not required to produce optical devices.

Adigy Canada is controlled by Dr Bozena Kaminska, a director and shareholder of Nanotech, who was paid $100,000 cash for the patents and who will receive commission plus ongoing royalties for a ‘specific customer’ developed in the next two years.

‘This acquisition adds to our already strong patent portfolio, bringing it to 46 patents,’ said Nanotech President and CEO Troy Bullock. ‘These patents allow us to further protect our KolourOptik® technology platform and can introduce new and exciting ways to produce security features in the future’.

Launch of ECO Put Back – Again

The ECO – the proposed common currency of the ECOWAS countries – has been further postponed and won’t be launched before 2025, at the earliest.

This was the one of the conclusions of the 58th summit of heads of state of ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States), held by video conference last month.

The decision was taken to postpone the resumption of the application of the convergence pact until January 2022, due to COVID-19. This has both lowered growth (the 15 countries experienced a 1.7% fall in real GDP in 2020, compared with an increase of nearly 4% the previous year) and forced members to increase expenditure.

As noted in the September 2020 issue of Currency News, the target of convergence by the original date of end 2021 was never going to happen, given that only one country out of the 15 – Togo – had met the criteria.

The idea of a single currency for West Africa was first floated back in 1983, and it was originally meant to be launched in 2000, but has been postponed numerous times since then.

New Name in Water Treatment for Banknote Industry

Seiler Systems Technology, which specialises in wiping solution recovery treatment for the banknote and security printing industries and which has been part of the GWT Group since 2017, has joined forces in a strategic alliance with Membraflow and is now operating under the name GWT Membraflow.

Membraflow Control Systems, founded in the 1990s, specialises in turnkey filtration plants and solutions for recycling industrial effluents. Its involvement in the banknote industry was through the development, together with the Austrian banknote printer OeBS, of HIREC, the chemicalfree recovery system for wiping solution from intaglio presses that has also been deployed by FNMT.

It is understood that, whilst GWT Membraflow will continue to focus on solutions for intaglio printing, which involve the removal of metallic components, dissolved and insoluble pigments from waste water, Membraflow Control Systems will no longer be involved in the security printing field.

G4S Auction Falls Apart as Garda Pulls Out

The protracted £3.8 billion takeover battle for G4S between Allied Universal and GardaWorld appears to have fizzled out. The contest was fought out over eight months with offer and counter-offer, until finally there was deadlock.

Garda had offered 235p a share and Allied Universal 245p in a rival offer, but neither had raised their bids since December. As a result, the Takeover Panel ordered a five-day public auction to settle the matter. However, Garda did not improve its offer. In doing so, or rather not doing so, it effectively threw in the towel since, under the Panel’s auction rules, it had to bid to stay in the game. This left rival Allied as the winner of the auction.

But the acquisition is not yet concluded. Whilst Allied has won over the G4S board (something GardaWorld singularly failed to do), it now needs the approval of the shareholders to complete the takeover, and so far that has not been forthcoming. The company is expected to make a move shortly.

In the meantime, Garda did not depart the competition quietly, stating that, due to lack of cooperation from G4S during its bid (with criticism and insults freely traded), ‘we have concluded… there are better and less risky opportunities available to Garda World’.

G4s shares now stand at 245p, which is the highest at which the shares have traded, other than during the recent speculation, since the summer of 2018. Its lowest price, 69p, occurred when the pandemic struck last spring.