Monthly News

October 2008

We are in troubled times, the banking and financial crisis is very worrying.

At Global we are still confident that the market for doors will continue to be sufficient to allow us to keep in business until the economy starts to recover. We have the benefit that if new housing is in a downturn then the home improvement market usually has a period of growth. Some we lose and some we win, but we have never been closely tied to the new house market anyway.

The economic problems have resulted in even wilder changes in the exchange rate between the Pound and the Canadian Dollar. Over recent months we have seen the pound falling in value, but this month, just on the day we make our changes to the quoted exchange rate for invoicing, the Pound jumped back up in value, so the invoice factor is much better for November invoices. Having made that decision it is true to say that a couple of days later the Pound fell back again but as promised we will honour the value on the day. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Brian has had a short break from work booked for some months. He is taking the family to America for 5 days and the Pound has dropped by 20% against the American Dollar this year. At least the flights are pre-paid. I hope that the weather is nice for walking in the park, they will not be doing much shopping.

At work we have taken on an extra warehouse unit to give us more storage space, this is necessary since the range of products we offer has been growing steadily and each new line means we need more storage space. We are also looking at adding some more aluminium products, this is something we have been asking Ramtrack for over recent months.

We will be announcing the changes as soon as they are confirmed, and we hope that there will not be such a long gap in the frequency of newsletters as this last gap.

Ron Woodhouse.