Touch screen & parts

The ups and downs of legislation

Burns sets up specialist services

Fas pendezza

International round – up

Italy faces major AWP shake-up

New circuit board plant for india

Polish trade association treasurer speaks out

Alberici cashes

Big firms to support colombia event

Eastern europe proving profitable for me

Harry levy

Operators’ forum

Section 16 ‘replacement market

UK firm focuses on gaming

ATRI edited highlights

Bougues batiment buoyed by kaunas bid

Educate, Agitate, Organise!

International round – up

It’s never ending

Tickets getting lots lighter

Peermont buys controlling interest in tusk

Vegas giants compete for signapore

More casinos for south africa

AWSP can be fun

poker game

play with voice chat

and

play with voice chat

Bougues Batiment International gaming , a unit of Bougues, was the only company to present a tender for the construction of a sports and entertainment complex in Lithuania’s second largest city Kaunas, according to www.forbes.com.
      Bougues Batiment International handed in its proposal on the last day of the tender, and it is the only participant,” said Raimondas Macikenas, heed of the public tender departments at Kaunas municipality.

Circatex, a UK PCB firm, has gone into administration as a result of trading losses in 2005.  Emst & Young has been appointed administrators for the firm that was the second biggest PCB firm in the UK, behind Invotec.  The firm, according to www.electronicsweekly.com, employs around 210 staff.
      A spokeswoman at Emst and Young said no decision has yet been made about the future of the firm.  Partner  Hunter Kelly at Emst & Young said:  “Circatex is a respected operator and has a strong blue-chip order book.  However, the business has suffered from significant losses during 2005, mainly due to a loss making contract that completed last summer, and increases in energy prices.

      “Despite having successfully reduced energy consumption to counter the price increases and a strong quality order book, the business has been unable to overcome the pressures caused by these losses.  We are currently in discussions with Circatex’ principal customers and suppliers to establish the way forward.”
      It is the second time the firm based a the South Shields, UK site has gone into administration.  The current management took the firm out of administration.  The current management took the firm out of administration in 2004.  In turn this firm was created from an MBO of Viasystems in 2001.
      Towards the end of last year, rival UK firms Prestiwick Circuits was closed by parent company TT Electronics, saying: “The UK printed circuit board manufacturers are under constant pressure from overseas suppliers with factories in low labor cost areas, and this along with high cost increases in the UK make it extremely difficult to compete.”

      At the same Circatex’s managing director Mark Beesley said he disagreed with Prestwick’s comments but added: “The market is extremely volatile.  If the attrition continues we may potentially have to modify our view on pricing and resourcing but we are not at that point now.”  The UK PCB industry has been battered over the last six years due to low cost competition from the Far East, and particularly China.  The number of UK PCB firms has roughly halved since 2000.

CRANE CO ACQUIRES CASHCODE

Crane Co., a diversified manufacturer of engineered industrial products, hs acquired the assets of CashCode Co., a company specializing in niche applications for banknote validation, storage and recycling devices for use in vending, gaming, retail and transportation applications.  Crane is the parent company of NRI, the German-based manufacturer of electronic validation systems for coins and cashless payment systems.
      The purchase price is US$48m in 2005.  Eric Fast, president and CEO of Crane, said: “CashCode has well-recognized technology and a strong complementary fit with the National Rejectors business.  NR is a leader in coin validation systems, and CashCode is a leader in bill validation, with 55 approved and 77 pending patents.  We will now be able to offer our customers a fully integrated payment systems leveraging our vending equipment sales on a worldwide basis.”

      Fast added that while the majority of CashCode’s business today is in the gaming business, ‘sales synergies will provide growth opportunities in vending, amusement, transportation, and retail automated checkout industries and expands our geographical sales coverage.’  The company will now be called crane CashCode.

*  UK  -  Instance Automatics, a UK- based crance and vending specialist, has announced a partnership agreemnt with Brand imports based in Arizona in the US, to exclusively supply in the UK its range of flat pack stickers and tattoos.  Intance’s Ian Eason commented: “This is a great moment for us, after developing a tattoo and sticker vending machine that got a very good response at the ATEI 2006, we were approached by Brand regarding their product.