News
Issue No. 2 - September/October 2001
short news
BEST HOTEL IN AUSTRALIA
The Arkaba Hotel was named Best Overall Hotel in Australia in the Diners Club-Australian Hotels Association 2001 Awards in July. The hotel also won Best Sporting Entertainment Bar and Arkaba proprietor, Peter Hurley was named a life member of the AHA. The awards cap a purple patch for the Ark, which also collected a 2000 National Liquor Industry award for independent retailer of the year and AHA (SA) 2000 awards for best retail outlet, best marketed hotel and best sporting entertainment venue. Some 7,500 AHA members Australia-wide vote on the awards.
GROPEP GROWTH
Biotech company, GroPep reported a 48 per cent revenue increase in the last financial year, its first as a listed company. GroPep reported a small profit, rather than the $584,000 loss projected in its prospectus. Managing Director John Ballard was pleased at the result, given the company’s 59 per cent increase in R&D expenditure to $4.98 million. More than 95 per cent of sales and R&D agreement revenue comes from Europe and North America. Main customers are CSL, Nestle, the Mayo Clinic and Alpharma.
During the 2000-2001 year GroPep quadrupled manufacturing capacity for its prime product, pharmaceutical cell culture growth factors, and doubled staff at its Thebarton facility.
GroPep has also formed a subsidiary, TGR BioSciences, in association with the Child Health Research Institute, Flinders University, the University of SA, the Dairy Research and Development Corporation and Macquarie University.
SPENCER GULF JOINT EFFORT
Upper Spencer Gulf companies, buoyed by their experience with the Adelaide-Darwin Railway project, will work jointly towards winning more work from the resource development sector Australia-wide. Teamwork between companies will become commonplace, thanks to heightened awareness that collaboration is the way to go.
"Rail contracts were won in the main through collaboration,"says Lloyd El...
