Air conditioning firms say business is booming, with one reporting that enquiries for home units have climbed by 300% as Britain swelters through its hottest June on record.

Shoppers rushed to snap up portable units after a red extreme heat warning was put in place for millions of people and temperatures climbed to 36.7C, the highest figure ever recorded for the month in the UK, according to the Met Office. Schools closed, transport was disrupted and people across the country went searching for cooler spaces in which to work or rest.

For installers, the spike in demand has been transformational. At Aircon Services in Tamworth, domestic enquiries have risen by 300% over the past six years, with the current heatwave pushing the firm from roughly two enquiries a week to about 25.

“People are not willing to tolerate the heat any more,” said co-founder Marc Newbold, who added that air conditioning was starting to be viewed as a necessity rather than a luxury. “We are stacking up bookings for weeks to come and the enquiries are difficult to keep up with, but it creates a lot of business.”

The numbers point to a structural shift rather than a one-off summer scramble. Just 4% of homes in England currently have air conditioning, according to the University of Reading, yet the National Housing Federation (NHF) predicts that 90% of UK homes will overheat by 2050. British housing stock has historically been designed for the cold, with the aim of trapping heat in rather than keeping it out, leaving millions of properties poorly suited to the more frequent and intense heatwaves driven by climate change.

Overheating occurs when indoor temperatures rise to an uncomfortable level, typically above 25C to 27C, and the NHF warns that it is more likely to affect lower-income households that may not be able to afford cooling measures. “Many homes are unable to maintain comfortable temperatures during the more frequent and intense heatwaves we are experiencing as a result of climate change,” the federation said. Prolonged exposure to high indoor temperatures is linked to heat exhaustion and heat stroke, cardiovascular problems, sleep disturbance and mental health issues.

Finding an air conditioned space has become a topic of conversation for many. Churches, community centres, museums and libraries have stepped in with free “cool spaces”, helping people escape the rising temperatures. But a growing number are going further and installing air conditioning at home.

Cost is proving less of a barrier than it once was. Cooling a small bedroom can run to about £1,500, but Newbold said customers increasingly see it as an investment in comfort rather than an expense, particularly as the units are designed to last around 15 years. “It’s not just a one-year purchase,” he said. The firm, which also fits systems for hotels, shops and offices, is among many smaller operators finding that the heat is reshaping their order books, even as the wider economy counts the cost of soaring temperatures on small businesses and productivity.

For owner-managers, the lesson runs deeper than a hot summer. Repeated heatwaves are quietly rewriting consumer demand, from the retail sales lift that fans and cooling products enjoy to the longer-term maintenance and servicing market that follows every new installation. For the SMEs positioned to meet it, what once looked like a seasonal flurry is starting to resemble a permanent line of business.

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NOGALES, Mexico — As the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie marks its fifth month, a group of volunteers in this Mexican border city continues to search for the missing 84-year-old, even as they carry the weight of their own families’ losses, marching through downtown streets chanting “¿Nuestros hijos, dónde están?” — “Where are our children?”

The volunteers belong to Buscando Corazones, or “Searching for Hearts,” a grassroots search collective whose members are searching for Guthrie even as most of them are also still looking for their own missing relatives.

A search rooted in shared grief

For the women leading the search efforts, the motivation to look for an American they have never met comes from a place of deep personal understanding. “Nancy is a mother,” Luz del Rayo Lopez Carrillo, a member of Buscando Corazones, said in Spanish. “Because of that, we have to search for her — no matter her nationality, no matter whether she’s rich or poor. To us, she’s a mother, just like we are, and that’s why we’re searching for her.”

Lopez Carrillo’s own search is personal in the most direct sense. Her son, Dante Esau Lopez Carrillo, remains missing, and she described the torment of not knowing his fate. “We don’t know where he is, how he is, whether he’s alive, if he’s being tortured… if he’s being forced to do work he doesn’t want to do, if they’re forcing him into drugs,” she said. “It’s incredibly difficult.”

She is not alone in carrying that burden while continuing to search for Guthrie. “They didn’t just make my son disappear; they made our entire family disappear,” said Alma Griselda Ramirez Games, another Buscando Corazones volunteer, whose son, Pablo Ivan Dorame Ramirez, is also missing.

A search built on persistence despite repeated setbacks

The group’s involvement in Guthrie’s case began after an anonymous tip in mid-May suggested her remains might be found in the desert near a region known as Mariposa, close to the U.S.-Mexico border southwest of Nogales. Guadalupe Ramona Ayala Ortiz, who leads the group, has said the caller provided specific details about clothing and identifying characteristics meant to help confirm whether searchers had located the right person.

Despite multiple searches, including operations conducted in mid-May and on June 10, June 16 and June 17, volunteers have not found any trace of Guthrie. The group has said it will continue returning to the area regardless. “Every time we go out, we hope to bring a heart, a treasure, back home,” Ayala Ortiz said in Spanish.

The repeated searches have not been without consequence for the broader missing-persons crisis in the region. While searching for Guthrie, the group has uncovered roughly 25 unmarked graves in the area, none of which have been connected to her. Lopez Carrillo described the toll such discoveries take. “It’s an undignified death. It’s a death of abandonment,” she said, reflecting on the broader scale of disappearances the group regularly encounters in its work.

Coordination questions between U.S. and Mexican authorities

The searches have raised questions about the level of coordination between law enforcement on both sides of the border. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos addressed the Mexican search efforts directly in a statement posted to social media. “We are aware of reports regarding an anonymous tip related to the Nancy Guthrie investigation that was provided to a group in Mexico,” Nanos wrote. “At this time, we have not been contacted by Mexican authorities. The investigation remains active and ongoing, and we will continue to follow up on any credible information.”

Mexican officials, for their part, have said there is no evidence supporting the claims behind the searches. According to a statement from Sonora state officials, “There is no evidence, information, or objective elements suggesting that U.S. citizen Nancy Guthrie entered, remained in, or traveled through the state of Sonora.”

Former FBI agent Brad Garrett told ABC15 that close law enforcement involvement is essential in searches of this kind, regardless of who is leading them. “You really have to have law enforcement’s hands on there, because evidence could get destroyed,” Garrett said. Ayala Ortiz has said that while local Nogales police often accompany the group during its marches and searches, they are not formally part of the investigation, and that no U.S. law enforcement personnel have participated in the field operations.

A crisis far larger than one case

The volunteers’ commitment to Guthrie’s case sits alongside a much larger, ongoing missing-persons crisis in Nogales itself. The group says it is currently tracking nearly 650 people reported missing in the city, and members have said they want the faces of those lost to remain visible to the public, even as international attention has focused overwhelmingly on a single American case.

Elizabeth Lopez Vazquez, another volunteer whose son, Vicente Acosta Lopez, is missing, described the daily reality faced by families like hers. “For mothers and fathers searching for their loved ones, there are no holidays,” she said in Spanish. “There’s always an empty place at the table, because someone is missing.”

A connection across borders

For the Guthrie family, the searches in Mexico represent one more thread of hope in an investigation that has stretched far longer than anyone anticipated. Savannah Guthrie, the “Today” show co-anchor and Nancy’s daughter, has repeatedly appealed publicly for information about her mother’s fate. “We beg you now, to return our mother to us,” she said in an earlier video posted to social media alongside her siblings. In a separate message directed at whoever might be responsible, she said, “To whoever has her, or knows where she is, it is never too late to do the right thing.”

Lopez Carrillo, reflecting on the shared bond between the Guthrie family and the families she works alongside in Mexico, framed the search in terms of solidarity rather than distance. “We don’t search for someone else’s child. We search as if they’re our own,” she said. “We take on that identity. Maybe Nancy’s family can’t come search for her, but my fellow volunteers and I can search in her place.” She added simply, “Together, we become one mother.”

Where the case stands

Nancy Guthrie was last seen at her Catalina Foothills home near Tucson on the evening of January 31 and was reported missing the following day. Authorities believe she was taken against her will. Despite a $1 million reward from her family, additional rewards from the FBI and a regional crime-reporting organization, and the ongoing volunteer search effort in Mexico, no suspect has been publicly named in the case nearly five months later.

Anyone with information related to Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance is urged to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or through tips.fbi.gov, or the Pima County Sheriff’s Department at 520-351-4600.

Indian equities have staged an impressive recovery from their March lows, with benchmark indices as well as mid- and small-cap stocks bouncing back sharply. Cooling crude oil prices, easing volatility across commodities and cryptocurrencies, and resilient corporate earnings have all contributed to the market‘s recovery. Yet, investor confidence remains measured as geopolitical uncertainties continue to dominate headlines.

Speaking to ET Now, Samit Vartak, from SageOne Investment Managers, said that while markets have recovered significantly, sentiment has not yet turned outright bullish.

“Yes, I mean, sentiments, they are still jittery because there is so much uncertainty. Things change on a daily basis. We have rebounded from the lows, but if you look at our highs, Nifty is still 9-10% away from where we had reached, maybe in September 2024. So, in that respect, the sentiments are nowhere close to what we can call bullish,” he said.

He believes that one of the biggest overhangs for India—crude oil prices—has eased considerably, although geopolitical developments remain unpredictable.

“I do believe that the drag for India, which was mainly the crude, the worst-case scenario is probably behind us. We do not even know, hopefully things will get better, but there is no certainty of that given Trump in the leading position and then with Iran, where things change very, very quickly,” he said.

Strong earnings provide confidence
Despite lingering uncertainties, Vartak believes corporate earnings continue to paint an encouraging picture for investors.
According to him, small-cap companies delivered median earnings growth of nearly 25% during the previous quarter, while mid-cap companies reported growth of around 22-23%. Even large-cap companies posted healthy earnings growth of about 18-19%.
While higher crude prices could temporarily affect profitability, he expects investors to look beyond short-term disruptions.

“There could be some drag because of crude price inflation, but again investors would know that this will be a transitory phase and probably it may have an impact for a quarter or two, but investors would always look 6, 9, 10, 12 months beyond that,” he said.

He also pointed out that several businesses could actually benefit once raw material costs decline, particularly those that have already implemented price hikes during periods of elevated commodity prices.

“A lot of companies may make a pretty significant improvement in margins going forward… We have seen the same thing play out during post-COVID times when commodity prices went up and companies took price hikes, but when things cooled down, no one really took prices down,” he said.

Why he remains optimistic on small-caps
Vartak recalled that he had turned positive on the mid- and small-cap segment when valuations corrected sharply earlier this year. The key trigger, he said, was valuation comfort rather than sentiment.

He noted that the price-to-book ratio of the small-cap index had slipped below the 25th percentile of its five-year historical range, a rare occurrence previously seen only during the COVID market crash.

Unlike the price-to-earnings ratio, which can fluctuate significantly depending on earnings cycles, Vartak prefers price-to-book as a more stable valuation metric.

Using global semiconductor companies as examples, he explained that elevated earnings can sometimes make PE ratios appear inexpensive even when valuations are stretched.

“For me, price-to-book is a much better multiple compared to the PE multiple. PE multiple tends to be very volatile,” he said.

He added that India’s small-cap valuations remain below their historical median while earnings momentum continues to strengthen.

“I do believe that price-to-book for small-caps is pretty reasonable. They are definitely below the median of the last five-six years and, more importantly, the earnings growth has picked up,” he said.

AI acquisitions remain a high-risk bet
The discussion also turned to India’s IT sector, where companies have increasingly been pursuing acquisitions to strengthen artificial intelligence capabilities.

While acknowledging the strategic intent behind such deals, Vartak cautioned investors against assuming successful outcomes.

According to him, acquisitions involve considerable execution and integration risks, particularly when companies are entering unfamiliar growth areas.

“Companies do try multiple things and it may not be something which is highly predictable. Acquisitions are highly uncertain because the integration… it is a new growth avenue for them,” he said.

He advised investors to remain cautious.

“I would definitely take these acquisitions with a pinch of salt. These are high risk. If it plays out, yes, it can really give you big delta, but I am not so sure about this,” he said.

Stock selection matters more than sector selection
Although several themes such as defence, power equipment and power ancillaries continue to attract investor interest, Vartak believes many of these sectors have become excessively expensive.

He noted that several frontline defence companies now trade at valuation multiples far above their historical averages, leaving limited room for error. Instead of chasing popular themes, he recommends identifying businesses where both growth and valuations remain favourable.

Among the areas he currently likes are export-oriented industries, including textiles, specialty chemicals and contract development and manufacturing organisations (CDMOs). He is also positive on export-focused defence companies, gold financing businesses and select non-banking financial companies capable of delivering sustainable growth of over 20%.

Interestingly, he believes the best opportunities are often found outside the well-known market leaders.

“Picking the right theme or space is not good enough. Picking the valuation within that is also important,” he said.

He highlighted that several newly listed companies in power ancillaries and specialty chemicals continue to trade at significantly lower valuations than their established peers despite offering attractive growth prospects.

“The reason I am positive about small-caps is because that is the space where you do have the growth as well as valuation kind of a combination, which is not really available in the frontline kind of names which are pretty well known to everyone,” he said.

Westbridge Funds Management has expanded its portfolio with the $10.5 million purchase of a partially vacant retail building in Busselton. 

The Subiaco-based property fund purchased 36 to 38 Duchess Street from Aurjoe Pty Ltd and Franjack Pty Ltd, RP Data shows. 

According to ASIC, the two entities are owned by members of the Romano family, of Perth and Queensland. 

The two-storey Federation building includes 4,099 square metres of net lettable area on a 10,139sqm site. 

It is about 50 per cent occupied, with Westbridge working on securing a tenant for the remaining space. 

Westbridge Funds Management chair Damian Collins described the property, which will go into a single asset fund, as a “clear value-add opportunity”. 

“While the current passing income reflects existing occupancy, our strategy is focused on unlocking the full potential of the asset through a substantial refurbishment and reconfiguration of the large vacant space,” he said. 

“We see strong fundamentals underpinning Busselton, including population growth, tourism demand and ongoing infrastructure investment, which give us confidence in the long-term outlook.” 

Mr Collins added that Westbridge planned to invest in upgrades of the property, which was initially built in 1906. 

The purchase follows Westbridge’s recent investment in two industrial properties in Victoria for $62.5 million and its purchase of industrial and medical properties in South Australia and Queensland. 

Knight Frank Australia’s Jonathan Wong brokered the deal for the Busselton property. 

 

 

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