Q1: 2026-05-04 Earnings Summary

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Merged business working on projects in Derby, Birkenhead and Wakefield

Liverpool developer ION Property Group has been acquired by VINCI Construction to create an expanded business that bosses say “has ambitions for significant future growth”.

The UK division of VINCI Construction plans to merge ION with VINCI UK Developments to create a business “focused on the local authority urban regeneration market”. The merged business will keep the ION Developments brand and will be headquartered at the Port of Liverpool Building.

VINCI and ION are already working together on major urban regeneration schemes including the Market Place scheme in Derby city centre, Chester Northgate 2, the Coventry Civic Centre site and Northwich Weaver Square.

Meanwhile ION’s existing development portfolio including Borough Yard, Birkenhead, Stafford town centre and Westgate Wakefield will be delivered by the newly combined group . ION had been privately owned and operated for 36 years.

The merged business will be led by managing director Steve Parry and commercial director Rob Mason – both former ION directors – alongside finance director Ian Hudson, who led the finance team at VINCI UK Developments.

The VINCI deal will see the departure of shareholders and non-executive directors Peter Hynd and Gavin Douglas.

Steve Parry said: “At a time when local authorities and other public bodies across the UK are exploring new solutions for urban regeneration and the use of their land assets, this is the ideal moment to bring together these two specialist businesses to create a single regeneration developer which has the vision, experience and resources to bring projects of all sizes to life. We already have a strong forward pipeline and the new structure will only enhance our capacity to deliver these and other future projects.”

Peter Hynd said: “ION has delivered many transformational regeneration schemes that have had a positive impact on our towns, cities and communities by delivering high quality urban buildings that have created a sense of place. Many of these projects were regarded as ‘too difficult’, but we have delivered consistently, working closely with our public sector partners.

“This deal with VINCI stands as testament to our legacy of success and we are proud to be leaving the business in such a strong position, with an incredibly bright future ahead and we wish the hard-working ION team every success in the future.”

Scott Wardrop, chief executive of VINCI Construction in the UK, said: “We are delighted to confirm this agreement, which will see the creation of a consolidated development business, that can harness even more of our collective strengths and support greater numbers of local authorities and other clients to make a long-lasting, positive change to their communities across future generations.”

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Americans looking to earn degrees at their own speed can now do so via their mobile phones after Cornerstone University tailored degree offerings in its business program to cater to students who prefer a self-paced program that can be completed on a smartphone.

“We developed the nation’s first mobile platform to deliver an accredited undergraduate degree and a master’s degree as well, all via your mobile phone,” Cornerstone University President Gerson Moreno-Riaño told FOX Business in an interview.

Moreno-Riaño said that the program launched in August and has about 250 students enrolled. Students in what’s known as the SOAR program can obtain an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in strategic business management, or a master’s degree in organizational leadership.

“One of the beautiful things we’ve seen is that the persistence rate from month-to-month is 91%, so students are sticking with this and completing it,” he said, adding that some students who transferred in with prior credits to complete a degree will be the program’s first graduates this year.

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The SOAR program allows students to engage with learning materials in small portions on their smartphones. (iStock)

Moreno-Riaño said that Cornerstone’s price point for its SOAR bachelor’s degree is $24,000 from start to finish, while the master’s degree is $12,000.

“More than half of our current students enrolled in the program now are paying no tuition due to scholarships and grants.”

“We see this as an opportunity to address a gap in our country now when it comes to education, and frankly, we’re convinced that the current American higher ed infrastructure cannot address this challenge. It was built for what I call traditional brick and mortar students,” he said.

“We thought, how can we take this ubiquitous piece of technology that everybody has, that everyone spends a lot of time on? On average, in our country, we’re talking about well over four hours a day that adults are on their mobile devices.”

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Cornerstone University’s SOAR degree program allows students to earn degrees on their mobile phones outside a traditional classroom. (iStock)

Moreno-Riaño said Cornerstone tested the app for over a year with about 120 students, which informed the university’s process of revising and launching the SOAR app.

He said that Cornerstone is deeply concerned with how it reaches out to non-traditional students and disenchanted students, some of whom haven’t tried to pursue a degree while others tried a traditional college experience and aren’t willing to return.

Moreno-Riaño said that when Cornerstone was mapping out the program, it understood that the traditional curriculum of 120 credit hours in a degree program couldn’t be mapped over to a mobile app, so the school sought to unpackage those courses into “bite-sized chunks of educational content.”

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Cornerstone University’s SOAR program offers accredited bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business, Moreno-Riaño said. (iStock)

“In the app, there will be mini-lectures, podcasts, book reviews, interviews, all with very closely, carefully designed learning objectives throughout the program,” Moreno-Riaño said, explaining that some of the lectures may be in the range of 5 to 10 minutes. 

“We have micro assessments built-in that are immediately graded and feedback is given to the student.”

Some of the program’s first graduates told Moreno-Riaño that they listen to some of the lessons while commuting to work, while traveling or doing household chores.

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“It allows them to, in essence, continue the learning experience amidst a complex schedule because we unbundle it, unpackage it, redevelop it and maintain the engagement criteria so that students stay studying and focused,” he said.