Q4: 2026-06-24 Earnings Summary

EPS of -$0.30 misses by $0.09

 | Revenue of $298.10M (15.95% Y/Y) beats by $59.64M

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Rachel Reeves has declared that she has “unfinished business” as chancellor, singling out fiscal devolution as the policy she is most determined to see through, in remarks that will be read closely by a business community bracing for a change at the top of government.

Speaking at the British Chambers of Commerce annual conference in London on Thursday, Reeves pointed to the handing of tax-raising powers to local leaders as the area of “unfinished business” she wants to complete. The intervention comes at a delicate moment, with Andy Burnham set to enter Downing Street next month following Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation on Monday, and with the City still guessing over who will take the keys to No 11.

For the SME owners who make up the bulk of the chambers’ membership, the politics matter less than the policy signal. A chancellor talking openly about devolving revenue, and a prime minister-in-waiting who built his reputation on it, points to a meaningful shift in where decisions about local growth, and local taxation, will be taken.

The visitor levy and the case for going local

The former mayor of Greater Manchester is moving quickly to assemble a programme for government that is widely expected to push more powers and revenue away from Westminster. Reeves made clear she is travelling in the same direction.

“The area where there’s certainly unfinished business is on fiscal devolution,” she said. “And I set out in last year’s Budget a consultation, for example, on the visitor levy, which is something that mayoral combined authorities will have responsibility for, moving us more in line with the US and Europe that have single visitor levies on hotel bookings, for example, and then that money being invested in the local area.”

A visitor levy on overnight stays has become one of the more contested ideas in the devolution debate, with metro mayors pressing for the power and parts of the hospitality sector warning about the impact on bookings. The tension was on full display earlier this year when mayoral calls for a hotel ‘tourist tax’ drew a wary response from the hospitality trade.

Reeves indicated her ambitions stretch well beyond hotel rooms. “But beyond that, we are also consulting on devolving some revenues from key taxes, including income tax, but also looking at some business and land taxes and devolving that to a local level so that local leaders who know their areas best can decide where that money is going to be spent.”

The chancellor, the first woman to hold the office, said she intends to set out the detail in this year’s Budget. The direction of travel echoes the government’s own English Devolution White Paper, which created a route for mayors to propose new powers while leaving the Treasury notably cautious on tax.

Reeves stops short on the chancellorship

For all the talk of alignment, Reeves declined to say outright that she wants to keep her job under a Burnham premiership. “When he becomes prime minister, he will make those decisions around the top team around him. But I’m not going to pre-empt those. Those are his decisions,” she said.

She was warmer on the personal and political relationship. “I backed Andy in 2015 as well to be the leader of our party, and I’ve known him for more than a decade and a half, since before I became a member of parliament in 2010. So we’ve worked closely together, but particularly worked closely together the last two years.”

That history sits alongside a wider reshaping of the relationship between the centre and the regions that has been building for some time, with the Treasury and combined authorities edging closer together. Business has already seen that direction in moves such as Reeves’s plan to draw the National Wealth Fund and regional mayors into closer partnership on local growth.

Fiscal rules and the stability message

Mindful of an audience that prizes predictability, Reeves used the platform to reassure business that the incoming prime minister will not loosen the public finances. Burnham, she said, had been “really clear” in his commitment to the fiscal rules.

“That is a good thing because it means that businesses here can be confident that that stability, that rigour to policy-making, that tight grip on the public finances, which is essential for getting inflation and interest rates down, will be continued,” she said.

It is a message pitched squarely at a market still digesting the abrupt change at the top, a backdrop in which business leaders have urged an end to ‘drift and delay’ following Starmer’s exit.

North Sea reserves and energy security

Reeves also restated her support for making greater use of North Sea reserves. “I’ve been very clear that I think that the North Sea is a crucial asset for the UK and that oil and gas will be an important part of our energy mix for years to come,” she said. “And I’m very keen to make sure that we use that resource to ensure our energy security.”

The chancellor spoke ahead of an address by Andy Haldane, the BCC’s president and a former chief economist at the Bank of England, whom Burnham has been consulting as he assembles his policy platform. Senior figures from the other main parties were also due to take the stage, underlining how far the conference has become a staging post for a political contest that businesses will be watching with unusual intensity.

Jamie Young

Jamie is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, bringing over a decade of experience in UK SME business reporting.
Jamie holds a degree in Business Administration and regularly participates in industry conferences and workshops.

When not reporting on the latest business developments, Jamie is passionate about mentoring up-and-coming journalists and entrepreneurs to inspire the next generation of business leaders.

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SpaceX shares fell 1.61% to $152.05 on Thursday morning, continuing a volatile stretch since the company’s blockbuster public debut, even as a massively oversubscribed bond offering has removed one of the key risks that had been weighing on the stock in recent days.

A Brutal Three-Day Stretch Before the Bond Deal

The stock’s recent struggles trace back to a sharp, multi-day selloff earlier in the week. SpaceX stock fell before the bell on Tuesday, set to pick up on a three-day run of losses after a massive run-up following its IPO earlier this month. They closed down 16.4% on Monday, the biggest down day for the newly debuted stock, following a 3.6% drop on Thursday and a 5% drop on Wednesday. The three-day losing streak caps a big pop in the stock following its IPO and first day of trade on June 12.

At one point during the stock’s run-up to a high of around $225 a share, SpaceX topped Amazon and even Microsoft to become the fourth-most-valuable public company. The recently listed company launched with a $1.23 trillion market capitalization following its IPO.

What Triggered the Selloff

The catalyst behind the sharp decline was the company’s announcement of its first-ever bond issuance. SpaceX confirmed its first-ever bond sale in a filing, intending to use the net proceeds to repay the outstanding borrowings under its bridge loan facility in full, along with other related fees and expenses. The bridge loan in question was secured earlier this year when SpaceX, led by CEO Elon Musk, acquired Musk’s own xAI startup in February. Per Reuters, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley provided the bridge financing and are expected to run the deal.

A Mechanical, Leverage-Driven Decline

Analysts have largely attributed the magnitude of the selloff to technical and leverage dynamics rather than any fundamental deterioration in SpaceX’s business. Saxo Bank’s UK Investor Strategist Neil Wilson suggested the market reaction says far more about how mega-cap technology stocks behave than about SpaceX’s underlying financial health, centering his explanation on passive fund positioning around the time of the offering.

The volatility extended well beyond SpaceX itself. The damage rippled internationally, with the MSCI Asia index falling 2.3%, its largest intraday decline in two weeks, while South Korea’s Kospi dropped more than 8% due to its heavy technology weighting, and Nasdaq futures signaled declines of 1.3% to 1.7% — illustrating just how much a single stock’s volatility can move entire regional markets given current concentration levels.

Overwhelming Demand for the Bonds Themselves

Despite the equity market’s negative reaction, the actual bond offering itself drew extraordinary investor interest. SpaceX’s $25 billion bond offering attracted $89 billion in demand, a 3.5 times oversubscription signaling strong institutional confidence. The five-tranche bond sale received a total of $89 billion in market orders, representing an oversubscription rate of over four times, placing it among the largest U.S. corporate bond issuances on record. The offering was spread across five tranches of senior notes maturing between 2031 and 2056, with interest rates rising from 5.35% on the shortest maturity to 6.65% on the longest.

The Bridge Loan Risk Has Been Resolved

Crucially, the successful bond sale eliminates a specific, hard deadline that had been weighing on the stock. This bond settlement date on June 26 is something to look out for, because once that gets done, the equity will have no more major technical structure to overcome during the week. The September 2027 deadline on the $20 billion bridge loan was the key hard deadline that drove most of the price fall from $225 to $147.11. The bridge loan will be paid off once the June 26 settlement has cleared, meaning that bridge risk is removed entirely. All SpaceX’s debts are now spread across five different maturities ranging from 2031 to 2056, with the nearest one maturing only five years from now.

A Significant Bounce Following the Bond Pricing

Once the bond’s strong demand became clear, the stock staged a notable recovery off its intraday low. Fueled by the enthusiastic demand for its bond offering, SpaceX’s stock price surged over 7% at one point, trading at $163.06 and bringing its market capitalization back to the $2.14 trillion level.

Remaining Concerns Beyond the Bridge Loan

Despite the resolution of the bridge loan risk, several other factors continue to weigh on sentiment toward the stock. Other problems persist, including xAI operating losses, S&P’s free-cash-flow-through-2029 bearish outlook, the stock’s lockup ending in December 2026, and Morningstar’s $62 fair value estimate — though the September 2027 bridge loan cliff is no longer an issue following the bond settlement.

A Dramatic Impact on Elon Musk’s Net Worth

SpaceX’s rocky post-IPO trading, as well as recent weakness in Tesla stock, has also hit CEO Elon Musk’s wealth. The mercurial Musk was the first person to top $1 trillion in wealth following SpaceX’s IPO, but his total net worth on paper has slipped slightly. Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index now lists Musk’s wealth at $957.1 billion, a drop of nearly $360 billion from the high of $1.315 trillion hit in the days after SpaceX’s IPO and market debut.

A New AI Infrastructure Contract

Beyond the bond sale, SpaceX has also continued expanding its presence in artificial intelligence infrastructure through new commercial agreements. The company has signed a $6.3 billion AI infrastructure contract with Reflection AI, expanding its role as a compute provider, with proceeds from the bond sale expected to support that AI infrastructure buildout alongside the bridge loan repayment.

A Company Spanning Three Distinct Business Segments

SpaceX’s Space segment designs, manufactures, and launches reusable rockets to provide access to space, offering launch services using Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Starship, and Dragon for both commercial and government customers. The company’s AI segment operates a vertically integrated AI platform spanning the Grok large language model, AI solutions for consumer and enterprise customers, the X social media platform, and AI computational infrastructure. Separately, the company’s Connectivity segment operates Starlink, delivering high-speed, low-latency broadband service in the United States, Ireland, Canada, and internationally. The company was founded in 2002 and is based in Starbase, Texas.

Increased Short Selling Activity

Reflecting the divided sentiment surrounding the stock, bearish positioning has continued to build in recent sessions. Short selling bets against SpaceX have increased following the post-debut share selloff, according to Reuters reporting, suggesting at least some market participants continue betting on further downside even after the bond deal’s strong reception.

A Gap Between the Stock Price and Analyst Targets

Despite the recent volatility, the stock continues trading below where several analysts believe it should be valued. Space Exploration Technologies trades at approximately $154.60, about 18% below the $187.80 analyst price target, with the stock also assessed as trading more than 23% below one firm’s estimated fair value.

With the bond settlement set to clear on June 26 and the September 2027 bridge loan deadline now effectively resolved, SpaceX’s near-term stock trajectory will likely depend on whether investors begin separating the company’s underlying business fundamentals — including its dominant launch market share, growing Starlink subscriber base, and expanding AI infrastructure contracts — from the technical and leverage-driven volatility that has characterized its first weeks as a public company. Given the stock’s continued distance from several analysts’ price targets and the persistent concerns around xAI’s operating losses, SpaceX’s path forward will likely remain closely watched as one of the most consequential and volatile stories in the market through the remainder of 2026.

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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Geopolitical uncertainty has become the single biggest risk hanging over the shipping industry, with vessels and cargo worth roughly $125 billion still stranded in the Persian Gulf, waiting for transit through the Strait of Hormuz to resume, according to Allianz Commercial.

In its latest industry review, published on Wednesday, the insurer said the closure and reported mining of the strait were only the most recent in a run of disruptions to batter global shipping. For owner-managed firms and exporters watching freight costs climb, it is another reminder of how quickly a distant conflict can land on the balance sheet at home.

The developments point to what Allianz calls a “new maritime order”: escalating security risks along the world’s most strategic shipping corridors, established trade routes thrown into disarray, persistent uncertainty, higher risk premiums and a renewed emphasis on resilience over cost efficiency.

Allianz’s data shows that around 1,150 cargo-carrying vessels and as many as 20,000 seafarers are currently stuck in the Gulf. Behind the headline figure sits a human one: crews who have spent months on board, facing the constant threat of attack and the mental strain that comes with it.

Thomas Lillelund, chief executive of Allianz Commercial, said the industry had gone from decades of relative calm, with steady trade flows and largely predictable operating conditions, to a far more complex and volatile environment.

“The Middle East conflict and Strait of Hormuz closure is just the latest in a series of severe interruptions to hit shipowners and cargo operators,” he said. “Resilience, geopolitics and efficiency must be balanced in an increasingly unpredictable world, where the cost of uncertainty is reshaping the shipping industry.”

The strait matters far beyond the insurance market. The US Energy Information Administration describes it as the world’s most important oil transit chokepoint, carrying around a fifth of global petroleum liquids consumption, with very few alternative routes if it closes. That helps explain why disruption there has already pushed oil prices close to $120 a barrel and why the International Energy Agency has warned of a 1.8 million barrel-a-day shortfall this year.

Allianz was at pains to stress that marine insurance has remained available throughout the conflict, albeit at higher hull and cargo premiums. The bigger problem for shipowners, it said, has been less about insurance and more about the basic risk to vessels and crews when sailing through an active conflict zone.

Even if the US and Iran peace agreement holds and the strait reopens, the insurer cautioned, owners will want firm assurances of safe passage, especially if traffic is to return to pre-war levels of up to 140 vessels a day.

“The closure of the Strait of Hormuz sets a dangerous precedent and raises questions around the long-term future of this and other critical chokepoints,” said Captain Rahul Khanna, global head of marine risk consulting at Allianz Commercial.

“What is becoming clear is that we have to pay a price for uncertainty, shifting from ‘just-in-time’ to ‘just-in-case’ supply chains, and prioritising resilience over cost efficiency.”

For UK firms, the lesson is uncomfortably familiar. The pandemic, the Suez blockage and the Red Sea attacks each exposed how exposed lean, just-in-time supply chains can be, and the Gulf crisis is now adding fresh insurance and freight costs to goods that have barely left port. Resilience, once treated as an optional extra, is fast becoming a competitive necessity, which is one reason a growing number of smaller exporters are rethinking their routes to market and diversifying their sales channels to spread the risk.

The full picture is set out in Allianz Commercial’s Safety and Shipping Review, which notes that, even as long-term safety records improve, the structural risks facing global trade are intensifying. For an industry that has long competed on cost, the price of certainty is suddenly the figure that matters most.

Jamie Young

Jamie is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, bringing over a decade of experience in UK SME business reporting.
Jamie holds a degree in Business Administration and regularly participates in industry conferences and workshops.

When not reporting on the latest business developments, Jamie is passionate about mentoring up-and-coming journalists and entrepreneurs to inspire the next generation of business leaders.

Elon Musk has lost his trillionaire status barely weeks after claiming it, as shares in SpaceX and the electric carmaker Tesla came under heavy pressure this week.

The entrepreneur’s total net worth slipped to $957bn on Wednesday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the daily ranking of the world’s richest people. It is a striking reversal for a businessman who, only this month, became the first person in history to be valued at more than $1tn.

Musk crossed that threshold when SpaceX made its long-awaited stock market debut. The aerospace group raised a record-breaking $75bn at a valuation of $1.75tn, instantly placing it among the most valuable companies on the planet and turbo-charging its founder’s paper fortune.

The shares have been anything but settled since. After listing, the stock surged, briefly carrying SpaceX above a $2tn valuation and lifting Musk’s estimated wealth to $1.1tn. They have since fallen sharply from that peak, wiping hundreds of billions of dollars from the company’s market value.

The slide appears to have been amplified by SpaceX’s relatively small public float. With only a modest slice of the company freely traded, comparatively limited volumes have been enough to trigger outsized swings in the price, a dynamic familiar to anyone who has watched thinly traded listings whip about in their early sessions.

Some investors also pointed to the group’s $25bn bond sale, completed this week, which SpaceX said would help repay a bridging loan taken out in March. The fundraising is a reminder of the sheer capital intensity of the business, a venture that consumes cash at a pace few firms could sustain.

SpaceX shares fell a further 0.8 per cent on Wednesday to $154.83 in New York. Tesla, where Musk remains chief executive, dropped 1.6 per cent to $375.61, extending a difficult run for a company that has already been wrestling with questions over its leadership and direction.

Tesla has been swept up in a broader sell-off across technology and growth stocks, as investors reassess lofty valuations. Sentiment soured further after a Bank of America report forecast three US interest rate rises this year to counter rising inflation, while Goldman Sachs unsettled markets by drawing comparisons between today’s technology rally and the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s.

In a note flagging the tension between strong fundamentals and stretched valuations, analysts at the investment bank wrote: “The macro story around AI still looks quite secure, especially compared to the late 1990s. The investment boom still appears to have room to grow, in the absence of unexpected shocks, so the outlook for beneficiaries of that boom still looks supportive. But the market has continued to boost the value it is assigning to those future gains, making it more vulnerable to any news that challenges that optimistic assessment.”

For all the drama, Musk remains comfortably the world’s richest person, and his trillionaire milestone may yet prove a question of timing rather than a closed chapter, particularly given the $1tn Tesla pay package his shareholders approved. According to the Bloomberg index, the Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin rank second and third, with $297bn and $276bn respectively, while Amazon’s Jeff Bezos follows on $257bn.

Whether this week marks a blip or the start of a longer correction, it underlines an uncomfortable truth for founder-led growth companies: when a fortune is built almost entirely on the share price of two volatile businesses, the path back below $1tn can be every bit as swift as the climb above it.

Jamie Young

Jamie is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, bringing over a decade of experience in UK SME business reporting.
Jamie holds a degree in Business Administration and regularly participates in industry conferences and workshops.

When not reporting on the latest business developments, Jamie is passionate about mentoring up-and-coming journalists and entrepreneurs to inspire the next generation of business leaders.

The way commercial spaces are designed has changed considerably in recent years. Businesses across the UK, from hotel groups and restaurant operators to recording studios and corporate office developers, are investing in acoustic ceiling treatment as a standard component of their fit-out rather than an optional upgrade.

At the centre of that shift is fabric ceiling installation, a specialist system that delivers both acoustic performance and a premium visual finish that alternatives simply cannot match.

This article covers what fabric ceiling installation involves, why UK businesses are specifying it, and what to consider before commissioning the work.

What Is a Fabric Ceiling Installation?

A fabric ceiling installation uses a precision aluminium track frame fixed to the ceiling structure, with an acoustic infill core installed within the frame and an acoustically transparent fabric stretched across the face to produce a seamless, unbroken surface. Unlike a traditional suspended ceiling grid with modular tiles, a fabric ceiling produces no visible joints, no panel edges, and no exposed fixings. The result is a continuous ceiling surface that looks intentional and considered rather than functional and utilitarian.

The fabric face is acoustically transparent by design, meaning sound waves pass through the material and into the infill core behind it, where the energy is absorbed rather than reflected back into the room. This is what gives the system its acoustic credentials. Hard ceiling surfaces, whether plaster, concrete, or standard ceiling tiles, reflect sound back into the space, increasing reverberation times and creating echoes that affect the quality of communication, concentration, and experience within the room.

A correctly specified fabric ceiling addresses this directly. By absorbing sound at the ceiling plane, which is typically the largest unobstructed reflective surface in any room, the system reduces reverberation times measurably and creates a noticeably more comfortable acoustic environment for everyone in the space.

Why Businesses Are Choosing Fabric Ceiling Installation

The reasons businesses are moving towards fabric ceiling installation over alternative acoustic treatments come down to three factors: acoustic performance, visual quality, and long-term value.

In terms of acoustic performance, a fabric ceiling installation with the correct infill core delivers sound absorption ratings that match or exceed those of most alternative ceiling systems. NRC ratings close to 1.0 are achievable with the right specification, meaning the system absorbs almost all sound energy that reaches the ceiling surface rather than reflecting it. For environments where the quality of communication or listening is directly tied to business outcomes, such as boardrooms, hotel conference suites, post-production facilities, and client-facing showrooms, this level of performance justifies the investment.

In terms of visual quality, no other acoustic ceiling treatment produces a finish comparable to that of a properly installed fabric ceiling. There are no visible tiles, no exposed grid, no shadow lines between panels, and no fixings. The ceiling reads as a single, continuous surface, elevating the perceived quality of the entire space. In hospitality environments, high-end offices, and retail interiors, this matters enormously. Customers and clients form immediate impressions based on the quality of the environment they enter, and a premium-looking ceiling directly contributes to that perception.

In the long term, fabric ceiling systems are built to last. When properly specified and installed, the system has a lifespan of fifteen to twenty years or more. The fabric can be replaced without removing the underlying track and infill structure, and access panels can be incorporated into the design to maintain services concealed behind the ceiling surface.

Where Fabric Ceiling Installation Is Specified

Fabric ceiling installation is specified across a wide range of commercial and professional environments in the UK.

Recording studios and post-production facilities represent the most acoustically demanding application. In these environments, the ceiling treatment is a critical part of the room’s acoustic design, working alongside wall panels and bass traps to achieve the precise reverberation time targets the room requires. Fabritech has completed fabric ceiling installations in facilities for Abbey Road Studios, Netflix, Apple, and Spotify, where the acoustic performance requirements are among the most exacting in the industry.

Hotels and hospitality venues are an increasingly significant market for fabric ceiling installation. Conference suites, restaurant dining rooms, event spaces, and hotel lobbies all benefit from controlled acoustics, and the premium visual finish of a fabric ceiling aligns with the design standards that guests expect in high-end hospitality environments.

Commercial offices and workspaces have seen growing demand for acoustic ceiling treatment since the shift to open-plan layouts accelerated. The ceiling is often the largest untreated acoustic surface in an office, and addressing it with a fabric ceiling installation can significantly reduce background noise, improve speech clarity across meeting and collaboration zones, and create a more productive working environment.

Home cinemas and private screening rooms represent the residential end of the market, where homeowners commissioning dedicated cinema rooms increasingly specify fabric ceiling installations as part of a complete acoustic and visual treatment package.

What to Consider Before Commissioning Fabric Ceiling Installation

For any business considering fabric ceiling installation, there are several practical factors to work through before the project begins.

Acoustic brief and performance targets should be established early. The specification of the infill core, track depth, and coverage area is determined by the acoustic targets for the space, whether that means meeting a specific reverberation time, achieving a defined NRC rating, or simply improving the general acoustic comfort of the environment. Engaging the installer at the design stage, rather than after the main contractor has finished, produces significantly better results.

Fire compliance is non-negotiable. All fabrics used in commercial ceiling installations must meet UK building regulations and be assessed against the European standard EN 13501-1. Any reputable fabric ceiling installer will provide full fire rating documentation for all specified materials before installation begins and should be able to advise on the appropriate classification for the specific building type and use.

Fabric selection affects both the acoustic outcome and the visual finish of the installation. Fabritech holds direct accounts with leading acoustic fabric manufacturers including Kvadrat, Camira Fabrics, and Guilford of Maine, giving clients access to a wide range of colours, textures, and performance-rated materials. The specified fabric must be acoustically transparent to ensure the system performs correctly, and all materials must carry the appropriate fire ratings for the environment.

Specialist installation is essential. Fabric ceiling installation is not a standard fit-out trade. The track fabrication, infill specification, and fabric stretching processes require specialist knowledge and experience to be delivered correctly. Incorrect installation results in uneven fabric tension, acoustic inconsistencies, and a finished ceiling that falls short of both its visual and acoustic potential.

Working With a Specialist

Fabritech

is a UK specialist in fabric ceiling installation for commercial, professional, and residential environments. As preferred installer for Studio Creations and Westwood Joinery, the UK’s leading studio construction companies, Fabritech delivers fabric ceiling systems for recording studios, post-production facilities, hotels, commercial offices, and high-end residential projects across the UK. For project enquiries and specification advice, visit fabritech.co.uk/services/fabric-ceiling/.