Commenting on Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s announcement of new ‘pay-as-you-grow’ repayment terms for Bounce Bank loans scheme, Rob Straathof, CEO of embedded business finance platform Liberis, stated: “We support Chancellor Sunak’s move towards providing SMEs with more flexible loan repayment terms for the Bounce Back loans scheme. This move will surely be received positively by those SMEs struggling to start repayment whilst the UK economy remains in lockdown. While this is a welcome announcement, the Chancellor should consider further support for SMEs with flexible payments based on SME revenues. Based on Liberis’ data over more than a decade providing SME financing…
Author: sme-admin
Grandfather Tony Campbell has taken his 20-year-old maths toolkit which has helped Special Needs Education professionals nationwide, and adapted it for home-schooling. The new “Maths Home Schooling Kit” which can be ordered online contains flexible tables allowing primary school children up to Year 7 to grasp the basics of addition, subtraction, multiplication and fractions. Like many parents and grandparents, Tony, who lives in Northampton, is concerned about how the closure of schools will impact on children’s education. “I’m seeing the challenges home-schooling is having for parents and children – even with my own grandchildren. My grown-up daughter, Jemma, is dyslexic and she…
The British Business Bank, the UK’s economic development bank, today announces further details of Pay As You Grow, which helps UK smaller businesses that have taken out a Covid-19 emergency Bounce Back Loan to manage their cashflow and have a better chance of getting back to growth. Originally announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in September 2020, Pay As You Grow (PAYG) will enable businesses who have started repaying their Bounce Back Loans to: request an extension of their loan term to 10 years from six years, at the same fixed interest rate of 2.5% reduce their monthly repayments…
Onecom has acquired its closest rival, Olive Communications, in a move which creates the largest business-to-business mobile, fixed-line and cloud specialist in the UK. Together, Onecom and Olive will provide services to more than 500,000 corporate and business end users this year, generating combined annual turnover of more than £140m. The acquisition was supported with follow-on funding from mid-market private equity firm LDC, which invested in Onecom in a £100m deal in July 2019 to fuel the Hampshire-based business’s ambitious three-year growth strategy. Growth capital investor BGF, which invested £10million into Olive in 2016, has exited the business as part of…
During National Apprenticeship Week we look how senior Low Level Waste Repository Ltd (LLWR) executives benefitted greatly from apprenticeships as teenagers. Two of LLWR’s most senior personnel are fine adverts for what can be achieved by going down the apprenticeship route after leaving school. CEO Designate Martin Walkingshaw and Becky Ruddy, Head of Infrastructure, were both given a solid grounding in the nuclear industry as Sellafield apprentices. Martin, currently Deputy CEO, hailed his apprenticeship with British Nuclear Fuels as a “great foundation” for his subsequent career. Martin said, “I occasionally tease people who went down the university route that when…
The government has today announced the appointment of Sir Kevan Collins as the government’s Education Recovery Commissioner, to oversee a comprehensive programme of catch-up aimed at young people who have lost out on learning due to the pandemic. The reopening of schools is a national priority. The Prime Minister recognises that school closures have had a huge impact on children’s learning and has pledged to work with parents, teachers and schools to develop a long-term plan to make sure pupils have the chance to make up their learning over the course of this Parliament. Sir Kevan will lead this work.…
Investment group MML Capital has announced it has invested £40m into Western Global, the leading provider of industrial liquid storage and dispensing solutions. The deal represents the latest in a series of transactions which has seen MML successfully complete 15 transactions in the last 12 months. Founded as a family business in the UK, Western Global has grown impressively expanding across Europe and North America. Today, Western Global is the leading provider of portable tanks and dispensing equipment for the storage and handling of fuels, lubricants and other fluids. With safety and the environment high on its agenda, Western Global…
More than 150 companies have now signed up to be a part of Highways England’s A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down upgrade past Stonehenge.The company launched the A303 Stonehenge business directory in December, extending an invite for small and medium-sized businesses to get involved in the transformational dualling scheme and tunnel project, and in less than two months a total of 161 companies are now registered – half of those from the Wiltshire locality. A virtual Meet the Buyer event was held on 21 January, in which more than 130 people heard from Highways England’s project team and preliminary works contractors…
Construction work has started on an innovative scheme to improve Tilbury’s flood defences with the installation of new dual function flood lock gates. In a project of national importance, the existing port lock gates will be replaced with pioneering dual function lock gates, and the Environment Agency’s tidal barrier will be removed. This is a major joint project between the Environment Agency and The Port of Tilbury that will safeguard thousands of homes and businesses in the local area. Work started in January and is expected to last for 18 months with the new lock gates planned for installation in…
Highways England has awarded Jacobs the £162.5m Integration Partner contract which will see the company act as a catalyst for collaboration between Highways England and the Lower Thames Crossing’s three main works contracts responsible for delivering the most ambitious road scheme in a generation. The Lower Thames Crossing will improve journeys by almost doubling road capacity across the Thames east of London, with 14.3 miles of new road featuring two 2.6-mile-long tunnels. The scheme will help to unlock a wealth of economic benefits by supporting over 22,000 jobs during construction and creating better connections to the region’s ports, distribution hubs…