Bristol-based facilities manager MITIE has brushed aside the recession with double-digit growth in revenue, earnings and dividends in the year to March 31. Pre-tax profit in the company’s 23rd consecutive year of growth rose 15.3% to £105.7m on revenue up 10.0% to £1,891.4m. Earnings per share before other items grew 15.9% to 22.6p...
Bristol-based mobile phone group Orange has teamed up with Barclaycard to launch a service that enables customers to make payments over the counter of up to £15 using their mobile phones. Fast-food chains McDonald’s, Subway and Pret a Manger as well as some branches of Boots – together totalling...
Bristol communications and events agency Brandon Hill Communications has been named the most awarded agency in the region by national marketing magazine The Drum. The Clifton-based firm is ranked 39th on the list of 100 marketing services agencies outside London, earning the top spot in the South West. The...
Bristol-based UNITE, Britain’s leading developer and manager of student accommodation, has dismissed the impact of higher university tuition fees after reporting a strong first half performance. Reservations across its managed portfolio of 41,000 beds for 2011/12 are 73% compared with 71% at the same time last year and the company...
Consumers grew more pessimistic about the outlook for the economy and spending last month, according to Britain’s biggest building society. Swindon-based Nationwide’s index of sentiment fell two points, slipping to 43 from a revised 45 in March. Its gauge of whether now is a good time to make major purchases...
Trade links between Bristol and Kenya are being boosted today with the visit to the city of 175 business people from the East African country. The event, which has been organised by the government’s trade-boosting body UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) and Barclays Bank, includes a ‘meet-the-buyer’ session when 15...
Nighthawk, the Bristol-based oil and gas production and development business with assets in the US state of Colorado, blames “worse than average winter weather” and a decline in output from its wells for a fall in production of around a third in the three months to March 31. The firm’s second-quarterly production...
Construction company Willmott Dixon has created a new role in its Bristol office to promote environmental and sustainable innovation across its sites in the South West and Wales. Jo Rock has been appointed senior environmental manager to lead the firm’s ambitious policy so it is embedded within the job...
Airbus insists it will begin building the A350 XWB at the end of this year and that the next-generation airliner will be ready to go into service in the second half of 2013 - as planned. Parent company EADS has confirmed the timetable although it admits the “programme remains challenging”. EADS chief Louis...
Precision toolmaker Renishaw, one of the West of England’s engineering and exporting success stories, says it should achieve record full-year, pre-tax profits well ahead of market forecasts of around £75m. The forecast follow a 60% jump in third quarter revenue to £75.6m, announced today, of which £32 million was achieved...
Defence contractor BAE Systems is to pay additional fines of up to $79m (£48m) for breaking US regulations governing the export of fighter planes abroad. The group – Britain’s biggest manufacturer and Europe’s biggest defence company – says the new fine is part of a civil settlement with the...
UK aerospace giant Rolls-Royce and partner Daimler look to have sealed a 3.4bn euro (£3bn) takeover of German engine-maker Tognum AG, the world’s second-biggest manufacturer of high-speed diesel engines for the marine, energy and defence industries. Members of the Tognum board agreed to back the bid with their combined 5%...
Inflation has leapt to 4.5%, its highest for two-and-a-half years, surprise figures out today show. Most analysts had expected the UK Consumer Prices Index (CPI) annual rate of inflation for April to come in at 4.2 per cent. The Treasury blamed today’s figure – up from 4% in March...
