Unemployment has soared by 145% in the West of England since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, according to figures published today, with just nearly 40,000 people claiming jobless benefits. At the same time, around 22% of the region’s workforce – 132,600 people – have been furloughed while job vacancies have fallen sharply, down...
Bath-based travel tech start-up Tickitto has booked itself onto a period of expansion after receiving $700,000 (£563,850) in funding. The firm, which aims to help travel retailers access tickets to events and travel-related experiences through one single connection, will to use the money from the pre-seed round to scale its engineering team and build...
Bath-based financial planning group Fidelius – one of the city’s fastest-growing businesses – has struck a significant strategic partnership with a major investment firm that will take its assets under advice to £1.8bn. The link up with Pacific Asset Management (PAM) has involved it acquiring Fidelius’s discretionary fund management (DFM) arm Parallel Investment Management. ...
MDS Technologies, which supplies cloud and insfrastructure services to the government, has merged with a managed IT services firm as both benefit from increased demand linked to home working during the lockdown. Chippenham-head MDS supplies managed cloud and infrastructure packages to a number of primarily large public sector organisations requiring a high level of...
Somerset-based upmarket fashion brand Mulberry is planning to shed hundreds of jobs as it struggles to overcome the massive cost of the Covid-19 pandemic on the business. The firm, best known for its luxury leather bags, employs 1,140 staff in the UK – around half of them at its head office and factory at...
A bakery chain based near Bath is to reopen its 45 branches after securing £1m in funding through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS). The Cornish Bakery, which has its headquarters at Paulton and an outlet in Abbey Churchyard in Bath, closed the doors of its bakeries to customers on March 23 and...
Small and medium-sized Bath businesses investing in digital innovation to address challenges arising from Covid-19 can access grants of between £10,000 and £40,000 under a new scheme started by UWE Bristol. The university’s £1m Digital Innovation Fund is aimed at helping firms ranging from start-ups and micro businesses to more established organisations as they...
Business West, the region’s largest business organisation, has joined bodies representing business, education and employment in urging the government to rethink its controversial quarantine rules for travellers arriving in the UK. In an open letter to the home, foreign and transport secretaries, Business West, UK Hospitality, Universities UK and others argue that it was...
Chancellor Rishi Sunak recently announced more details on the extension of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), including bringing forward by a month the option to bring furloughed employees back part time. With so much information coming out from the government on the scheme, Mogers Drewett employment partner Sean McDonough here highlights the key...
Each week Bath accountancy firm Pearson May and Bath Business News team up to bring you the top national finance stories. This week we look at more issues linked to the coronavirus pandemic. Domestic reverse charge VAT delayed until 2021 Covid-19 prompts another delay to change for construction services. Find out here what’s changed...
