News

The ripple effects of a sector’s global downturn will often continue to hurt small operators for long after the big players have steadied themselves. The TV industry, with a long tail of independent suppliers, is a sad example close to home. Recent weeks have seen a...

Debating the UK’s economic future inevitably leads to questioning the strength of our industrial base: what can generate earnings outside financial and professional services, or early stage tech development? Manufacturing’s share of the UK economy is around 10% today,...

Britain’s pubs will be totting up the long weekend’s takings, hoping that mixed weather over an earlyish Easter wasn’t too much of a dampener. Sadly these things matter in an industry that has at best limped along since Covid and saw nearly 800 boozers enter...

Britain’s fledgling electric vehicle industry seems to have run out of juice - but we shouldn’t be too hasty in writing off our entire tech sector. Lunaz, backed by football legend David Beckham, this month put its commercial transport arm Lunaz Applied Technologies...

It is far too early to tell whether business conditions for struggling UK-registered companies will soon turn the corner: inflation has eased, but not far enough for the Bank of England’s liking; the UK economy officially dipped into recession after two shrinking...

Almost four years after the government’s Bounce Back Loan (BBL) Scheme was rolled out to save small businesses at risk from pandemic lockdowns, closer scrutiny of businesses now unable to repay the loans is leading to action against  an increasing number of...

Plenty of political hopes and fears have been invested in today's Budget, which was probably the final set-piece financial event before this year's UK General Election. From the Conservative perspective, after two relentlessly gloomy years of economic and political...

The financial crisis facing Britain’s councils is deepening. A new poll of local government leaders and managers claims to show, for the first time, the true extent of a structural funding issue that is leaving authorities close to bust. Only 4% of council leaders...

Insolvency Service investigators aren’t only called in after the event. They can also examine complaints about alleged corporate abuse or fraud in live companies. As is so often the case, two issues always put directors’ behaviour under the microscope: not conducting...

Notwithstanding the potential boost to exports of a relatively weak pound (on a 10-year view, anyway) for the UK’s manufacturing and assembling activities, the service sector still accounts for 81% of GDP and 83% of employment. It’s therefore unsurprising that it was...

The fall into administration of major UK haulier Youngs, citing “insurmountable working capital difficulties” and a “troubling” situation facing the whole sector, has once again brought into sharp focus the challenges faced by this critical link in the supply chain....

It’s safe to say that no student careers officer has ever pointed young jobhunters towards the insolvency and restructuring sector. We’re a relatively niche profession, generally unknown beyond experienced accountants and lawyers. Most members of the industry ‘end up’...