Business News

West Midlands tattoo artist, Hanan Qattan, has secured a five-figure funding package from HSBC UK to open a new tattoo studio in Worcester town centre.

The entrepreneur has used the funding to purchase a two level 1,200 sq. ft. property located in Worcester’s Reindeer Court Arcade to launch Fox and Fortune Tattoo. The support from HSBC UK has also allowed Hanan to apply for planning permission to undertake renovation work to the listed building.

A selection of new-build homes has gone on sale in the Castle Vale area of Birmingham for the first time in over a decade.

Together with Birmingham City Council, leading developer Lovell Homes has launched The Point, a brand-new community of stunning properties for a variety of buyers. Situated just six miles north-east of Birmingham city centre, The Point offers a total of 123 homes that are ideal for first-time buyers and families seeking more space.

A couple of homebuyers from Newbury, in Berkshire, are delighted after moving to a unique development in the town, which they believe has the ‘wow factor’.

Domestic worker Nikki Minns (63) and her engineer husband Gary (64) were previously living alongside Nikki’s mother in her childhood home, a four bedroom property in the Berkshire village of Bradfield Southend. Following the passing of Nikki’s mother, the couple decided to look for a smaller property in the area for a fresh start, looking at both older and newer houses.

The redevelopment of Corporation Street in Birmingham city centre has moved onto the next stage, as renovations of the historic Citadel building are now fully underway by hybrid office developer Kinrise. Set to be the city’s most sustainable workplace, Citadel will be completed this summer and will offer over 46,000 sqft of office, retail and social space behind its remarkable Victorian façade at 190 Corporation Street. 

Anoto Group AB (publ) (“Anoto”) announced in a press release on 6 April that the loan Anoto received from Swedish investors that was announced in a press release on 10 August 2021 now partially is converted into shares.

Anoto is a publicly held Swedish technology company known globally for innovation in the area of information-rich patterns and the optical recognition of those patterns.

The UK’s largest listed provider of private rental homes, Grainger plc, is expanding its portfolio of private rental homes in The Midlands with a stylish new residential development located in central Birmingham. Due to launch in May 2022, the new purpose-built rental development, Gilders Yard, sits on the site of a former jewellery factory and involves the renovation of a three storey Grade II* listed building, once home to local jeweller, J Ashford & Sons. 

Brilliant Planet Limited (formerly Susewi Ltd), the nature-based carbon capture and storage company, announced the closing of its oversubscribed $12 million Series A funding co-led by Union Square Ventures and Toyota Ventures.  Additional and follow-on investors include Future Positive Capital, AiiM Partners, S2G Ventures, Hatch and Pegasus Tech Ventures.

Brilliant Planet is unlocking the power of algae as an affordable method of permanently and quantifiably sequestering carbon at the gigaton scale. 

Podcast listening in the UK is booming. The audience of 19.1 million listeners in 2021 is projected to grow to upwards of 28 million by 2026. And it is in this growing marketplace that UK sales transformation specialist Sales Talent has announced the second season of The Sales Talent Podcast.

The first season generated over 5,000 downloads, with Sales Talent MD Paul Owen and his guests focusing on learning how to sell; it served as an impactful ‘beginner’s guide to sales.’

A city shop owner and employee who persistently sold and distributed illicit tobacco have been given suspended prison sentences.

Karanveer Singh Dhaliwal, the shop owner and former premises license holder of KS News, in Oxford Street, Bilston, and shop manager at the time Ashok Singh Kumar, appeared before a judge at Wolverhampton Crown Court. The two men were both sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for two years.

Nearly half a million UK businesses are set to benefit from a tax cut worth up to £1,000 from 6 April 2022. The Employment Allowance has risen from £4,000 to £5,000 – meaning smaller firms will be able to claim up to £5,000 off their employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs) bills.

Announced by the Chancellor at last month’s Spring Statement to reduce employment costs, the change takes an extra 50,000 firms out of paying NICs and the Health and Social Care Levy.

As part of its ambitious growth strategy, leading law firm Shakespeare Martineau has appointed corporate partner Michael Stace.

With more than 25 years’ qualified experience, Michael joins Shakespeare Martineau from Browne Jacobson, where he was head of the firm’s Birmingham office.

A stylish new home interiors showroom targeting Manchester’s fashion-conscious city dwellers has officially held its grand opening and website launch. 

Oppein Home Manchester in Altrincham offers high-end design at affordable prices with kitchens, wardrobes, fitted furniture, bathroom products and more available from its deluxe store on Stamford New Road.

From 1 April, new legislation came into effect regarding the use of red diesel and rebated fuels, which has been used in a variety of industries often associated with agriculture and construction. The Government initially announced the changes in the 2020 budget and the legislative changes have been delivered through the Finance Bill 2021 and subsequent secondary legislation.

The background for the restriction of red diesel in certain uses is driven by two objectives.

From Monday (April 4), a new national advertising campaign will appear on television screens across Great Britain to help every household cut their energy costs by as much as £332 - cutting the average energy bill by nearly a fifth. The campaign has been launched after Utilita’s own research of 5,000 households revealed that any Government advice on cutting energy usage has failed to reach most households (84%).

A Wolverhampton shop owner found to be repeatedly selling illicit cigarettes and tobacco has been jailed for 24 weeks and told he was “selling poison to a child” by a judge.

Mohammed Sokhanvar Mahani, the proprietor of Super Mahan in Thornley Street, had pleaded guilty to a string of 12 charges, including one contrary to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and one contrary to the Fraud Act.

Rural communities are increasingly turning to Junior ISAs invested in stocks and shares as a tax-efficient way of protecting wealth and combatting inflation. The number of new stocks-and-shares Junior ISAs opened with leading rural insurer NFU Mutual increased by nearly 10% in 2021 compared to 2020, and the rural community are investing more than the national average too.