The Platt Brothers The Platt Brothers were a textile machinery company founded in 1770 by Henry Platt. The company based in Werneth, Oldham became the largest textile machinery manufacturer in the world, and by the end of the 19th century, it was employing more than 12,000 workers. Henry Platt was a blacksmith who was manufacturing…
FirstGroup chief executive Tim O’Toole has stepped down with “immediate effect”, after the bus and train operator reported a huge full-year loss. The company said lost £327m in the year to 31 March, compared with a profit of £152.6m last year. The group also runs South Western Railway, the Heathrow Airport Connect service and First…
Shares in online grocer Ocado have increased by 47% to 814p after it struck a deal with US retailer Kroger. Ocado’s technology will be used in the US exclusively by Kroger, which is one of the world’s biggest grocery chains with annual sales of $122bn (£90bn). Under the terms of the deal, Kroger will also…
BT is to cut 13,000 jobs over three years, about 12% of its workforce. It said that the job cuts and other measures would help it to reduce costs by £1.5bn. It added that it would be hiring about 6,000 employees to “support network deployment and customer service”. A third of the job reductions will…
Online retailer Shop Direct, which owns Very.co.uk and Littlewoods.com will close its distribution centres in Shaw, Little Hulton and Raven in Greater Manchester. It does, however, plan to build a new warehouse in the East Midlands employing 500 people, but said redundancies were likely putting nearly 2,000 jobs at risk. The new site will be…
In April, the amount companies in England pay in business rates will change for the second year in a row. It follows a major revaluation by the government, which was introduced in 2017. It saw some bills going up, and others going down. Many retailers have closed down stores and a number of High Street…
The owner of Bargain Booze and Wine Rack, Conviviality, has announced plans to file for administration within two weeks. Conviviality also supplies wine and spirits to all 900 D Weatherspoon pubs and also the Slug & Lettuce chain and All Bar One pubs. It has issued profit warnings in recent weeks and revealed a £30m…
New Look will close 60 UK stores and cut 1,000 jobs after creditors approved a restructuring plan for the retailer. The stores will close within 12 months and some staff may be redeployed. The plan will cut the chain’s rents by between 15% to 55% across its remaining 393 stores. New Look says it was…
The six stores to close in April are Birkenhead, Bournemouth, Durham, Fforestfach in Swansea, Putney and Redditch. Staff have been offered jobs in nearby stores. The closure of another eight shops has been proposed, which will affect 468 staff. The eight stores are: Andover, Basildon, Bridlington, Denton outlet store, Falmouth, Fareham, Keighley and Stockport. It…
According to UK Finance, the number of landlords who are seriously behind with their mortgage payments has increased by 20%. There were 1,200 buy-to-let mortgages in “significant arrears” in the last quarter of 2017, a fifth higher than in the same quarter in 2016.Significant arrears means they owe more than 10% of the outstanding balance.…