Demand for serviced 
office space in Yorkshire and Humberside has experienced an increase. Enquiries from businesses increased by 25% from last year’s figures, with 2009 figures showing a 7% decrease.
The economy has thankfully seen a recovery, though it has been slow to turn around. This recovery coupled with a growing interest in the commercial property market has given much relief to the 225 serviced office providers that reside in Yorkshire and Humberside.
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Demand for business centres and serviced office space has grown by 70% in the last year. Most of the prospective tenants for these office spaces have been new businesses, who are looking for an easy place to set up and run their everyday operations with ease.
However very few new business centres have been constructed, due to the aftermath of the recession. Capital values have dropped as have rent prices, which leaves little incentive for companies to develop new buildings and centres for such use. It has also made banks less likely to lend for such projects, as there seems to be little profit. (more…)
Small businesses in the West Midlands are the most pessimistic about their region’s prospects than the rest of the UK, according to a new survey out this week.
The survey, carried out by Clifton Asset Management, found that only 15% believed the West Midlands is better placed than the rest of the UK to withstand the recession. This compares with 56% in the South East, 44% in the South West and 32% in the North East and East Midlands. 31% of companies questioned admitted they had made job cuts in the past 6 months, while 17% said they would be forced to make further job cuts in the future to balance their books. (more…)
SME’s in Wigan are to benefit from £1 million of financial help as part of the “Access To Finance” scheme – a programme set up to help SME’s through the recession.
The scheme is being launched by Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council and Wigan Borough Partnership and aims to provide struggling local businesses with advice, support and practical financial help. The project is funded by the Working Neighbourhood’s Fund and will offer businesses between £500 and £1000 to in financial support. The first part of the programme, the small loans scheme, is now ready to be rolled out and businesses taking part will, in return, be asked to support council initiatives and training, such as apprentice schemes. (more…)
A new study has found that almost half of British SME’s have maintained profitability in the recession.
The study, by Kingston University, found that many SME’s had used their own cash to survive, rather than relying on banks. The good news comes after SME’s received criticism from Lord Alan Sugar last week. He called SME owners “moaners” and said that most SME’s needed an insolvency practitioner, instead of a bank. About 48% of 343 firms asked said they had maintained or increased their profitability in the last year, with a only a quarter seeing a significant fall in profits. (more…)
The Government’s Enterprise Champion, Lord Alan Sugar, has told SME’s to stop moaning about banks not lending them money.
“The Apprentice” star launched into an 8-minute rant in front of 300 SME owners in at a conference in Manchester yesterday. He sparked outrage by saying only 15% of small firms who got turned down for bank loans had anything to moan about. The rest, he said needed an insolvency practitioner, rather than a bank. The business tsar, thought to worth around £370 million, added that struggling business owners were “moaners” who “lived in Disney World”. (more…)
New research out this week claims the rising rates of insolvency across the UK are more likely hit smaller businesses harder than their larger counterparts.
Information services company, Experian, said that businesses with between 11 and 100 employees are the enterprises which are most likely to fail, year on year. On average 15 out of every 10,000 small businesses have gone bust every three months since 2000. That figure rose to a peak of 87 in the first quarter of 2009. This September the number of SME’s with 11 to 25 employees saw a marked increase in insolvencies, up to 0.26% from 0.21% in September last year. (more…)
Data released recently from Equifax, the credit reporting company has showed that SME’s are the ideal target for fraudulent attacks. The company has signaled that small and medium companies could be so focused on surviving from day to day that they could miss threats to their business. National Identity Fraud Prevention Week has been arranged to raise awareness about how fraudsters can target companies to glean personal and private data.
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Demand for serviced