Business

After a successful first year helping South West social ventures to grow and flourish, applications have now opened for an exciting new programme of Seedbed investment and support for 2016.

Now in its second year, the £1.2 million Seedbed accelerator programme is looking to recruit 25 ambitious social ventures from across the region by the end of January.

Successful applicants will each have access to thousands of pounds worth of investment in the form of affordable loans, business coaching and action learning to help them expand and fulfil their potential.

Dirk...

Sky Sports presenter Jeff Stelling together with football legends Matt Le Tissier and Alan McLoughlin provided a sporting backdrop to the 2015 Hendy Sales Awards.

The south coast automotive giant honoured top performing sales and administration staff at the awards evening where managing director Paul Hendy paid tribute to the teamwork of everyone who had contributed to a successful year for the company.

Steve Dilley who works in Exeter was named Carstore and MG Salesperson of the Year for his work and he was presented with his award by Richard Beagley from Autotrader....

Exeter accountants and financial planners Old Mill are doubling the number of people owning an equity stake in the business. There are already 21 shareholders in the business but from 1 January 2016, 23 further members of staff acquired equity taking the total number of shareholders up to 44 – almost a fifth of the 250 workforce. Simon Cole, Board member and one of the co-founders of Old Mill, commented “Many firms in our profession have a business model that sees them restrict their ownership all too often to a small select group of individuals. As a consequence, staff who work hard for...

The Business in Britain report, now in its 24th year, gathers the views of 1,500 UK companies, predominantly small to medium sized businesses, and tracks the overall “balance” of opinion on a range of important performance and confidence measures, weighing up the percentage of firms that are positive in outlook against those that are negative.

Since the last report in July 2015, business confidence in the South West - an average of respondents’ expected sales, orders and profits over the next six months - has declined to 40 per cent, down from 49 per cent. However the index remains...