NI Business News Round Up - Week ending 28th November 2022
Our team has summarised the key developments for NI businesses in the news this week.
Business News
NI’s top 100 owner managed businesses revealed. (Source - Insider Media)
Farrans lands new water contracts in England worth £100 million - The civil engineering and building contractor has landed the deals with Northumbrian Water Limited to deliver improvement works in County Durham, Tees Valley and Suffolk. Farrans is part of the Northstone group, which is in turn a subsidiary of Dublin-based CRH plc. (Source -The Irish News)
Ballymena-based McBurney Transport reported a 27 per cent jump in pre-tax profits to £11.5 million for last year. (Source - The Irish News)
One of Omagh’s prime pieces of hospitality real estate has changed hands, and, as such, The Blind Cobbler is now the property of Blue Tree Hospitality Limited – a company owned by Antain McDermott, who is also a director of Tyrone Fabrications. (Source - WeAreTyrone)
VIBEROPTIX, a recently-established fibre infrastructure company based in Coalisland, has been awarded the Rapid Riser accolade at the British Chambers of Commerce's annual business awards after it increased sales by more than eight-fold in just two years. (Source - The Irish News)
McVey invests in new £5m manufacturing facility in Toome - MID-Ulster-based off-site modular buildings maker P McVey Building Systems plans to invest £5 million into a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility as part of its long-term growth and development plans. (Source - The Irish News)
Danske Bank: Pre-tax profits up 60 per cent to £80m for year to date; meanwhile, Santander has also seen its profits boosted by higher interest returns but cautioned that rates could peak at 6 per cent in 2024 if inflation remains stubbornly high.(Source - The Irish News)
Deals
Rushmere shopping centre sold for £56m to new investor (Source - The Belfast Telegraph)
AIRCOACH has bought Derry bus operator Airporter in a deal that will see the Dublin company adopt a new daily north-west service. (Source - The Irish News)
CBRE Northern Ireland’s Quarterly Real Estate research report showed that almost £20m worth of commercial property deals were done, which is close to the £21m recorded in 2021 - Prominent deals completed in Belfast in the three months to the end of September include the sale of the Premier Inn, Four Corners, for £12.2m and Imperial House for £7.1m. (Source - News Letter)
THE owner of the Belfast Telegraph, Sunday Life and Sunday World newspapers has bought a car website from the Auto Trader Group for €30 million (£26m) - Mediahuis Ireland, which also owns the Irish Independent, has acquired Webzone Limited, which trades in the Republic under the Carzone brand. (Source - The Irish News)
The Economy
Real weekly earnings in the north fell by a record 4.5 per cent in the year to April 2022, new official figures show - The Annual Survey for Hours and Earnings (ASHE) said the median gross weekly earning for full-time workers in April stood at £592, an increase of 2.9 per cent on April 2021. But when inflation was factored in, the average real weekly wage actually fell by around £28 a week. (Source - The Irish News)
Workplace
The number of Chartered Accountants in Northern Ireland has passed the 5,200 mark for the first time following the conferring of 83 new members of Chartered Accountants Ireland in Belfast this week. (Source - NewsLetter)
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