RECOVERY specialist Begbies Traynor has announced the sale of its Channel Islands insolvency and restructuring business to Grant Thornton.

FIRST Hull Trains grew revenues and returned to the black in its latest financial year, but said recent trading has been tough as passengers’ incomes are squeezed by the austere economic climate.

NICK Clegg will unveil plans today to create a “John Lewis economy” by radically increasing employee share ownership.

ECONOMIC recovery has been paralysed by political turmoil in the eurozone, according to a forecast from the Ernst & Young ITEM Club, which expects stagnant UK growth this year.

SWEET maker Glisten said it is about to embark on an era of “very strong growth”, which could include acquisitions, to grow market share in the UK and Europe.

YORKSHIRE and the Humber remained the UK’s fastest-growing region for private sector business activity in December, according to a survey of purchasing managers by Lloyds TSB and Markit.

THE founders of Fuse8 have bought the digital marketing group back from its parent company.

HOUSE builder Bovis Homes said it expected to achieve a significant increase in profit in 2012, benefiting from forward bookings rising by more than a third, following strong earnings growth in 2011.

Members of Benenden Healthcare Society who are 66 and over can now access a health cash plan product after the organisation joined forces with Engage Mutual Assurance.

The Patents County Court (PCC) is hosting an event in York later this month to help those with intellectual property claims find an alternative to traditional High Court action.

Room in Mayfair, two men shake hands across a sleek wooden desk. Casually but expensively dressed, one gets up and turns toward the glass security door that’s de rigueur in this enclave of central London. He smiles as he leaves: “Pleasure doing business. I’ll recommend you.”

Payday loan firms which flout European consumer rules will be shut down, the European Union said this week. Its investigations found that four out of five UK online credit companies failed to provide basic information required by law, such as the cost of borrowing.

Delays and uncertainty over new financial regulations risk upending long-term investments such as new mining projects or international trade, the head of Barclays’ investment bank has warned.

Online payday loan firm Wonga was forced to remove an article from its website yesterday after it caused outrage by suggesting that students should take out loans that cost up to 4,000 per cent rather than using government-backed Student Loans, which charge around 5 per cent.

The EU is cracking down on loan websites after an investigation revealed that 70 per cent are operating outside the law by misleading borrowers about credit deals.

There is probably one within walking distance of your home. Your friends and relatives could have money deposited with one. But it’s one of the financial services industries best kept secrets. What is it? The local credit union.

Online payday loans could end up being the next mis-selling scandal, a former lawyer at the Financial Ombudsman Service has warned.

Hardships are continuing for families this year. Housing charity Shelter reckons some seven million vulnerable folk have turned to expensive credit just to pay their rent or mortgages.

Around seven million people are turning to credit to try to keep a roof over their heads, research by housing charity Shelter reveals.

Robberies increased by a fifth and the average cost per incident went up 17 per cent from £847 to £989.

The Foreign Secretary spoke out as experts warned Greece was set to default on its debts in March unless another bailout was organised.

Citizens Advice, which commissioned the report, said it helped clients with over 96,000 fuel debt problems last year as prices soared.

The chief economist at the Item Club said ‘figures for the last quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of this year are likely to show that we are back in recession, and we are going to have to wait until the summer before there are signs of improvement’.

There will be 2.85 million jobless workers by the end of the year before the figure rises by another 50,000 at the start of 2013.

The FTSE 100 index fell after losses in the United States and Asia as multiple sovereign downgrades by Standard & Poor’s threatened to aggravate the euro zone’s debt crisis.

Managing director Phil Bentley – who earns £1.3million a year – revealed that customers struggling to pay gas and electricity bills are taking out their frustrations on his call centre staff and workers on the road.

On a trip to Hong Kong, the Chancellor struck the deal to make London the largest trading hub for Chinese currency outside China.

The walk-outs will cause huge inconvenience for millions of higher-rate taxpayers and those with untaxed income, such as landlords, freelancers and sole traders, who are required to submit a tax return each year.

RBS is understood to be unwilling to put more money into the business, which has more than 700 stores and employs 13,000 workers.

FOR a time last year it seemed investors had learned not to panic every time markets were rocked by volatility.