News

UK SMEs are battling a sharp rise in bad debts at a time when wider business confidence remains fragile. Cost pressures, particularly labour, weigh heavily on the outlook and two new surveys point to an increasingly cautious environment with cashflow risk spreading...

As recently as the turn of the present century, over half of financial transactions in the UK were made in cash. Today the proliferation of credit cards, mobile banking as well as cryptocurrency and other innovative digital assets has reduced that to fewer than one in...

The blockade in the Strait of Hormuz has grown into a major logistical and fuel crisis for the global supply chain. Closer to home, those in charge of the ‘final stretch’ are facing new pressures, just when things seemed to have stabilised. The UK haulage sector is...

The recent administration of National Car Parks (NCP) provides a stark reminder of how lease structures can move from a background consideration to the central cause of distress. Once seen as a resilient, cash-generative model, the 95-year-old NCP, which grew taking...

This month, we’re arriving a little later than planned — but with good reason. With Easter just around the corner, we decided to hold back and share something inspired not by tradition, but by the season itself. As winter gives way to spring, the shift is...

More than a century has passed since the UK was known as ‘the workshop of the world’. Manufacturing’s share of the economy is at best 10% today, half of what it was in 1990, as the nation relies on strength in services. Yet pockets of resilience remain among...

While conflict in the Middle East continues to rage, every day that passes increases the chances of a full-blown global recession. Once again, the threat lies in severely disrupted global energy markets. UK businesses have already begun quietly preparing contingency...

What is it about the recruitment sector that allows a business to fail and return in a new guise over and over again? The latest to hit the headlines has effectively emerged from insolvency for the third time in four years, leaving millions of pounds in unpaid...

The single most alarming indication of the complacency that afflicts the Westminster village is the frequent claim (usually made when a hapless government Minister is defending further public expenditure on some profligate welfare scheme or other) that, ‘The UK is...

The sudden collapse in recent days of London-based specialist property lender Market Financial Solutions Ltd (MFS) has stunned the UK property and credit markets, prompting fresh scrutiny of underwriting standards in private credit and bridging finance. MFS, a...

As we edge (hopefully!) towards spring here in London, I find myself craving something lighter, brighter — something that carries the warmth of sunshine even on a grey afternoon. Over the past few months, I’ve noticed Orange & Olive Oil Cake appearing more and...

Headline insolvency figures might suggest otherwise, but beneath the surface many UK SMEs are facing intensifying liquidity pressure. According to the latest annual figures there were 23,938 registered company insolvencies in England and Wales during 2025 — broadly in...