Wholesale group Kitwave has made its first acquisition since listing on the AIM market last year with a £24.5m deal for a Devon company.
The North Shields firm has acquired the entire issued share capital of MJ Baker Foodservice Limited, which is based in Newton Abbot and is a leading food service supplier in the West Country.
MJ Baker was founded in 1999 and its most recent accounts, covering 2020, showed turnover of £16.9m and profit of £1.5m.
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The company offers more than 3,500 products in ambient, chilled and frozen foods, together with alcohol, confectionery and non-food items. It also has a range of products under the Bakers Best Buy lines.
Newcastle property firm LSL announced that its joint venture Pivotal Growth had made its second acquisition.
Pivotal Growth – a joint venture set up last April with Pollen Street Capital to “buy and build” a leading national mortgage broker – announced at the end of last year that it has at least £200m available by way of equity and debt to fund acquisitions.
Now the JV has completed the acquisition of Grange Mortgage and Protection Services Limited, a specialist new build mortgage and insurance brokerage based in Northampton.
Grange has been providing advice to clients purchasing new build properties across the UK for over 15 years.
The deal, completed for an undisclosed sum, follows Pivotal Growth’s announcement of its first acquisition in early December 2021, Lifetime Finance Group Limited, a business which has been established for more than 25 years and is one of the largest mortgage brokers in Scotland, with particular expertise in advising contractors and self-employed clients.
It was hard to keep up with the Inn Collection Group, which found itself at the centre of the biggest deal of the week, having announced several acquisitions.
The Alnwick firm, which now has 31 sites in its portfolio, was sold to a new company in a deal said to be worth more than £300m.
It has been sold by Alchemy Partners to a new firm backed by The Harris Family Trusts together with Kings Park Capital.
The deal takes the pubs-with-rooms company back under Kings Park Capital ownership for a second time, as the London private equity manager was the main backer of the Northumberland group for five years until 2018, when it was sold to Alchemy.
Meanwhile, the business acquired a Harrogate hotel, as well as two more in Ambleside in the Lake District.
Retail giants Primark and Greggs came together for a unique collaboration to launch a clothing collection - and the world’s biggest Greggs cafe.
The high street favourites have come together to release a new 11-piece clothing range, which will go on sale in 60 Primark stores across the UK this weekend.
Lucky Londoners will get access to the collection ahead of its release in a by-appointment-only boutique, where they can pick up items for free. All slots for the boutique were fully booked within four minutes of being released.
In a hint to the partnership, fashion mannequins at a number of Primark stores were mysteriously spotted with Vegan Sausage Rolls and Steak Bakes as part of window and in-store displays.
Newly-formed North East marketing agency Different Narrative received a six-figure investment from the North East Growth Capital Fund.
Following the merger of Different and Narrative Integrated Communications in January to form Different Narrative, the management team is now eyeing national growth.
The consultancy has secured £250,000 investment from the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme which will be used to enhance its range of services and hire new recruits.
At least four people are expected to be added to the 30-strong team in the coming months.
The Different Narrative management team was advised by accountants RSM Newcastle and UNW, and law firms Womble Bond Dickinson and Jacksons Law Firm during the investment process.
Newcastle-based engineering consultancy CD Group was acquired by recruiters and contractors NRL Group.
The deal creates a combined business of £185m turnover, and CD Group's 37 staff will now work as part of NRL Group.
Trading as Contract Design (Northern) Limited since the late 1980s, CD Group is made up of four businesses that offer international design engineering consultancy, draughting, quantity surveying, translation and recruitment services.
Electric vehicle charging firm Elmtronics partnered with Octopus Energy, the UK's fifth largest energy provider, in a bid to help businesses switching away from fossil fuels.
Consett-based Elmtronics will provide equipment, installation, back office software and maintenance to Octopus Energy's business customers across the country.
The move will see the partners "educate and support" customers, and builds on an existing relationship in which customers of Octopus Energy's Electric Juice Network can use Elmtronics' Hubsta network.
A factory making parts for wind farms will create 750 jobs on Teesside - but the announcement is a blow for a development on the Humber where the plant had originally been planned.
Global pipe manufacturer SeAH Wind Ltd has confirmed that it will bring a £200-300m monopile manufacturing facility to the Teesworks site. It will create 750 direct jobs and 1,500 more in the supply chain and during construction.
Once up and running, the plant - which makes large steel tubes that form the foundations of the construction of offshore wind turbines - will be the world’s largest monopile plant for offshore wind turbines. The plant is expected to be fully operational by 2026.
