News

Scotland's most economically deprived neighbourhoods have more off-licences and shops selling tobacco than wealthier parts of the country, according to a new study carried out by the University of Edinburgh. Areas with the lowest average household incomes have the highest number of alcohol and tobac

Hunters Residential, the real estate and conveyancing arm of leading Scottish law firm Gillespie Macandrew, has seen sales rise 33 per cent in 2015 as the property market continues to improve. The estate agency, which operates across Edinburgh and surrounding areas, has seen the number of sales runn

The Scottish Loan Fund (SLF), managed by Glasgow-based Maven Capital Partners , has completed a £5 million investment in the energy service specialists Meta Downhole and READ Cased Hole, to support the international growth ambitions of both businesses. Aberdeen-based READ and Meta are trading compa

Graeme Finnie (left) and Harry Linklater. Scottish accountancy firm French Duncan has promoted director Harry Linklater to partner with immediate effect.

As the Scottish Government presses ahead with proposals for rent controls and details of the Private Tenancies Bill are expected to be published this week, average rents in the country have started to head south, according to new figures. The latest Citylets Quarterly Report shows that rents have fa

David Mundell The Scottish Government is to receive an extra £500 million as a result of UK government plans to boost infrastructure funding, Scottish secretary David Mundell confirmed yesterday.

The UK Treasury has today announced that it plans to sell shares worth at least £2 billion in bailed-out Lloyds Bank to private investors. The Treasury said that the government would sell the 12 per cent stake that remains of the 43 per cent of the bank that it took on at the height of the financia

John Allan Following the recent announcement by the UK Government of a new National Living Wage for the over 25s, many small and medium-sized businesses are planning to slow job creation, raise prices or postpone or cancel planned investments to compensate for the higher statutory rate, a survey of

Confidence among Scottish construction employers about the year ahead has declined during the third quarter of 2015, according to a new report. The latest Scottish Construction Monitor, a quarterly survey of the membership of trade body the Scottish Building Federation (SBF), found that confidence f

Building on the recent success of their crowd-sourced apple appeal, Scottish cider company Thistly Cross is now working with a US producer to bring organic JK’s Scrumpy Cider in cans to the UK. The cider is to hit shelves this month and is a continuation of a longstanding collaboration between the

Arlene Cairns Dundee-based Alliance Trust Savings has announced that Arlene Cairns has joined the company as its new finance director.

The Perthshire property market has ‘turned a corner’ according to one of the area’s leading property networks. As Perthshire Solicitors Property Centre collate their three quarter year statistics for 2015, it has emerged that September has been the best sales month of the year, and that the Su

Paul McCluskey Paul McCluskey is head of professional practices at Bank of Scotland

The latest annual legal practices benchmarking review conducted by Scots accountants Henderson Loggie, in conjunction with the other seven members of the MHA association of independent accountancy firms around the UK, points to encouraging signs of growth as firms feel the benefit of the improving e