A key supplier to Nissan has signed a deal with the Government to bring a £48.7m factory to the North East, which could employ up to 183 people.
Jatco, which stands for Japan Automatic Transmission Transmission company and was formed by Nissan in 1970, is refitting and expanding a 138,840 sqft building at the International Advanced Manufacturing Park which was originally built for an automotive supplier but subsequently became the Nightingale Hospital during Covid and has been vacant since. The facility is a stone's throw from Nissan's Sunderland plant and will provide electric drivetrains for three all-electric models built at the plant: the Leaf, Juke and Qashqai.
Jatco has secured more than £12m of grant funding from the Government's Automotive Transformation Fund (ATF) towards the venture, which the Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has claimed is a mark of confidence in the country's economy. It follows a period of global uncertainty for Nissan which has recently entered merger negotiations with Honda in the face of falling sales and financial challenges.
Mr Reynolds said: "Sunderland is the beating heart of the º£½ÇÊÓƵ’s automotive industry. Today’s announcement is a massive vote of confidence in the º£½ÇÊÓƵ economy and this Government’s plans to make Britain the destination of choice for investment.
"Not only will this boost our thriving auto industry, but it will help secure hundreds of jobs across the North East. The Government is working hand in hand with investors to build a globally competitive electric vehicle supply chain in the º£½ÇÊÓƵ and our modern Industrial Strategy will build on this legacy, bringing growth, jobs and opportunities to every part of the º£½ÇÊÓƵ."
Housing association Gentoo is set to invest in a new base on the former Littlewoods site in Sunderland as part of moves to bring extra benefits to customers and colleagues. Gentoo has picked Eastgate Point in Hendon to be the new home for its property services teams from summer 2026.
The multimillion-pound Eastgate Point complex, a 120,000 sqft industrial project, will be developed by Promenade Properties and will also feature other trade units across several buildings on the site of the former retailer, as well as an EV charging station and drive-thru coffee shop.
The scheme brings certainty to a site which has seen a number of planning bids brought forward without being put into action. Plans for a builders merchants with trade counters were approved by the city council in 2019 but no development followed at the time.
The facility will also see Gentoo’s current materials suppliers, Jewson Partnership Solutions (JPS), move into the base, saying that a closer working relationship will bring an improved service that will reduce waiting times for repairs and planned investment works for customers’ homes.
Marc Edwards, Gentoo’s executive director of property, said: "We have been working tirelessly for the last 18 months to find the right location for a new home. And here we will have a brand new, purpose-built, best in class, state-of-the-art facility."
A national law firm is poised to expand into the North East after snapping up a former bank in a Newcastle suburb. The Barclays Bank unit on Gosforth High Street has lain empty ever since closing its doors to customers in March 2022 having operated as a bank for more than 125 years. The closure was among a number in the region, after the banking giant noted a fall in the number of people using its in-person services as many switched to digital banking.
Now, however, property company Bradley Hall has struck a deal with a law firm to let the prominent building. The company taking on the site has yet to be named, but it has chosen the property after looking to open a North East branch, Bradley Hall said.
The site had been operated as a bank by a number of companies over 128 years before its closure, originally operating as The North East Banking Company, which opened in 1894, following the development of Gosforth from Bulman Village into a wider residential area. The site then became Martin’s Bank in 1928 before being taken over by Barclays in 1969.
County Durham tech firm Choppity braved Dragons' Den and secured investment - and revealed the show success was revealed to them in a dream. Tech entrepreneurs Zara Paul and Aaron Morris, creators of the innovative AI-powered video editing platform Choppity, have successfully secured investment from Dragons' Den. The Durham-based company, which boasts an impressive client list featuring ITN, Autotrader, Turtle Bay, and Sonatype, made a significant impact on the TV show's investors.
During their time on the programme, the entrepreneurial pair, who met at university in 2019 and are now married, offered up a 6% stake in their business, sparking interest from three Dragons. Ultimately, they struck a deal with Peter Jones, who offered £100,000 for a 15% share, with an agreement to reduce it to 12.5% if the investment is repaid by 2025.
Post-filming, Choppity and Peter Jones mutually agreed not to proceed with the deal, a scenario not unusual post-filming.
Zara said: "Choppity is our baby, and it's taught us how to communicate better with each other which we are thankful for. We grew up watching the show, so it was a huge milestone for both of us."
Robotics innovator Wootzano has surpassed a crowdfunding target, raising more than £380,000 with the promise of £200,000 more in the near future. The North East-based provider of food packing systems launched a Crowdcube campaign last year with a target of nearly £358,000. Now that target has been exceeded with 120 backers on the public platform pledging £381,216 in total. The firm has also lined up US investor Danjaq LLC which is expected to provide £200,000 directly.
The fundraising follows the latest in a string of multimillion-pound deals which Wootzano has struck around the world. In November, the Tyneside-based Business of the Year at the 2024 North East Business Awards, announced a partnership with Malaysian consultancy VCI Global that will introduce its flagship Avarai robot to Malaysian customers and was said to be worth £30m.
A distributor of precision cutting tools with bases in the North East and Yorkshire has acquired two firms following its private equity backing.
Helix Tool Company, which has headquarters in Leeds and a site in County Durham, has bought Washington-based tool supplier Nsert and Hertfordshire-based Floyd Automatic. The undisclosed deals are part of a merger and acquisition strategy following the backing of Helix's parent company, MRO+ Solutions, by NVM Private Equity, in April last year
NVM said the deals were highly complementary to Helix, which is a significant provider of carbide cutting tools in the North of England. Nsert is a regionally focussed cutting tool and industrial consumables provider which is said to have a large number of customers in the North East. Meanwhile Baldock-based Floyd Automatic is a technical distributor of tools and consumables for the sliding head CNC market and is said to have several exclusive manufacturing partnerships.
The deals are said to grow Helix's product range in the precision engineering, automotive, aerospace and medical sectors.
