Call centre firm Betr Outsourcing intervened to save 95 jobs from a failed competitor on Wearside, with plans to create at least 60 additional roles this year.
The company, which operates from Sunderland and Glasgow, has absorbed staff from Doxford Park's Energy Compare Limited. The latter went into administration after losing a significant contract, resulting in around 120 job losses. The contact centre had been serving clients So Energy and Love Holidays before its abrupt closure.
Betr is headed by Richard Knox, one of the original founders of Energy Compare, who left the firm after it was sold to South Africa-based Ison Xperiences. Currently, Betr employs approximately 140 people near the Stadium of Light and has been paying former Energy Compare staff on a weekly basis to help them cope with the sudden loss of income.
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When Energy Compare's closure became imminent, customers reached out to Mr Knox and a team of directors based in Sunderland - Cally Heads, Chris McCoulough and James Palmer - urging them to quickly take on the contracts. Less than a week later, Betr had mobilised and got the remaining staff back on the phones.
Mr Knox said: "The staff were over the moon because they walked into a job that they were ultimately doing, so there was none of that fear factor. Yes, they were joining a different company but the day-to-day job they knew inside out. They also knew a lot of familiar faces at our end."
Fast growing plant-based superfoods company Tiba Tempeh sealed a £1m investment to ramp up expansion
Alexandra and Ross Longton first launched Tiba Tempeh after discovering the superfood – which is made with three ingredients of soya beans, live culture and water – at a beachside restaurant on the Gili Islands in Indonesia. After learning how tempeh is packed with protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals they travelled to Java where tempeh was invented centuries ago, to learn how to make it under the instruction of a world-renowned tempeh master.
Now, Tiba Tempeh’s range of innovative meat-free products are already on sale in major supermarkets including Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Ocado, Carrefour and Leclerc, with demand growing. Tempeh is now one of the fastest growing meat-free segments on the market, driven by more consumers moving away from ultra-processed foods and by those who are avoiding or reducing meat consumption.
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Now certified B-Corp Tiba Tempeh has secured a £1m investment from NPIF II - Maven Equity Finance, which is managed by Maven as part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II, to support Tiba to invest in marketing, sales and further product development, with new products lined up to launch this year.
Commercial property provider 海角视频 Land Estates committed to investing £35m in the North East over the next two years.
The Gateshead-based owner of industrial estates across the region says it has ringfenced the sum to build more than 270,000 sqft of Grade A industrial and warehousing space during this year and next. It has also earmarked £12m to refurbish and retrofit a number of units across its business parks.
All of the upcoming schemes are speculative, with 200,000 sqft planned on its flagship Team Valley Trading Estate site and 25,000 sqft in Teesside. That comes in addition to a further 600,000 sqft's worth of outline consents the business has, or is in the process of acquiring.
Keith Taylor, managing director of 海角视频 Land Estates, said: “There is still a supply and demand imbalance in the region for high quality, well located industrial space, evidenced by our recent building programme and successful leasing activities. Last year, we brought several new units to market, ranging from 9,000 sqft to 72,000 sqft, to fit a range of industry sectors and sizes and the team delivered a superb product, with most letting on or before practical completion.
"With all of our speculative schemes benefitting from both B2 and B8 consents, the flexibility caters for the increased demand for logistics and warehousing space as increasing numbers of businesses shift to trading online, but also the region’s growing advanced manufacturing and engineering industries."
Tech manufacturer Filtronic boosted its multimillion-dollar work with US rocket company SpaceX amid what it says is an exciting time for the business. The County Durham based maker of radio frequency communications equipment, which also has operations in Leeds and Cambridge, says its partnership with Elon Musk's high profile business has been expanded to allow for more orders and deeper collaboration between the two companies.
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Under the new agreement, Filtronic will increase its supply of advanced E-band SSPA modules used in the deployment of SpaceX's Starlink constellation, which provides high-speed, low-latency internet to users across the world, often in hard to reach places.
It follows an initial £48m ($60m) agreement between the two companies signed almost a year ago, which gave SpaceX the option to subscribe to 10% of Filtronic's shares. As part of the new deal, a further 5% of Filtronic share capital is available to Mr Musk's business - made possible by the issuing of 10,949,079 warrants to SpaceX at an exercise price of 92.8p.
The original deal has proven to be transformational for Filtronic, which has gone from a £16m turnover company to to one that it is expected to reach £48m this year. Bosses say the new agreement has given them confidence the business - whose share price was climbing on the announcement - is trading slightly ahead of market expectations.
T12 Engineering has boosted its international footprint after securing a significant three-year framework agreement in Brazil with an independent oil and gas operator. The firm, with bases in Teesside, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, operates across multiple sectors and is experienced at delivering designs and technology that extend the lifecycle of subsea assets and energy infrastructure. Its portfolio of completed projects includes bridge construction, energy from waste, offshore and onshore petrochemicals, and asset integrity management.
The framework agreement, which establishes T12 Engineering as the preferred supplier, will raise its profile in Brazil, one of the world’s top oil producers. Most of the country’s oil comes from offshore reserves, which requires advanced engineering solutions, but there is an increasing focus on extending the life of existing assets to improve sustainability and maximise returns.
Graham Melroy, a director of T12 Engineering, said: “Securing this agreement is a major milestone for T12. Brazil’s oil and gas sector presents significant opportunities for companies specialising in asset redevelopment and lifecycle extension. We’re proud to be contributing to the sustainable future of the industry by ensuring mid-life assets continue to operate safely and efficiently.
“This agreement underlines our technical expertise and commitment to delivering tailored solutions that meet the evolving needs of the global energy market.”
A South Tyneside company that supplies the offshore wind sector has secured two contracts worth a combined £4.5m. In the first project, South Shields firm Metec 海角视频 will provide anodes to a major offshore windfarm in the North Sea that is set to provide energy to more than three million 海角视频 homes.
The second contract will see the company again support the development of the offshore grid network by providing anodes to a major offshore substation. Metec 海角视频 reported its best year on record in 2024, with both pre-tax profits and turnover reaching record highs. The increase in business has been driven by rising demand for its sacrificial anodes which provide long-term protection against corrosion to steel monopile and jacket foundations in offshore wind farms.
Paul Wheeler, technical director at Metec 海角视频, said: “These two new contracts are fantastic news for the business. Following hot on the heels of our best year to date, they will enable us to further build on this success by continuing to grow and create more opportunities for local people.”
Newcastle cleantech scale-up Kinewell Energy has signed a multi-year global contract renewal with Equinor for the continued use of its offshore wind cost optimisation software, KLOC.
The contract follows over four years of successful collaboration between the two companies, with Equinor using Kinewell’s KLOC software for optimising cable systems for offshore wind projects. The Kinewell Layout Optimisation of Cable (KLOC) software utilises AI-powered technology to rapidly design optimised inter-array cable layouts for offshore wind farms.
KLOC uses advanced mathematical optimisation algorithms to produce economically optimised layouts with greater reliability, typically saving around 20% of cable system capex, while streamlining early-stage development.
Dr Andrew Jenkins, CEO and founder of Kinewell Energy, said: “We are absolutely thrilled that our global partnership with Equinor has been renewed, and as a result, Equinor will continue to leverage the significant savings in both cost and time that our software delivers. With a typical 1 GW offshore wind farm’s inter-array cable system costing around USD $140m, our KLOC software provides very significant project savings.
“Thanks to these vast savings, developers the world over are increasingly turning to Kinewell’s leading software to support the cost optimisation of their projects.”