Scottish Financial Review

John Wood Group, the Aberdeen-based global engineering and consulting giant, confirmed late on Wednesday afternoon that it has received three unsolicited, preliminary and conditional proposals from…

Lloyds Banking Group plc — owner of Bank of Scotland, Scottish Widows and Halifax — on Wednesday announced a share buyback of up to a…

Elgin-based Springfield Properties, which is building a number of new communities throughout Scotland, said its revenue increased 85.6% to £161.9 million in the six months ended…

Scotland’s mid-market businesses attracted a record amount of private equity in 2022. Over the course of the year, 51 deals involving Scottish firms were completed…

Aberdeenshire-based craft brewing giant BrewDog is to expand in China after forming a joint venture with Budweiser China. BrewDog, in which private equity firm TSG owns…

Plants are to be used to recover gold and other metals from mining wastes as part of cutting-edge research led by Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC)….

NatWest Group — formerly known as RBS — said its operating profit before tax rose 33% to £5.1 billion in 2022 as its total income rose…

Devro, the Glasgow-based sausage skin and food collagen products firm, said on Thursday it has agreed an increased and “final” takeover offer from German food…

AssetCo chairman Martin Gilbert said the fund manager continues to seek acquisition opportunities even as the firm reported a loss of £9.2 million for the…

Edinburgh-based oil and gas firm Capricorn Energy on Wednesday terminated its planned merger with Israeli gas group NewMed Energy after months of shareholder pressure that also toppled…

Nicola Sturgeon confirmed on Wednesday she will resign as Scotland’s first minister after more than eight years in the role. Sturgeon told a news conference:…

The Abrdn China Investment Company reported that its net asset value (NAV) total return was -37.0% in the year to October 31, 2022, underperforming the MSCI…

Scotland’s employment rate reached a record high between October and December of 2022, according to the  latest statistics published published by the UK’s Office for National…

Investment worth £105 million has been agreed to increase the number of affordable homes in Scotland. the Scottish Government announced. The Charitable Bond programme provides…

Abrdn has announced it will prioritise executive remuneration and cost-of-living in the UK, diversity on US boards, “Say on Climate” advisory votes and climate “laggards”…

A study by a senior official at the UK central bank found that Britain has suffered a loss of business investment worth £29 billion since the…

NatWest Group — formerly known as RBS — announced it has agreed to acquire 85% of Cushon, a Net Zero workplace savings and pensions fintech, for…

Abrdn Smaller Companies Income Trust plc announced that it intends to undertake a strategic review to consider the future of the company. The fund has…

The Scottish private sector reported a further fall in total activity in January, according to the latest Royal Bank of Scotland Purchasing Managers Index (PMI)…

Celtic plc announced its revenue increased 44.8% to £76.5 million in the six months to December 31, 2022, and profit before taxation rose to £33.9 million…

Scottish salmon was the UK’s biggest food export in 2022, despite the volume of fish transported overseas falling 26%, new HMRC figures have revealed. Sales of…

Global exports of Scotch Whisky grew to more than £6 billion for the first time in 2022, according to figures released by the Scotch Whisky…

This week’s Royal Bank of Scotland Report on Jobs survey revealed a rebound in the number of people placed in permanent jobs during January. Scotland’s…

NatWest-RBS has announced that it will immediately stop all reserve-based lending for new customers financing oil and gas exploration and extraction, before phasing it out entirely…

By Mark McSherry — Baillie Gifford’s £950 million investment trust Scottish American Investment Company (SAINTS) has extended the company’s record of dividend increases to 49 consecutive years. The…

Aberdeen-based transport group FirstGroup plc announced that the UK Department for Transport (DfT) has exercised its option to continue the current contractual arrangements for the…

Scotgold Resources Limited, which owns the Cononish Gold and Silver Mine near Tyndrum, announced it conditionally raised gross proceeds of £2.5 million through a share placing and subscription…

DC Thomson, the Dundee-based publisher of newspapers, magazines and comics — including The Press and Journal, The Courier, The Sunday Post and The Beano — is…

Mackie’s of Scotland, the ice cream, food and drink brand, reported that record increases in the cost of ingredients, haulage, feed and fertiliser affected its…

Abrdn, the Edinburgh-headquartered asset management giant, has become the UK’s most shorted company as hedge funds and investment firms make big bets that the Scottish firm’s…

Scottish responsible finance provider Social Investment Scotland (SIS) has appointed community finance expert Arran Dewar as executive director of SIS Ventures, its wholly owned early-stage…

Aberdeen-based transport giant FirstGroup plc has announced an agreement to purchase Essex-based Ensign Bus Company Limited. FirstGroup shares rose about 5%. “The acquisition of the Ensignbus…

Scotland’s economy will contract throughout most of 2023, according to the Fraser of Allander Institute’s latest quarterly economic commentary, which includes an assessment of all…

UK-focused stock funds suffered their third-worst month of outflows on record in January as investors withdrew a net £868 million from their holdings, according to…

Santander UK announced the appointment of Andrew Wilson — the former SNP MSP and RBS executive — as Director of Corporate Communications and Responsible Banking and…

Total investment in green skills led by the Glasgow-based Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC) has topped a “milestone” £25 million, new figures reveal. The amount…

Entrepreneur Andy Tait is teaming up with Texas-based Sallyport Commercial Finance LLC to launch a commercial lender in Scotland that plans to back small businesses…

Edinburgh came in second place and Glasgow in third place in real estate firm Colliers’ latest Top UK Residential Investment Cities report. The city of…

Scotland’s national digital skills academy CodeClan and specialist recruitment firm Eden Scott have formed a partnership to “deliver tech talent to Scotland plc.” The tie-up…

Stagecoach has announced the launch of what it called “the UKs first fully-electric city bus network” in Inverness. The Perth-based transport firm said it will…

Glasgow-based digital pharmacy Phlo has closed a £10 million Series A round led by family office Thairm Bio. The funds will be used to expand…

Buccleuch — one of Scotland’s biggest private landowners — announced it has concluded missives with Exeter-based Oxygen Conservation for the sale of 11,390 acres of the…

UK investors withdrew £25.7 billion from funds in 2022, the first annual outflow recorded by the Investment Association (IA). Investors took £282 million out of…

Edinburgh investment giant Abrdn said it has engaged with some of its largest mining holdings following “incidents of unacceptable work-place behaviours in the sector, including sexual…

Edinburgh-based oil and gas firm Capricorn Energy late on Wednesday confirmed six new board members, with Craig van der Laan appointed the firm’s new chair and…

Andrew Wilson, co-founder of the strategic communications consultancy Charlotte Street Partners, is to leave the company this month “to pursue new opportunities.” Wilson is a…

Glasgow-headquartered Virgin Money UK plc said its deposits grew 1.2% to £66.2 billion in its first quarter, with “strong growth in new term deposits at…

James Watt, CEO and co-founder of Aberdeenshire-based craft brewing firm BrewDog, has revealed in a LinkedIn post that he has been “diagnosed not only with…

Edinburgh investment giant Abrdn announced it has appointed Peter Branner as chief investment officer (CIO), effective May 1, 2023, reporting to Chris Demetriou and Rene…

Ahead of the Six Nations rugby starting this weekend, new data from social investing network eToro shows that the strongest XV Scotland-headquartered stocks have easily…

Members of LINC Scotland, the national business angel group, invested more than £50 million in young companies in Scotland for the first time in 2022….

Abrdn said it has launched a purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) platform called MYS Student Living. “This is a natural evolution as Abrdn further expands its…

The £1.1 billion Abrdn Private Equity Opportunities Trust plc (APEO) said it showed growth in annual Net Asset Value (NAV) “in spite of the difficult…

Shares of A.G. Barr, the Cumbernauld-based maker of Irn-Bru, Rubicon energy drinks and Funkin cocktail mixers, rose as much as 5% after it published a…

The UK is the only Group of Seven nation to have suffered a cut to its 2023 economic growth outlook in the International Monetary Fund…

Brexit is costing the UK economy £100 billion a year, with the the effects spanning everything from business investment to the ability of companies to…

Cardiff-based Finsbury Food Group announced it has acquired 100% of the share capital of Coatbridge-based Lees Foods Limited, the maker of teacakes, snowballs and meringues,…

Dividends from UK listed firms rose 8% to £94.3 billion in 2022 on a headline basis, with growth held back by a one third decline…

London-listed companies issued 305 profit warnings in 2022, 50% higher than 2021, according to a report by consultancy firm EY-Parthenon. “Our latest data shows that…

Menzies Aviation and SAL Saudi Logistics Services said they have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop a comprehensive study on delivering best in class…

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak fired the UK Conservative Party chair Nadhim Zahawi from the UK government on Sunday after Sunak said an investigation into…

The Investor Forum, an influential group of big institutional investors, has warned that UK equities as an asset class will continue to diminish “unless companies,…

The airline Flybe has ceased trading for the second time in three years, cancelling all flights to and from the United Kingdom. A statement on…

A manager of the £510 million Abrdn UK Smaller Companies Trust plc has said that UK markets may be “closer to their low point than other…

The Port of Grangemouth, Scotland’s largest freight hub, said it has exported a bumper Scottish tattie season with 65,000 tonnes of seed potato exported around…

New data from financial mutual Scottish Friendly reveals that the number of new stocks and shares ISA policies opened by adults in Scotland fell 17%…

The expanded Port of Aberdeen said it will welcome a wide range of new cruise vessels to the city in 2023, which could boost the…

Glasgow-based Smart Metering Systems plc (SMS) announced that its results for 2022 are expected to be ahead of its previous expectations and that its full-year…

TSB has reported a record statutory profit before tax of £183.5 million for 2022, up 16.5% on 2021, and said it proposes to pay Spanish…

Edinburgh Airport has published its 2022 passenger traffic statistics, showing a strong recovery compared with both the previous year and its busiest year on record,…