ITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television broadcaster which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network. Its main shareholders were Carlton Communications plc and Granada plc, owners of two franchises of the ITV network. Starting as ONdigital in 1998, the service was rebranded as ITV Digital in July 2001.
Southern is the brand name used by the Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) train operating company on the Southern routes of the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchise in England. It is a subsidiary of Govia, a joint venture between transport groups Go-Ahead and Keolis, and has operated the South Central franchise since August 2001 and the Gatwick Express service since June 2008. When the passenger rail franchise was subsumed into GTR, Southern was split from Gatwick Express and the two became separate brands, alongside the Thameslink and Great Northern brands.
MG Rover Group was the last domestically owned mass-production car manufacturer in the British motor industry. The company was formed when BMW sold the car-making and engine manufacturing assets of the original Rover Group to the Phoenix Consortium in 2000.
Debenhams plc was a British department store chain operating in the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1778 as a single store in London and grew to 178 locations across those countries, also owning the Danish department store chain Magasin du Nord. In its final years, its headquarters were within the premises of its flagship store in Oxford Street, London. The range of goods sold included middle-to-high-end clothing, beauty, household items, and furniture.
Rentokil Initial is a British business services group based in Crawley, England. It was founded in 1925 as a pest-control business but subsequently expanded and diversified, in part through organic growth under the leadership of Sir Clive Thompson in the 1980s and 1990s, and in part, through the acquisition of BET plc in 1996, into a business delivering a wide range of facilities management services. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Great Western Railway (GWR) is a British train operating company owned by FirstGroup that operates the Greater Western passenger railway franchise. It manages 197 stations and its trains call at over 270. GWR operates long-distance inter-city services along the Great Western Main Line to and from the West of England and South Wales, inter-city services from London to the West Country via the Reading–Taunton line, and the Night Riviera sleeper service between London and Penzance. It also provides commuter and outer-suburban services from its London terminus at Paddington to West London, the Thames Valley region including parts of Berkshire, parts of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire; and regional services throughout the West of England and South Wales to the South coast of England. Great Western Railway also provides and maintains the Electrostar Class 387 fleet for Heathrow Express.
Woolworth was a listed British company that owned the High Street retail chain Woolworths. It also owned other companies such as the entertainment distributor Entertainment UK, and book and resource distributor Bertram Books.
European Home Retail plc (EHR) was a listed UK company, operating in home retail. Though registered in Swindon, Wiltshire, its head office was based in Warmley, Bristol. On 13 October 2006, it was announced EHR and its subsidiary Farepak had gone into administration.
Bell Pottinger Private was a British multinational public relations, reputation management and marketing company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. On 12 September 2017 it went into administration (bankruptcy) as a consequence of a scandal caused by its activities in South Africa.
Sir Clive Malcolm Thompson is a British businessman who is Deputy Chairman of Strategic Equity Capital plc. He was Chairman of Rentokil Initial plc between 2002 and 2004, having been Chief Executive for 20 years to 2002. He is a former president of the CBI, member of the Committee on Corporate Governance and Deputy Chairman of the Financial Reporting Council. He is a former Chairman of European Home Retail plc and director of J Sainsbury plc, Wellcome plc, Seeboard plc, Caradon plc and BAT Industries plc.
Thomas Cook Group plc was a global travel group, headquartered in the United Kingdom and listed on the London Stock Exchange from its formation on 19 June 2007 by the merger of Thomas Cook AG — successor to Thomas Cook & Son — and MyTravel Group until 23 September 2019, when it went into compulsory liquidation. The group operated as a tour operator and airline, and also operated travel agencies in Europe. At the time of the group's collapse, approximately 21,000 worldwide employees were left without jobs and 600,000 customers were left abroad, triggering the UK's largest peacetime repatriation.
Connaught plc was a company in the United Kingdom, operating in the social housing, public sector and compliance markets. A constituent of the FTSE 250 Index, it went into administration in October 2010.
Greater Anglia is a train operating company in Great Britain owned as a joint venture by Transport UK Group and Mitsui & Co. It operates the East Anglia franchise, providing the commuter and intercity services from its Central London terminus at London Liverpool Street to Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and parts of Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire as well as many regional services throughout the East of England.
Poundworld was a chain of British value variety stores that sold most of its items for £1. It was founded in 1974 by Yorkshire-based father-and-son team Chris Edwards Sr. and Chris Edwards Jr. In contrast to many high street retailers, it maintained strong sales and growth during the global recession that started in 2007. Poundworld's product range consisted of over 6,000 items including groceries, health and beauty, toiletries, cleaning products and pet care, some of them known brands. At its peak it had 335 stores in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In 2014, it planned to open 150 new stores within three years.
Arriva Rail North, branded as Northern by Arriva, was a train operating company in Northern England which began operating the Northern franchise on 1 April 2016 and inherited units from the previous operator Northern Rail. A subsidiary of Arriva UK Trains, Northern was the largest train franchise in the United Kingdom in terms of the size of the network and the number of weekly services run. Its trains called at 528 stations, about a quarter of all stations in the country; of these stations 476 were operated by Northern. On 1 March 2020, Arriva Rail North Limited ceased to operate and all operations were handed to HM Government's Operator of Last Resort.
Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) was a train operating company in the United Kingdom that operated the InterCity East Coast franchise on the East Coast Main Line between London, Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland. It commenced operations on 1 March 2015, taking over from East Coast as a joint venture between Stagecoach (90%) and Virgin Group (10%).
Patisserie Valerie is a chain of cafés that operates in the United Kingdom. The chain specialises in cakes, and its menu included continental breakfasts, lunches and teas and coffees. The company went into administration in January 2019, prior to a management buyout funded by Causeway Capital Partners, an Irish company.
My Local was a chain of 130 convenience shops in the United Kingdom.
Between 2016 and 2019, major industrial action in the form of periodic strikes and protests took place on the national railway network of the island of Great Britain in the United Kingdom. The dispute centred on the planned introduction of driver-only operation (DOO) by several train operating companies, transferring the operation of passenger train doors from the guard to the driver. Later strikes also included disputes over pay rates, planned redundancies and working hours. NI Railways operating Northern Ireland's rail network did not strike.
The 2022–2023 United Kingdom railway strikes are an industrial dispute in the United Kingdom. The UK has seen its largest incidence of industrial action since 1989, beginning in the second Johnson ministry and continuing through the Truss ministry and Sunak ministry. The railway strikes commenced on 21 June 2022 after members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) walked out over wages, planned changes to working practices – involving the removal of guards from trains, the reduction in the number of open ticket offices, and an increase in the age at which people could claim the young persons and senior citizen card – and the threat of redundancies. The disputes in Scotland and Wales were resolved by the RMT in December 2022, and by ASLEF in May 2023, while the dispute in England is currently ongoing as of July 2023.
£306.9 million GBP(FY 2011)