Leading recruitment firm MERJE has recorded its most profitable Q1 to date, after successfully overcoming the many marketplace challenges which emerged as a result of Covid.

The financial figures achieved throughout Q1 of this year saw a 16 percent increase, compared to the same period in 2020, which had previously been MERJE’s record quarter before Covid increased its global grip and stringent Government guidelines around working came into force.

Ed Manson, MD for MERJE, said: “To surpass where we were positioned prior to Covid is a huge achievement, given the global circumstances and the impact they had on the jobs market. This latest milestone as we enter a period of recovery is all down to the hard work, resilience and determination of our expert team during the pandemic and the challenges which came with it.

“Alongside this, MERJE grew exponentially over the course of 2020 and into 2021 to accommodate three new specialist areas. They include our thriving Legal, Actuarial and Insurance and Claims divisions, as well as an expansion into Scotland with the appointment of a dedicated Business Manager.”

In terms of next steps, the strong start to the year has paved the way for MERJE to implement strategic commercial growth plans. This includes expanding its staff headcount by 39%, taking the overall number of employees from 36 to 50 by the end of 2021.

These key hires would be instrumental in working across MERJE’s Compliance, Customer Contact & Front-Line talent, Finance & Audit, Financial Crime & Fraud and Risk Management & Analytics disciplines.

This is with a view to assisting the business in making the whole of 2021 its most successful financial year-to-date. This follows a record year in 2019, during which MERJE reached a record revenue in excess of £10m.

Ed Manson added: “We’re delighted to have made such great strides so early into 2021 and recognise that this is significant given the many obstacles which the majority of businesses found themselves facing both this year and last.

“We now look forward to keeping up the momentum, by capitalising on our great start to the year with a view to achieving even greater success. This comes as we prepare to celebrate the landmark 10th anniversary of MERJE in October after being established in 2011.”

Manchester-based business D55, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) consultancy partner, is looking to recruit circa 20 new IT specialists to work on complex cloud native IT projects within the energy and sustainability industry. The new recruits can be based anywhere in the UK, thanks to D55’s progressive approach to helping employees achieve a favourable work-life balance. The flexible remote-working policy will grant them the choice to either work from home or report into the Manchester head office.

Tech talent acquisition innovator, Reedmace Solutions is working with D55 to attract and hire the specialists, and rapidly scale-up the organisation.

The new teams will work across a variety of projects, including developing new software products and getting them ready for market, helping companies move existing IT applications to the cloud, and providing hands-on support to project teams that lack manpower or development expertise in AWS. The company is looking for highly skilled IT professionals ranging from Business analysts, developers, testers and quality assurance. D55 is using Reedmace Solutions innovative approach which empowers tech startups to do their own Talent Acquisition and in-house recruitment, rather than relying upon traditional recruitment agencies, which can be extremely costly and less suited to rapid scaling.

Jonathan Rothwell, co-owner of D55, commented: “We are really pleased to be working with Reedmace Solutions in a bid to get the right talent to help drive our business forward. We chose to work with an equally, ambitious facilitator who understands our unique requirements in terms of technical skills, cultural fit, and our goal to grow our own teams.”

“We deliver products that solve industry problems, largely in the energy and sustainability sectors and as our business is growing with immense speed, we want to ensure we have the resources to continue to elevate our organisation.”

Rhys Jacob, co-owner of D55, added: “Having secured a significant amount of new business in a relatively short time, we need to expand our headcount rapidly. However, learning how to attract the right people to expand our team ourselves both now, and in the future is of huge importance to us and will save us time and money.”

Dan Corcoran, owner of Reedmace Solutions, commented: “I am extremely proud to be working with such a prolific startup at the cutting edge of cloud technology. In the past, startups such as D55, had few options when scaling rapidly and often resorted to using recruitment agencies, due to the absence of an in-house Talent Acquisition function.

“We are helping D55 by immediately supporting the Talent Acquisition and hiring process whilst giving them the ability to be as self-sufficient moving forward as possible.”

“Being able to hire the best talent on your own, is the secret behind successfully scaling tech startups. The company can harness this ability when they understand the difference between Talent Acquisition and recruitment which is only a small subset of the overall field.

D55 enlisted Reedmace Solutions to gain immediate Talent Acquisition competency and together we are now growing the headcount strategically, with minimum use of recruitment agencies who charge simply for the introduction of candidates.

Reward Finance Group delivered its strongest ever new business performance in March, resulting in it breaking through the £90m lending milestone for the first time, and continuing a month-on-month growth trend since last Summer.

In addition, Reward can today announce that it is expanding its geographical footprint and will be launching in both the Midlands and Scotland over the Summer.

To cater for the impressive growth and maintain its high level of support for SME clients, Reward has strengthened its client relationship management team with the internal promotions of Bethany Hunnebell and Claire Mitchell to portfolio managers in its Leeds and Manchester offices, respectively.

Tom Newhouse has also been promoted to operational excellence manager and will support Reward in continuing to deliver and improve top quality service and operational effectiveness, through best practice and IT investment, as the business grows and opens new locations.

The company is also recruiting a number of portfolio executives and has recently appointed Cassey McNulty to fulfil this role in its Leeds office.

Speaking about the performance of the group and expansion plans, group managing director, Nick Smith, said,

“Despite the challenges of the last 12 months, the Reward team has performed phenomenally well in funding SMEs to either take advantage of opportunities or helping them to navigate through the pandemic.

“This is helped by the fact we are receiving an increasing number of referrals as our reputation for quick decision-making, and flexibility in providing funding solutions, grows among introducers nationwide.

“Whilst we have always helped SMEs across the whole of the UK, they have been serviced from our existing Manchester and Leeds offices. However, with the current market dynamics and growth in alternative finance, and the fact we like to meet all our clients face-to-face, we now feel the time is right for an operational presence in new regions, starting with Scotland and the Midlands.”

A Rochdale civil engineering company has marked its 40th anniversary by announcing a management restructure.

Hovington was established in 1981 and has evolved into a specialist groundwork, highways, remediation, utilities and drainage contractor working across a number of sectors including retail, industrial, commercial, public sector and student accommodation.

Clients have included IKEA, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, John Lewis, Airbus, Safestore, Universal Container Services and Lidl.

From March 2021, the company announced that the founders’ sons – John Maloney Jr and Martin Quinn – would be exiting the business with John’s son Jack Maloney becoming the financial director, Mike Penny appointed as the construction director and Nick Green assuming the role of managing director.

Jack Maloney, who is the third generation of his family to work for Hovington, said: “Hovington has been in my blood all my life. I remember coming in from the age of five or six helping my Dad around the office.

“Martin and Dad decided that in the year of our 40th anniversary now was the right time for them to step away. They’ve built the foundations and values of today’s business and I’d love nothing more than to add another 40 years to the Hovington legacy and hand it on to the next generation.”

Managing director Nick Green described Hovington as one of “the North West’s best-kept secrets”.

He said: “Ironically, you don’t see a lot of what we do because a lot of our work tends to be buried. IKEA in Sheffield is a good example of the type of projects we undertake. It’s a very imposing building but our job was to take a former foundry site and get the land ready for an IKEA to be built on. It was worth £4m to us.”

The company have been involved in string of varied projects including the groundwork for the retail and leisure destination Rochdale Riverside, the infrastructure for the newly refurbished JunctionNINE Retail Park in Warrington, the car park and external works for Hopwood Hall College in Rochdale, the IKEA store in Ashton, works at Oldham College and creating the structure that Manchester’s famous archway in Chinatown is built on.

The company has also secured a £1m plus fast track contract to carry out the groundworks on a major logistics hub in Stoke for GLP Gazeley Properties & TSL Projects. The management team are hoping to use this as a springboard for the planned growth moving forward.

Mr Green said: “We work across the North but we do a lot of work in our hometown of Rochdale alongside the likes of other Rochdale businesses including Alderburgh; Solutek; Ken Taylor Supplies; Marshalls Quarry Products; PPC Concrete Products, Zen Internet and Takeuchi.”

He said the company was looking for growth in 2021 and would be working with Willmott Dixon on the second phase of Rochdale Riverside, which includes plans to build 220 apartments and a new hotel.

“It’s fantastic to see the regeneration of the town centre and I genuinely believe the best days are ahead of us,” he said.

“As a company Hovington is incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved in the last 40 years. Our focus now is on building on that and looking forward to the future.”