News in Brief: Monday April 7
SHIPLEY-BASED Millennium has expanded its portfolio through the acquisition of media sales specialists, Tardis Communications for an undisclosed sum.
Tardis Communications is best known for its part in promoting the success of the Quickpages directories.
Quickpages is a resource distributed by direct mail to12 million UK consumers each year to promote the major Motor and Home insurance companies: Direct Line, Churchill, Norwich Union, Swinton and many others to generate non-web based quotes.
Fiona Hought, of Millennium said: “The general insurance market is massive but much of the growth is being directed to online rather than traditional telephones for quotes. The problem for the insurers is that consumers use online for research but the vast majority of cases (upwards of 75%) will want to talk with someone before they complete. This is particularly true with the older mature market the key focus of Millennium.”
Millenium is part of The Direct Marketing Group which was founded by Martin Smith in 1996.
The group employs more than 300 people across sites in West Yorkshire, Cheltenham, Leeds and London and has an annual turnover of £46m.
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MTL Group – the Sheffield based contract manufacturing company – has been named “Company of the Year” by the Northern Defence Industries (NDI).
Dr Liam Fox, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence presented the award to MTL during the NDI annual conference at the Royal Armouries. This award recognises the company's investment and successful growth over the last two years.
The company, which supplies manufacturing services to leading multinationals including Caterpillar, Dennis Eagle and BAE was acquired by Dr Henry Shirman and a four strong management team in 2006 with the support of Bank of Scotland Corporate. Since the buyout the company's turnover has more than doubled in size to £34 million and staff numbers have risen by more than 60% to more than 200.
MTL Group recently changed its name from Mayflower Technology and was listed in the prestigious “Sunday Times Deloitte Buyout Track 100” which reviews the UK's top 100 private equity backed mid-market companies with the fastest growing profits.
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INDEPENDENT marketing communications Brahm has appointed Paul McGann to its board of directors.
Mr McGann has been with Brahm for ten years, leading the promotional marketing and foodservice division, and working with clients including Warburtons, Heinz, Kellogg's and Greencore.
Paul McGann said: “The Brahm environment is constantly evolving but the move reflects the growing significance of sales promotion at the heart of many of our integrated campaigns. I'm looking forward to driving return on investment for a broader mix of clients.”
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THE Advanced Digital Institute (ADI) today announced it has been awarded a research and development contract by Yorkshire-based Filtronic Broadband.
It is ADI's first collaborative partnership with the company, which is a world leader in the design and manufacture of a broad range of components and subsystems which are deployed in point-to-point radio systems.
The new contract is for the development of real-time embedded firmware for Filtronic Broadband's next generation of microwave Point-to-Point radio base station subsystems and will be fulfilled by ADI's Embedded Systems team.
The solution will be a key part of Filtronic Broadband's next generation products, providing customers with increased product functionality and flexibility.
