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Birmingham Post
Birmingham Post
Business
Coreena Ford

North East deals of the week: Key acquisitions, contracts and investments

The Lakes Distillery secured undisclosed funding as it seeks out overseas markets.

The Newcastle-headquartered company set up England’s largest whisky, gin and vodka distillery eight years ago, producing spirits on the shores of Bassenthwaite Lake in Cumbria. Alongside the production of the Lake District spirits, the firm also welcomes thousands of tourists each year to its visitor centre, shop and bistro.

Now corporate finance company WilliamsAli has secured the funding from specialist lender Beechbrook Capital, at a time when the company is increasing its production of single malt whisky and exporting the brand to major whisky markets such as USA, France, and Japan.

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Beechbrook Capital is a specialist lender providing loans and minority equity capital into SMEs across the UK and Europe and its investment into The Lakes Distillery represents the sixth investment from its UK SME Credit III fund. The transaction was facilitated by Jon Petty, investment director and Jake Taylor, associate director.

The Newcastle Chaophraya will be the first to receive investment (Thai Leisure Group)

Restaurant chain Thai Leisure Group has pledged to invest £1m into its most popular Chaophraya and Thaikhun restaurants.

The business is ploughing the investment into its Chaophraya and Thaikhun restaurants over the coming months, with plans to upgrade both the interior and exterior of at least five of its restaurants. Every Chaophraya site will be refurbished over the next three years, with the Newcastle site in Eldon Square set to be the first to receive a makeover.

Managing director Ian Leigh said: “We are excited to unveil the refurbishment works taking place across several of our core restaurants, and look forward to welcoming new and returning customers over the coming months.”

Dr Arnab Basu, CEO and founder of Kromek (Kromek)

Kromek announced two new orders worth a total of $751,000, from existing OEM customers in the medical imaging market.

It sealed a $500,000 order from a longstanding customer for the supply of detectors for bone mineral densitometry applications, plus a $251k order from a US medical imaging customer that will use Kromek’s CZT detectors.

Dr Arnab Basu, the Sedgefield firm's CEO, said: “These latest orders from long-standing OEM customers in our niche medical markets continue the group’s momentum and underpin the board’s confidence in meeting current year expectations. The board also believes these orders are indicative of the regular, repeat nature of business in the advanced imaging segment.”

Three days after the contract wins the detection tech creator said it had raised £1.7m from new and existing investors through an issue of convertible loan notes.

The NETPark firm said it would use the sum as additional working capital to counteract any potential supply chain disruption to the delivery of contracts during the year.

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