Glasgow entrepreneur shortlisted for a prestigious award
Calvin Bannan, founder of Glasgow-based CB Services Group, has been selected as a finalist in the 2025 Allica Bank Great British Entrepreneur Awards.
The awards, often dubbed "The Grammys of Entrepreneurship," highlight the UK's most compelling business narratives.
CB Services Group is part of an esteemed list of finalists who collectively employ more than 25,000 people across the UK, and expect to create over 9,000 new jobs in the upcoming year.
Read more: STV presenter to host best-selling author's Glasgow book launch
This year, more than 800 entrepreneurs have been shortlisted from regions across the UK, commended for their innovation, impact, and resilience.
These finalists boast a combined turnover of £2.25 billion and an average business age of six years.
Calvin, who is in the running for the Scale-Up Entrepreneur of the Year award, said: "I'm absolutely thrilled to be named a finalist.
"It's an incredible honour to be recognised alongside some of the UK's most exciting and ambitious businesses.
"This recognition is a huge testament to the hard work of our team and our mission to raise standards across the facilities management industry by delivering reliable, high-quality solutions that truly make a difference for our clients."
Frankie James, founder of the Great British Entrepreneur Awards, highlighted the calibre of this year's nominees.
He said: "We're so proud to reveal this year's shortlist, a truly remarkable group of founders who are changing lives and transforming industries.
"The quality of entries gets stronger every year, and it's clear that the entrepreneurial spirit in the UK is more alive than ever."
Award winners will be revealed at a grand awards ceremony on Monday, November 17 at London's Grosvenor House, with more than 1,500 entrepreneurs, investors, and business leaders expected to attend.
The awards are supported by Allica Bank, who aim to champion small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across the UK.
Read more: Glasgow couriers wanted as Evri boosts delivery team
Conrad Ford, chief product and strategy officer at Allica, said: "At Allica, we're consistently inspired by the energy and strength of UK SMEs.
"This year's finalists – from early-stage start-ups to established and family businesses – represent a vital force in the British economy, driving innovation, creating jobs, and making a real difference in their communities.
"We're proud to support the Great British Entrepreneur Awards for the third year in a row, recognising these outstanding business leaders who are not only demonstrating resilience in a challenging business environment but are paving the way for future entrepreneurs to follow."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Spectator
an hour ago
- Spectator
OnlyFans is giving HMRC what it wants
Fenix International occupies the ninth floor of an innocuous office block on London's Cheapside. The street's name comes from the Old English for marketplace, and once upon a time Cheapside was just that: London's biggest meat market with butcher shops lining either side of the road. Today, the street houses financial institutions and corporate HQs. But Fenix still runs a marketplace. Some may even call it a meat market, albeit one that operates on the phones of hundreds of millions of users worldwide. Its name: OnlyFans. OnlyFans is best understood not just as a porn site, but as a social media platform with a paywall. Creators – mostly women – post photos, videos and voice notes behind monthly subscriptions. Users pay extra to tip the women, customise content and have one-to-one chats with their favourite models. Not everything on OnlyFans is X-rated, but that's the content that makes the money. An entire ecosystem has grown around OnlyFans since it was founded nine years ago by two British brothers, Tim and Thomas Stokely. One 'e-pimp' explained that successful models outsource much of their work to offshore call centres to give the illusion of intimacy with customers. Low-paid workers in Venezuela or the Philippines are hired to impersonate creators over text chats, maintaining dozens, even hundreds, of relationships with lonely men. OnlyFans' profits are enormous. In 2023, it generated nearly £5 billion in sales – up more than 2,000 per cent in four years. The company paid £127 million in tax last year, £110 million of that in corporation tax. Because Fenix is based in London, the bulk of that cash is flowing straight into the Treasury. For comparison: Britain's fishing industry – supposedly a red-line issue in Brexit – brings in just £876 million and pays next to nothing in corporation tax, while also receiving £180 million a year in tax concessions. We don't think of OnlyFans as a media company (if we think of it at all) and so we ignore what it is in business terms: a staggering success. With more than four million 'content creators' and 305 million subscribers, it would easily rank in the top three British publishing companies. It is perhaps the most successful creator-based subscription service ever. Traditional platforms can't compete – OnlyFans' revenues are twice that of North America's Aylo, which operates the world's biggest porn websites. Britain's sex industry brings in far more to the economy than politicians are comfortable admitting Britain's sex industry brings in far more to the economy than politicians are comfortable admitting. The Office for National Statistics estimates Britons spend in excess of £6 billion annually on it. It is one of the few British industries which remains a net (digital) exporter. Indeed, OnlyFans is perhaps the strongest unicorn (a privately held start-up worth more than $1 billion) in the country. It's more profitable than any other British tech start-up. And it's doing something our other digital start-ups can't: exporting to America while keeping tax revenues onshore. Two-thirds of its revenue now comes from the US, proving that even in a global tech economy dominated by Silicon Valley, British firms can still compete. OnlyFans' success makes it all the more striking that, according to Reuters, Fenix is in talks to sell. Los Angeles-based Forest Road Company is leading a group of investors in negotiations to buy the business for £6 billion. It's rumoured that other suitors are vying for attention and that shares may be sold on the stock market. Either way, one of Britain's few successful exports could soon be gone. It's awkward to defend pornography, and so politicians don't try. Parliament hosts thousands of lobbying events every year – payday lenders, bookies, vape companies, even arms dealers turn up for drinks and canapés. There is no 'sex tech reception'. Ministers fall over themselves to visit impressive-looking factories that are in fact barely relevant. For example, Glass Futures, a research and production plant for the glass industry based in St Helens, was recently picked by Keir Starmer as the perfect location for his speech decrying 'Farage's fantasy economics'. The plant is a not-for-profit that makes £7 million in annual sales. OnlyFans pays more in tax in a month than Glass Futures earns in a year. But no MP would be caught dead at OnlyFans' Cheapside HQ, despite, I'm told, many invitations to visit. Neither has any politician ever defended the porn industry in a debate on innovation, exports or growth. The most recent House of Lords research note on 'the impact of pornography on society' contains no mention of the words 'economy', 'tax' or 'finance'. Of course, money isn't everything. The harms of porn – to women, to relationships, to the minds of teenage boys – are real and considerable. We might well be better off banning the whole thing. But if we are going to wage a moral war on porn, we should at least be honest about what we're sacrificing. The money is real – and it's already in the bank of HMRC.
Press and Journal
2 hours ago
- Press and Journal
Scotbeef shuts historic Inverurie abattoir
Meat processor Scotbeef has shut its historic abattoir in Inverurie. The owners have cited 'sustained challenges' to the business. They said the closure was necessary to protect the long-term future of Scotbeef. Staff were reportedly told to go home today, with farmers being told their livestock was no longer required. Scotbeef is a subsidiary of East Kilbride-based JW Galloway. Its processing sites manufacture fresh beef, lamb and value-added products for leading UK and international retail markets. Scotbeef also has facilities at two other Scottish locations – East Kilbride and Annan – as well as operations south of the border in Sheffield, Heysham and Wolverhampton. Other sites in Bridge of Allan and Glasgow have been sold by the firm in recent years. It is not known yet how many staff are impacted by the closure in Inverurie, where there has been an abattoir on North Street for about 100 years. Neither Scotbeef nor JW Galloway have responded to our calls. The move follows a steep decline in processing activity at the Aberdeenshire site. In recent times just a few hundred cattle have been processed there some weeks, a fraction of the total capacity. Industry insiders have blamed a price war between processors for putting Scottish abattoirs under severe pressure. In accounts lodged at Companies House earlier this year, Scotbeef said it was facing labour shortages and industry pay rate challenges. Plans for a replacement abattoir in the area have been on hold for years. In 2023, Aberdeenshire councillors backed plans to demolish the existing abattoir to make way for 50 new homes. A previous proposal to build 77 homes on the site was given the go-ahead back in 2019. Now, closure for the existing site would appear to scupper any prospect of the abattoir being relocated to ANM Group's Thainstone Business Park, as was previously proposed. Gordon and Buchan Conservative MP Harriet Cross said: 'This closure is deeply concerning and is a blow to livestock farmers across the north-east. Abattoirs such as that in Inverurie are crucial to the food supply chain and the wider agricultural sector. 'But across the country, they are being driven out of business at an alarming rate by rising costs, regulatory pressures and a drop in livestock numbers. 'There is also an immediate human impact of all this, and my thoughts go out to the employees at Inverurie whose jobs are at risk.' The MP added: 'If both of Scotland's governments are serious about sustainability, rural jobs, and animal welfare, then more support needs to be given to abattoirs so they can survive these unprecedented challenges.'
Telegraph
3 hours ago
- Telegraph
The treaty Gibraltar wants, for the future we all need
For over five years, Gibraltar has been at the centre of one of the most complex, technical, and geopolitically sensitive negotiations undertaken by the United Kingdom and the European Union since Brexit. The process has consumed me. It has occupied close to half of my time in elected office, taken over almost every waking hour of the last five years, and, in truth, deprived the people of Gibraltar of their Chief Minister in the way they are used to having him, that is, from fixing housing and parking complaints to defending their sovereignty in the international arena. For much longer than I would have wanted, I have been behind closed doors, in physical or virtual boardrooms, working through the details of a document that will shape the next generation of our people. It has been a relentless, exhausting endeavour. Throughout this time, the UK and Gibraltar teams have worked together seamlessly, 'hand in glove', without a flash of daylight between us. We have worked in close partnership with both Conservative and Labour prime ministers and foreign secretaries; from Dominic Raab, Liz Truss and James Cleverly to David Cameron and now David Lammy. What we have negotiated is not the product of fragmented agendas, but the position of a unified British family determined to find a solution worthy of our people. Without a treaty, Gibraltar could be staring down the barrel of a hard border, marked by endless queues, disrupted supply chains, and a deeply uncertain future for many of our businesses. Our hospitals and elderly care homes would face chronic understaffing, and the surrounding region would suffer the almost certain loss of employment for many of the 15,000 cross-border workers who depend on Gibraltar's economy to support their families. The services we deliver to our people would all come under strain. Our public finances would be pushed to the brink. The self-governing Gibraltar we have built would be diminished, replaced by something poorer, more isolated, more inward-looking, and ultimately less able to thrive as a proud, British European Territory. Instead, we now stand at the threshold of something remarkable, and not just for Gibraltar, but also for the United Kingdom, for Spain, and for Europe and our people. Something bold. Something forward looking and hopeful. Something that finally breaks free of the negative inertia that has defined too much of our recent past. Unlocking potential across borders This is politics at its most elevated. The service-led principle of working for our people's benefit and not the performative personal antagonism that too often infects public life. Real, hard graft that overcomes challenges to deliver progress. This is the kind of result our people demand when they voice distrust and decry the political 'establishment'. Our Spanish and EU counterparts, for their part, have brought to the table a seriousness of purpose that also reflects the gravity of the moment. They, too, have recognised that this treaty is not merely about fluidity of movement, but about unlocking human and economic potential across borders. Make no mistake: the treaty that is now within reach is not one that the Gibraltarians have been forced to accept. Our people voted for us to have a mandate to turn our New Year's Eve agreement of 2020 into a UK/EU agreement/treaty. So we say 'yes' to this agreement, but not because we don't know how to say 'no' when we have to. We did so, emphatically, in 2002, when we triggered a referendum to reject Jack Straw's proposal of joint sovereignty with Spain, and I am just as adamant today that this treaty will not in any way compromise British sovereignty over Gibraltar. That will be set out, black upon white, in the treaty when it is published. It is a legal undertaking given by both sides in clear and unequivocal terms. So to be clear: in this treaty we have not ceded any control of Gibraltar to any authority. Just like today, only Gibraltar will decide who enters Gibraltar – exactly as we agreed in 2020 when Dominic Raab was foreign secretary and Boris Johnson was prime minister. This treaty unleashes the potential to usher in a new era. One in which we move beyond the tired narratives of the past on constant sovereignty disputes, towards a future defined by hope, cooperation and shared prosperity. It will pave the way for better jobs, more investment and lasting stability for Gibraltar and the wider region. It can deliver more harmonious human relations and a better quality of life for all our people. When you read it, I ask that you to look up from the pages of this treaty and see that better reality as it peers back at us from the future. This will be the treaty Gibraltar wants. It will be a treaty the UK and the EU can be proud of. And it will be a treaty that will propel us all to the better future politicians are elected to deliver. When the time comes, back Gibraltar and its proudly British people by backing the Gibraltar treaty.
