Wakefield Council has set out a roadmap to attract business investment, create skilled jobs and develop the skills needed to support the district’s future economy, with ambitions to become a leading destination for businesses in the north of England

Wakefield Council has unveiled an ambitious new economic growth strategy which seeks to establish the district as “the best place to do business in the north of England.” The local authority’s leadership has outlined a roadmap to draw in investment, generate employment and assist residents in acquiring the skills required to underpin Wakefield’s future economy.

Over 130 business leaders and residents gathered at an event at Wakefield Exchange (WX) to hear Karl Johnson, leader of the Reform UK-led council, present proposals to deliver more high-quality employment for local residents and prospects for enterprises.

He said: “For too long we have had a lack of ambition and not capitalised on the amazing strengths that our district has. It’s time to change that – it ends today.

“We are setting out an aspirational Wakefield as the best place to do business in the north of England. I want the message to go out today that Wakefield is open for business.”

The strategy outlines priorities for fostering growth and investment, with an emphasis on advanced manufacturing, logistics, and creative sectors. It has been formulated drawing on recommendations supplied by the Wakefield Futures Commission, which was established under the previous Labour administration in December 2024 following figures which showed the proportion of district residents holding qualifications above A-level standard falls considerably short of the national average.

Wakefield is England’s largest city lacking a university and confronts “significant challenges in developing and retaining higher-level skills among its residents”, according to a report published last year.

Central to the commission’s recommendations was the establishment of an employer-led civic hub, to be known as the Wakefield Futures Centre. The proposed new centre would direct skills investment towards the district’s fastest-growing business sectors.

Unlike many traditional university courses, higher-level skills training would be co-designed alongside employers. The training would also be concise, cost-effective and adaptable to accommodate learners’ needs, making it more straightforward for people to enhance their prospects through new qualifications and better-paid employment. The commission estimates that bridging Wakefield’s productivity gap could unlock more than £533m a year for people within the local economy.

Coun Johnson added: “We face an economic challenge on quite a few fronts. Wakefield doesn’t attract national and international investment at the moment and we also face a productivity challenge.

“We need 12,000 more people working in knowledge-intensive business to bring us in line with the wider West Yorkshire region. These jobs need highly skilled employees to create value and drive growth, and they will play a crucial role in driving innovation that will turbo charge our local economy.”

Tony Reeves, the council’s chief executive, said: “Wakefield is full of great businesses and we are brilliantly located. There are all sort of opportunities here but, if we were really honest with ourselves, we haven’t joined those things up sufficiently to really optimise the potential that the district has.

“If I had to sum up in a sentence what this plan is about, it’s about being bold, it’s about being ambitious and being prepared to take some risks to unlock the full potential of our district.”

Professor Sir Chris Husbands, who chaired the commission, said “Wakefield has real assets, real ambition among residents, and a track record of weathering de-industrialisation better than many similar places. To close the gap between skills supply and the future economy, something new is needed.

“That’s why we recommended the Wakefield Futures Centre – a broker between employers and training providers. Working with employers to stimulate demand for higher-level skills and with training providers to change the skills supply.”

Some customers might notice low pressure for a short time as the flow returns to normal, it added.

A spokesperson for the resort said: “We are currently experiencing operational disruption due to a burst water main that is affecting the local area.

“As a result, the attraction is closed today while our teams work closely with Thames Water and local partners to restore normal operations as quickly and safely as possible.”

Guests with tickets for Monday 10 August will have them revalidated for a future date, the resort said. Those unable to return on another day have been told to contact its help centre for a refund.

The closure falls in the middle of the school summer holidays, one of the busiest periods for UK theme parks. The resort, in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, is owned by Merlin Entertainments.

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Adani Group’s record infrastructure spending is spilling over into Dalal Street, driving larger order books and sharp stock gains for a group of contractors, manufacturers and power technology suppliers tied to the ports-to-power conglomerate’s expansion.

Shares of Hitachi Energy India have climbed 197% over two years, while Cemindia Projects and GE Vernova T&D India have gained 152% and 147%, respectively. BHEL has advanced 79% in one year and PSP Projects is up 39%, reflecting growing investor interest in companies positioned to capture orders from Adani’s record capital expenditure pipeline.

Adanis have deployed ₹1.53 lakh crore in capital expenditure in the year ended March, the highest annual outlay by an Indian corporate, with about 80% of the spending routed through vendors. That figure excludes real estate and other privately held businesses.

The group is targeting capital expenditure of about ₹2.1 lakh crore in the current financial year and has mapped out investments of nearly $125 billion across its businesses over five years, according to people aware of the matter.

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Adani’s strategy is also changing the relationship between a project owner and its suppliers. The group’s CFO Jugeshinder ‘Robbie’ Singh told analysts at a closed-door meeting recently that rising capital expenditure would require greater reliance on outside companies for large scale deployment.
The conglomerate no longer views these companies merely as vendors, but as “strategic partners,” according to the CFO. Adani intends to support them in becoming “world-class enterprises,” with the objective of building hundreds of partners capable of scaling into large businesses over the next few years.The model connects Adani’s access to capital and project pipeline with the engineering, manufacturing and technological capabilities of specialist companies. For investors, that is creating a new set of listed proxies for the conglomerate’s infrastructure buildout.

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Listed proxies for Adani’s $125 billion capex boom

The transformation is most visible at PSP Projects. Adani bought a 34.41% stake in the construction company to support its large-scale building plans. Within a year, PSP’s order book jumped 85% to ₹13,447 crore in FY26 from ₹7,266 crore in FY25.

Adani-linked projects represented 67% of PSP’s order book, or about ₹9,009 crore, compared with ₹1,817 crore a year earlier. New orders more than tripled to ₹10,925 crore from ₹3,506 crore, while revenue rose 25% to ₹3,149 crore.

The surge in orders, however, has yet to translate into a comparable improvement in profitability. PSP’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization increased only marginally to ₹180 crore from ₹178 crore. Its return on capital employed fell to 7% from 10% a year earlier and 24% in FY23.

Its working capital cycle also stretched to 96 days from 65 days in FY25 and 41 days in FY23. The divergence between order growth and returns shows that the investment case will depend not only on winning Adani projects, but also on executing them without tying up excessive capital.

PSP’s addressable opportunity could nevertheless widen. Its capabilities are concentrated in residential, institutional and commercial construction, while Adani’s real estate pipeline includes the Dharavi redevelopment, Motilal Nagar and assets acquired through Jaiprakash Associates.

Cemindia Projects presents a different picture. Renew Exim, an Adani promoter entity, acquired a controlling 67.46% stake in the former ITD Cementation, adding its expertise across ports, airports, tunnels, metro systems, roads and industrial structures to the group’s ecosystem.

Cemindia’s order book increased 34% to ₹24,545 crore in FY26 from ₹18,300 crore a year earlier, while new orders more than doubled to ₹14,821 crore. Revenue rose to ₹10,061 crore from ₹9,097 crore and Ebitda climbed 30% to ₹1,199 crore.

Its return on capital employed improved to 34% from 28% in FY25 and about 19% in FY23, indicating that the expansion has been accompanied by stronger capital efficiency. CARE Ratings projected that Adani Group projects could rise to nearly 50% of Cemindia’s portfolio over the medium term from about 14%.

Adani’s ability to raise project capital is also creating opportunities for power equipment and grid technology companies.

Adani Energy Solutions raised ₹8,373 crore through a qualified institutional placement in FY25. It subsequently secured Japanese bank green financing reportedly worth $750 million for the Bhadla-Fatehpur high voltage direct current corridor and raised another $500 million through Apollo-backed senior secured notes.

The company’s board approved a further institutional fundraising of as much as ₹10,000 crore for FY27, of which ₹3,500 crore was raised through a QIP in July 2026. That financing provides suppliers with greater certainty when they commit engineering resources, manufacturing capacity and working capital to major projects.

The 6,000 MW Bhadla-Fatehpur corridor shows how such projects can feed directly into listed companies. The project combines Hitachi Energy India’s HVDC technology with BHEL’s domestic equipment manufacturing capabilities.

Hitachi Energy India received ₹18,457 crore of new orders in FY26, with roughly half estimated to have come from Adani Energy Solutions. Its total order book rose to ₹29,555 crore from ₹19,246 crore a year earlier and just ₹7,071 crore in FY23.

The company’s revenue increased 28% to ₹8,148 crore in FY26, while Ebitda more than doubled to ₹1,253 crore. The Bhadla-Fatehpur contract was a major contributor to the order inflow.

BHEL is another beneficiary. Its revenue from Adani Group reached about ₹6,673 crore, equivalent to nearly one-fifth of its FY26 sales. The state-owned manufacturer’s overall order book expanded to ₹2.39 lakh crore from ₹1.96 lakh crore in FY25, while Ebitda rose 83% to ₹3,189 crore.

The potential pipeline could grow as Adani Power advances a capital expenditure program of more than ₹2 lakh crore to expand generation capacity to as much as 45 GW by FY32. The buildout can create demand for boilers, turbines, generators and emission control systems, though future orders will depend on project awards and competitive procurement.

The ecosystem extends beyond companies in which Adani has acquired stakes. GE Vernova T&D India received Adani Energy Solutions’ Khavda-South Olpad VSC-HVDC order and recorded ₹14,776 crore of order inflow in FY26. Brokerages estimate that AESL-linked contracts accounted for about ₹8,000 crore to ₹10,000 crore.

Adani’s approach has similarities with Apple’s extended enterprise model, in which the company retains control over product design, technology and customer experience while specialist suppliers provide manufacturing capabilities. The suppliers, in turn, gain investment, technology and access to a larger opportunity set.

For Adani, the model offers a way to execute an unprecedented capital program without building every capability internally. For its partners, it provides access to funded projects and the possibility of scaling revenue, technical capabilities and balance sheets.

The benefits are not without risk. Rising dependence on a single customer can create concentration, while bigger order books do not automatically guarantee stronger cash flows or returns. PSP’s falling return on capital and longer working capital cycle demonstrate the execution challenges that can accompany rapid expansion.

Still, Adani’s ₹2.1 lakh crore annual spending plan is already reshaping revenue pipelines across construction, heavy engineering and power technology. If the group and its partners can convert those orders into cash and earnings, its $125 billion capex boom could continue producing winners well beyond Adani’s own listed companies.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

A consortium including billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has advanced its talks to buy about a 30% stake in Liverpool, BBC Sport has been told.

The group is led by British-Indian millionaire businessman Amit Bhatia and also includes Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

Owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) confirmed last month that the group had “expressed interest in making a strategic minority investment in Liverpool Football Club”.

Bhatia is the son-in-law of Indian billionaire businessman Lakshmi Mittal and had been a director and co-owner of Queens Park Rangers for 18 years before relinquishing his stake in the club last month.

American businessman Bezos, founder of e-commerce giant Amazon, is the fourth-richest person in the world.

According to Forbes, the 62-year-old has an estimated net worth of $256bn (£192bn).

FSG, who bought Liverpool in a £300m deal in 2010, previously sold a minority stake in the Anfield side to global sports investment firm Dynasty Equity.

A restructuring at the research organisation has brought redundancies

A key industrial research facility on Teesside has encountered financial difficulties and applied for an insolvency measure.

The Materials Processing Institute, based in Middlesbrough, is a centre of innovation in the country’s manufacturing sector, where researchers carry out pioneering work in areas such as advanced materials, industrial decarbonisation and digital technologies. It runs a range of facilities including laboratories, a metal alloys making site and offices used by a number of small and medium-sized companies.

Court filings show the not-for-profit organisation – which until recently had employed about 70 people and has roots extending back about eight decades – has applied to make a Company Voluntary Arrangement, a mechanism that insolvent companies can use to pay creditors over a specified time.

The move follows extensive investment in MPI over recent years, including millions of pounds of public funding to tackle productivity, sustainability and competitiveness-driving innovations. Most recently, MPI installed a new, seven-tonne electric arc furnace at its Green Steel Centre on Eston Road, creating a one-of-a-kind facility in the UK.

The equipment was supported by £2.9m grant funding from Innovate UK, part of national funding agency, UK Research and Innovation. In recent years similar sums have been awarded to the institute.

Total capital invested in new research equipment and facilities over the last four years is more than £10m. New facilities also include hydrometallurgy to look at the recycling of electric vehicle batteries and a pilot scale hydrogen gas network for investigations into fuel switching, hydrogen reduction processes and heating.

News of the CVA follows 2025 accounts for loss-making MPI, published in recent weeks, which includes details of problems encountered while trying to diversify the organisation away from a reliance on grant funding.

The company ran into what it called significant cashflow challenges that have prompted a full restructuring of the business – including a significant number of redundancies. Directors talked of the need to financially restructure MPI’s balance sheet, a process which is now being carried out via the CVA.

Within the most recent accounts, MPI said: “The company has experienced a challenging trading period during the year, resulting in losses and pressure on short-term cash flows. In response, management has initiated a restructuring programme aimed at reducing the cost base and improving operational efficiency. The company is currently in advanced discussions with its creditors regarding the implementation of a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA).

“The successful approval and implementation of the CVA is a key component of the company’s financial restructuring. The directors have prepared cash flow forecasts and projections, which incorporate the anticipated impact of the restructuring activities and the proposed CVA.

“These forecasts indicate that, subject to the successful outcome of the CVA, the company will have sufficient resources to continue trading and meet its liabilities as they fall due for a period of at least 12 months from the date of approval of these financial statements.

“However, the requirement to successfully agree and implement the CVA, represents a material uncertainty that may cast significant doubt on the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern. If the CVA is not approved or the anticipated support is not maintained, the company may be unable to realise its assets and discharge its liabilities in the normal course of business.”