Three new sector funds targeting Biomedical, Digital & Creative Industries and Energy & Environment will form part of the new £184m Venture Capital and Loan Fund for the North West. Three further funds will be available as Growth Capital, Venture Capital, and a separate Loan Fund. The approach is designed to target sectors with growth potential in the region. A mini competition to run the separate funds closed this week and Northwest Business Finance is still going through the procurement process, and hopes to appoint the fund managers by the end of June, a full year after the Northwest Regional Development Agency sealed the deal with the Treasury to agree the interim fund that continues to invest in businesses in the region. For more comment on this story, read Michael Taylor's In Focus blog.

Liverpool friendly society Royal Liver Group is edging closer to a deal with mutual insurer Royal London, according to reports. Royal Liver’s chairman David Woods last week told delegates at its annual general meeting that a takeover would be in the best interests of policyholders. If a deal is struck it would have to be approved by 75 per cent of Royal Liver’s delegates. Earlier this year Royal Liver was forced to repay £7.8m to customers of former subsidiary Park Row and sacked its finance director George McGregor for serious breaches of duty.

NPC Telecom in Liverpool has been bought by Chess Telecom for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition is the 46th deal Chess has completed in the past six years. Chess director Richard Btesh said: “Continued market consolidation means our list is always growing and our flexibility and reputation enables us to approach increasingly significant targets.” The deal follows the acquisition of the customer-base of telecoms provider Pennycom Communications, based in Surrey. For Insider comment, click here.

Scottish contact centre operator HEROtsc has acquired a call centre in Warrington from mobile phone giant Vodafone. The company will continue to handle calls for Vodafone's “higher-value” customers at the centre. All of the 600 employees will transfer to the HEROtsc, taking its workforce up to more than 3,000. David Turner, chief executive of HEROtsc, said: “This is a significant development in both the mobile and the contact centre markets and enables us to offer a long-term future for the Vodafone employees who will be transferring to HEROtsc.”

Dairy Crest, the Cathedral City cheese and Country Life butter maker, today warned over pricing pressures as it posted a 5 per cent increase in annual profits. The group reported underlying pre-tax profits of £83.5m for the year to 31 March, up from £79.5m last year. However, it said rising commodity costs and a poor spring for British milk production would put pressure on prices over the coming months. Dairy Crest operates its butter and spread manufacturing site in Kirkby and its milk bottling dairy in Aintree. Earlier this year it announced plans to cut its workforce in Kirkby. Twenty-five staff have so far left and talks are continuing with unions.

The new coalition government’s strong emphasis on rapid deficit reduction has been backed by more than three quarters of small companies, according to a survey by the Cheshire-based Forum of Private Business. Seventy-seven per cent of respondents listed repayment of the national debt as the government’s immediate priority, while stronger regulation of utility companies and banks was the next most popular priority. FPB research manager Thomas Parry said: “Our members take the view that the economy can’t continue servicing such a dangerous level of debt and it needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later.”

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