Business briefs: Skipton Building Society | The Big Partnership | Rightmove | Students save small businesses money

SKIPTON Building Society saw its profits more than treble in the first half of the year following a turnaround in fortunes at its core mortgages and savings business.

The group said pre-tax profits jumped to £22.3 million in the six months to 30 June, compared with £6.3m a year earlier. Its mortgages and savings arm, which lost £8.1m a year ago, made a profit of £3.9m as write-offs for bad loans fell.

Scots PR firm opens first English office

SCOTLAND’S largest public relations firm has opened its first office south of the Border.

The Big Partnership, which already has 95 staff spread across four offices in Scotland, expects its Liverpool office to be profitable within its first year.

The firm, which was founded in 2000, charged £6 million in fees last year to clients including Famous Grouse whisky, utilities firm ScottishPower and oil giant Shell.

Students save small businesses money

STUDENTS from three Scottish universities have identified hundreds of thousands of pounds of savings for Scottish small and medium-sized businesses after carrying out energy audits on behalf of the Carbon Trust.

Edinburgh, St Andrews and Strathclyde universities sent students to companies including Bike Station, Hello Scotland and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Android app fuels Rightmove traffic

Rightmove yesterday hailed a 23 per cent surge in traffic as the UK’s seventh most visited website benefited from the roll-out of new technology in a “patchy” market.

The launch of its Android phone app saw hits from house-hunters double in the first six months of this year. It achieved 5.9 billion overall page impressions in the six months, meaning only Facebook, Google, eBay, YouTube, Amazon and Yahoo saw more page views.