Companies

Accommodation, Attractions, Betting and Gambling, Broadcasting, Communication, Consumer Electronics, Councils, Couriers, Energy, Entertainment, Fashion, Finance, Food & Drink, Health, Home & Leisure, Insurance, Media, Motoring, Online, Pets, Public Bodies, Restaurants, Retail, Software, Sports, Toiletries, Toys & Games, Travel, Water

View All Accommodation

Premier Inn is a British budget hotel chain and the UK's largest hotel brand, with over 50,000 rooms and more than 650 hotels. Originally opening under the "Travel Inn" brand name in 1987, it has been owned by Whitbread during its entire operation and was set up to compete with the Travelodge brand which was at the time owned by Forte. The company provides 70% of the total earnings of Whitbread. Premier Inn operates hotels at a variety of locations including city centres, suburbs and airports.

Hilton Hotels & Resorts is an international chain of full service hotels and resorts, it is the flagship brand of Hilton Worldwide. The original company was founded by Conrad Hilton and is now owned by Hilton Worldwide. Hilton hotels are either owned by, managed by, or franchised to independent operators by Hilton Worldwide. Hilton Hotels became the first coast-to-coast hotel chain of the United States in 1943. As of 2010, there are now over 530 Hilton branded hotels across the world in 78 countries across six continents.

Travelodge Hotels Limited

Travelodge Hotels Limited is a private company operating in the hotels and hospitality industry throughout the United Kingdom. Branded simply as Travelodge, it is the second largest in the budget hotel sector (behind Premier Inn) and third biggest hotel chain in the UK by number of bedrooms (31,600 at the end of 2010).

A new room design has been introduced in new buildings, and newly refurbished hotels; featuring a new colour scheme and LCD TVs. In most hotels, there are double rooms, family rooms and disabled rooms. All rooms feature en-suite bathroom, free tea & coffee. A charged for wi-fi internet connection is available at all hotels.

Mercure Hotels is a brand of hotels run by French multinational corporation AccorHotels. The slogan is In Harmony with People and Places

Most Mercure hotels are positioned between Ibis and Novotel in the Accor estate. There is also a five star branch of Mercure hotels known as Grand Mercure with a chain of 10 Grand Mercure hotels in China under the Chinese brand name Mei Jue. There are about 750 three to four-star Mercure hotels in Europe. In Australia and New Zealand, Grand Mercure Apartments is a growing 4.5 - 5 star short and long stay apartment brand.

IHG Hotels Limited

Holiday Inn is an American brand of hotels, which is part of the InterContinental Hotels Group. Originally being a U.S. motel chain, today it is one of the world's largest hotel chains, with 463,435 bedrooms in 3,649 hotels globally hosting over 100 million guest nights each year. The hotel chain is based in Atlanta, Georgia.

IHG Hotels Limited

Holiday Inn Express is a mid-priced hotel chain within the InterContinental Hotels Group family of brands. As an "express" hotel, their focus is on offering limited services and a reasonable price. Standard amenities lean toward the convenient and practical which cater to business travellers and short-term stays. As of March 2016, there were over 2,438 Holiday Inn Express hotels worldwide.

The Holiday Inn Express concept was intended to target the "upper economy" market segment, offering limited service, low-price lodging.

View All Attractions

Alton Towers Resort Operations Limited

Alton Towers Resort is a theme park and resort located in Alton, England, UK. In 2012, it attracted 2.4 million visitors, making it the most visited theme park in the United Kingdom and 9th most visited theme park in Europe. It employs in excess of 2400 staff members during the summer months, over 1,000 of whom are full-time. It is based north of the village of Alton in Staffordshire, in the grounds of Alton Towers, a semi-ruined gothic revival country house.

Alton Towers was acquired by the investment group Dubai International Capital when it purchased Tussauds for £800 million in 2005. The Tussauds Group was bought by Merlin Entertainments in March 2007 for over £1billion from DIC, placing Alton Towers under their control. In July 2007, the resort and park was sold to Nick Leslau and his investment firm Prestbury who now lease the park back to Merlin Entertainments to operate on a 35-year lease.

Longleat Enterprises Limited

Longleat Safari and Adventure Park, in Wiltshire, England, was opened in 1966 as the first drive-through safari park outside Africa. The park is situated in the grounds of Longleat House, an English stately home which is open to the public and is the home of the 7th Marquess of Bath. Longleat Safari Park and the concept of safari parks were the brainchild of Jimmy Chipperfield(1912–1990), former co-director of Chipperfield's Circus.

Today, Longleat is home to over 500 animals, and the estate occupies 9,000 acres (36.42 km2) of Wiltshire countryside.

Madame Tussauds is a wax museum in London with branches in a number of major cities. It was founded by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud and was formerly known as "Madame Tussaud's"; the apostrophe is no longer used. Madame Tussauds is a major tourist attraction in London, displaying waxworks of historical and royal figures, film stars, sports stars and infamous murderers. Madame Tussauds is owned and operated by Merlin Entertainments.

Legoland Windsor Park Limited

Legoland Windsor Resort, also known as Legoland Windsor, is a child-oriented theme park and resort in Windsor, Berkshire in England, themed around the Lego toy system. The park opened in 1996 on the former Windsor Safari Park site as the second Legoland after Legoland Billund in Denmark. In common with the other Legolands across the world, the park's attractions consist of a mixture of Lego-themed rides, models, and building workshops. The park was acquired by Merlin Entertainments in 2005, which now operates the park, with the Lego Group retaining part ownership (30%). The facilities are mainly targeted at children between three and twelve.

In 2015, the park had 2,250,000 million visitors, making it the most visited theme park in the United Kingdom and the 9th most visited in Europe.

Thorpe Park, styled THORPE PARK Resort, is a theme park with a temporary hotel in between the towns of Chertsey and Staines, Surrey, England, UK. It is operated and owned by Merlin Entertainments. After demolition of the Thorpe Park Estate in the 1930s, the site became a gravel pit.

Thorpe Park was built in the 1970s on the gravel pit which was partially flooded, creating a water-based theme for the park. This essentially allows guests to view the park as an island, which is where the "island like no other" slogan originates from. It was officially opened to the public by the late Lord Louis Mountbatten in 1979.

Major attractions include Tidal Wave, Colossus, Nemesis Inferno, Stealth, SAW - The Ride, The Swarm and Derren Brown's Ghost Train.

View All Betting and Gambling

Ladbrokes plc

Ladbrokes plc is a British based gaming company. It is based in Rayners Lane in Harrow, London. From 14 May 1999 to 23 February 2006, when it owned the Hilton hotel brand outside the United States, it was known as Hilton Group plc. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a member of the FTSE 250 Index, having been relegated from the FTSE 100 Index in June 2006.

In July 2015, the company reached an agreement to merge with its rival, Gala Coral Group. Under the terms, Ladbrokes' chief executive Jim Mullen will become CEO of the new company, named Ladbrokes Coral.

Coral is a bookmaker in Britain, and currently has over 1800 betting shops in the UK as of October 2011 as well as hundreds in Italy trading under the Eurobet name.

Joe Coral began his bookmaking business in 1926, after borrowing some money off of a local cafe owner who happened to be a good friend of Joe's, operating betting pitches at greyhound courses. His great friend, Tom Bradbury-Pratt ran speedway meetings at Harringay and a number of other venues. He, and Joe Coral, went on to establish many speedway and greyhound tracks and Joe was one of the first bookmakers to take advantage of the 1960 legalisation of off-course betting shops and opened his first shop in 1961.

In July 2015, it was announced that Ladbrokes would merge with its rival Gala Coral to form the new company, Ladbrokes Coral.

William Hill PLC

William Hill plc is a bookmaker based in the United Kingdom and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

The company was founded by William Hill in 1934 at a time when gambling was illegal in Britain. It changed hands many times, being acquired by Sears Holdings in 1971, then by Grand Metropolitan in 1988, then by Brent Walker in 1989.

The company operates worldwide, employing approximately 16,601 people with main offices in the UK, Republic of Ireland and Gibraltar, offering betting by phone and Internet together with their 2300 UK-wide Licensed Betting Offices. They are the largest UK operator, representing around 25 per cent of the market throughout the UK and Ireland.

View All Broadcasting

ITV is a commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 as Independent Television under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, its legal name has been Channel 3, the number 3 having no real meaning other than to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time, namely BBC 1, BBC 2 and Channel 4. In part, the number 3 was assigned as televisions would usually be tuned so that the regional ITV station would be on the third button, the other stations being allocated to the number within their name.

BT Group PLC

BT Group plc, trading as BT, is a British multinational telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in over 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of telecoms services to corporate and government customers worldwide. Its BT Retail division one of the largest suppliers of telephony, broadband and subscription television services in the UK, with over 18 million customers.

Virgin Media Limited

Virgin Media plc is a British company which provides fixed and mobile telephone, television and broadband internet services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are in Hook, Hampshire, United Kingdom. The company has been a subsidiary of Liberty Global plc, an international television and telecommunications company headquartered in London, since June 2013. Virgin Media.

The company was formed in March 2006 by the merger of NTL and Telewest, which created NTL:Telewest. In July 2006 the company purchased Virgin Mobile UK, creating the first "quadruple-play" media company in the United Kingdom, offering television, internet, mobile phone and fixed-line telephone services.

Sky (formerly marketed as Sky Digital) is the brand name for BSkyB's digital satellite television and radio service, transmitted from the Astra satellites. Sky was the country's most popular digital TV service until getting overtaken by Freeview in April 2007.

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcasting statutory corporation. Its main responsibility is to provide impartial public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. The BBC is headquartered at Broadcasting House in London and has major production centres in Salford Quays, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff and Glasgow, and smaller production centres throughout the UK. The BBC is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, with about 23,000 staff.

Freeview is the only prevailing free-to-air UK digital terrestrial television service. It is delivered by the company DTV Services Ltd, a joint venture between the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, BSkyB and transmitter operator Arqiva. It was launched in 2002, when the company was known as DWSCO 2284 Ltd. The service provides consumer access via an aerial to the six DTT multiplexes covering the United Kingdom. In August 2013 it had some 60 DVB-T TV channels, 26 digital radio channels, 4 HD channels, 6 text services, 11 streamed channels, and 1 interactive channel. Some ten additional feeds, whereof five more HD feeds, are expected for the first half of 2014, and up to 10 new HD channels are planned to be launched later in 2014, from a new group of multiplexes awarded to Arqiva.

View All Communication

BT Group PLC

BT Group plc, trading as BT, is a British multinational telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in over 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of telecoms services to corporate and government customers worldwide. Its BT Retail division one of the largest suppliers of telephony, broadband and subscription television services in the UK, with over 18 million customers.

Telefonica UK Limited

O2 are the second largest mobile phone network provider in the UK. Formed in 1985 as Cellnet, then renamed to BT Cellnet, then O2 it is now owned by Spanish telecommunications provider Telefónica.

TalkTalk Telecom Group plc

TalkTalk Telecom Group plc is a company which provides pay television, telecommunications, internet access, and mobile network services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 2003 as a subsidiary of Carphone Warehouse and was demerged as a standalone company in March 2010. It is headquartered in London.

Lycamobile is a Mobile virtual network operator that operates in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Hong Kong, the United States, Tunisia and the United Kingdom, where it is based. The Lycamobile brand is distinct from the Lycatel brand and operates with different national corporate entities. Although there are some countries of overlap, Lycamobile and Lycatel do not necessarily operate in parallel. The bulk of Lycamobile revenue is generated from Lycamobile's SIM products for consumers.

Outlook.com is a web-based suite of webmail, contacts, tasks, and calendaring services from Microsoft. One of the world's first webmail services, it was founded in 1996 as Hotmail (stylised as HoTMaiL) by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith in Mountain View, California, and headquartered in Sunnyvale.

The Carphone Warehouse announced that it would purchase the UK business of AOL on 10 October 2006 for £370m, making it the third largest broadband provider, with over 2 million customers, and the largest LLU Operator with more than 150,000 LLU customers. The acquisition process completed on 9 December 2006. A press release stated that AOL UK Audience business will remain a separate organization and brand with a revenue sharing agreement. The AOL UK Access business was changed to AOL Broadband. The deal included an agreement to continue customers access to the AOL portal content.

View All Consumer Electronics

 

The Xbox is a video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001, in North America, followed by Australia and Europe in 2002. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market. The sixth-generation console competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast, and the Nintendo GameCube. It was the first console produced by an American company since the Atari Jaguar ceased production in 1996.

Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul. It comprises numerous subsidiaries and affiliated businesses, most of them united under the Samsung brand, and is the largest South Korean chaebol.

Apple (UK) Limited

Apple (UK) is the UK arm of Apple Inc - an American multinational corporation with headquarters in Cupertino, California. Apple that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics as well as personal computer software and hardware.

The Hotpoint Electric Heating Company is a British brand of domestic appliances, formerly part of GEC. The brand is currently fully owned by Italy's Indesit, but most UK manufacture has now ceased.

HP Inc UK Limited

Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States. It provides hardware, software and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health and education sectors.

HP specialises in developing and manufacturing computing, data storage, and networking hardware, designing software and delivering services. Major product lines included personal computing devices, enterprise and industry standard servers, related storage devices, networking products, software and a diverse range of printers and other imaging products

LG Corporation formerly Lucky Goldstar is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation. It is the fourth-largest company of its kind in South Korea. Its headquarters are situated in the LG Twin Towers building in Yeouido-dong, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul. LG makes electronics, chemicals, and telecom products and operates subsidiaries such as LG Electronics, Zenith, LG Display, LG Telecom and LG Chem in over 80 countries.

View All Councils

The London Borough of Ealing is a London Borough in west London, England, and forms part of Outer London. It is the 3rd largest London Borough in population, and 11th largest in size, covering part of west London and a small part of north west London. Its administrative centre is Ealing Broadway. Other major centres include Acton, Greenford and Southall. The local authority is Ealing London Borough Council.

Newham London Borough Council i is the local authority for the London Borough of Newham. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London. The council is unusual in that its executive function is controlled by a directly elected mayor of Newham, currently Robin Wales. Newham is divided into 20 wards, each electing three councillors. Following the May 2010 election, Newham London Borough Council comprises 60 Labour Party councillors. The council was created by the London Government Act 1963 and replaced three local authorities: East Ham Borough Council, West Ham Borough Council and Woolwich Metropolitan Borough Council.

Cornwall Council is the unitary authority for the county of Cornwall in the United Kingdom, not including the Isles of Scilly, which has its own council. The council, and its predecessor Cornwall County Council, has a tradition of large groups of independent councillors, having been controlled by independents in the 1970s and 1980s. Since the 2013 elections, it is run by an Independent-Liberal Democrat coalition.

Havering London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Havering in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London. Havering is divided into 18 wards, each electing three councillors. Since May 2014, Havering London Borough Council has been in no overall control. It comprises 22 Conservative Party members, 19 Havering Residents Association members, six UK Independence Party members, five independent residents members and two Labour Party members. The council was created by the London Government Act 1963 and replaced two local authorities: Hornchurch Urban District Council and Romford Borough Council.

The City of Canterbury is a local government district with city status in Kent, England. The main settlement in the district is Canterbury.

Newcastle City Council is the local government authority for Newcastle upon Tyne, a city in Tyne and Wear, England. The council consists of 78 councillors, three for each of the city's 26 wards.

View All Couriers

Royal Mail Group Limited

Royal Mail plc is a postal service company in the United Kingdom, originally established in 1516. The company's subsidiary, Royal Mail Group Limited, operates the brands Royal Mail (letters) and Parcelforce Worldwide (parcels). General Logistics Systems, an international logistics company, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Mail Group.

The company provides mail collection and delivery services throughout the UK. Letters are deposited in a pillar or wall box, taken to a post office, or collected in bulk from businesses. Deliveries are made at least once every day except Sundays and Bank Holidays at uniform charges for all UK destinations. Royal Mail generally aims to make First Class deliveries the next business day throughout the nation.

D P D (UK) Limited

DPD is an international parcel delivery company owned by GeoPost. It has more than 830 depots in more than 40 countries and is one of Europe's leading business-to-business parcel delivery services.

The company was founded in 1977 in Aschaffenburg, West Germany. In its first year of operation, over 1.4 million parcels were shipped. By 1980, this figure had risen to 7 million per year. Today, 2 million parcels are shipped every day. DPD was originally Deutscher Paketdienst until 2008 (meaning German Parcel Service), and then rebranded to "Dynamic Parcel Distribution".

DPD is majority-owned by GeoPost, a subsidiary of La Poste, France's postal service.

Geopost bought UK carrier Parceline and Ireland's Interlink parcels service in 2001 for around $277 million. Parceline was rebranded DPD in March 2008.

Many clients of the company have had major issues with company support services and general reliability with the deliveries.

UPS Limited

United Parcel Service, Inc. (UPS) is the world's largest package delivery company and a provider of supply chain management solutions. The global logistics company is headquartered in Sandy Springs, Georgia, which is part of the Greater Atlanta metropolitan area. UPS delivers more than 15 million packages per day to more than 7.9 million customers in more than 220 countries and territories around the world.

UPS is known for its brown delivery trucks and uniforms, hence the company nickname "Brown". UPS also operates its own airlineand air cargo delivery service based in Louisville, Kentucky.

Yodel Delivery Network Limited

Yodel is a delivery service company in the United Kingdom. It was formed by the 2010 acquisition of the UK domestic business of DHL by Home Delivery Network. The combined business, known as HDNL, was rebranded as Yodel in May 2010. It is privately owned by the billionaire Barclay Brothers.

Post Office Limited

A post office is a customer service facility forming part of a national postal system. Post offices offer mail-related services such as acceptance of letters and parcels; provision of post office boxes; and sale of postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. In addition, many post offices offer additional services: providing and accepting government forms, processing government services and fees, and banking services. The chief administrator of a post office is a postmaster.

Fedex UK Limited

FedEx Corporation is an American multinational courier delivery services company headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee. The name "FedEx" is a syllabic abbreviation of the name of the company's original air division, Federal Express, which was used from 1973 until 2000. The company is known for its overnight shipping service, but also for pioneering a system that could track packages and provide real-time updates on package location (to help in finding lost packages), a feature that has now been implemented by most other carrier services.

View All Energy

British Gas Services Limited

British Gas is an energy and home services provider in the United Kingdom. It is the trading name of British Gas Services Limited and British Gas New Heating Limited, both subsidiaries of Centrica. Serving around 12 million homes in the UK, British Gas is the biggest UK energy supplier and is considered one of the Big Six which dominate the gas and electricity market in the United Kingdom.

Esso S-o is an international trade name for ExxonMobil and its related companies. The name is a phonetic version of the initials of the pre-1911 Standard Oil, and as such became the focus of much litigation and regulatory restriction in the United States. In 1972 it was largely replaced in the U.S. by the Exxon brand after it bought Humble Oil, while Esso remained widely used elsewhere. In most of the world, the Esso brand and the Mobil brand are the primary brand names of ExxonMobil, with the Exxon brand name still in use only in the United States alongside Mobil.

BP P.L.C.

BP plc, also referred to by its former name, British Petroleum, is one of the world's seven "supermajor" oil and gas companies. It is a British multinational company, headquartered in London, England, whose performance in 2012 made it the world's sixth-largest oil and gas company, the sixth-largest energy company by market capitalisation and the company with the world's fifth-largest revenue (turnover). It is a vertically integrated company operating in all areas of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading. It also has renewable energy interests in biofuels and wind power.

E.ON SE, marketed with an interpunct as E·ON, is a European holding company based in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It runs one of the world's largest investor-owned electric utility service providers. The name comes from the Greek word aeon which means eternity.

Royal Dutch Shell plc, commonly known as Shell, is an Anglo–Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in the Netherlands and incorporated in the United Kingdom.

Texaco products have been sold in the UK for over 100 years and today Valero Energy Ltd, a subsidiary of Valero Energy Corporation, markets fuel in the UK and Ireland under the Texaco brand.

There are around 850 Texaco-branded service stations in the UK, owned and operated by independent retailers, making it the largest independent branded chain of service stations in the country. There is an extensive network of authorised Texaco distributors supplying a wide range of customers, particularly in more rural locations.

Valero in the UK employs around 770 people and many thousands more are employed in Texaco branded retail businesses across the UK. Over the last few years, Texaco branded service stations have accounted for a growing percentage of service stations in the country and the company is committed to increasing its network of branded retailers and distributors.

Valero refines crude oil at its refinery in Pembroke, south west Wales. The refinery began operations in 1964 and today it is one of the largest manufacturers of fuels in northwest Europe, with throughput of 270,000 barrels of crude oil each day. Valero’s Pembroke refinery is one of the leading employers in south Wales and is one of Europe’s largest and most complex refineries.

In addition to the refinery, Valero has ownership interests in four major pipelines, six UK fuel terminals and a 13,000-barrel-per-day aviation fuels business.

The company supplies fuel products to its UK customers via its fuel terminals and pipeline infrastructure. We additionally supply fuel from a number of third party owned terminals throughout the UK.

View All Entertainment

BT Group PLC

BT Group plc, trading as BT, is a British multinational telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in over 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of telecoms services to corporate and government customers worldwide. Its BT Retail division one of the largest suppliers of telephony, broadband and subscription television services in the UK, with over 18 million customers.

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational software corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services related to computing. The company was founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen on April 4, 1975. Microsoft is the world's largest software maker measured by revenues. It is also one of the world's most valuable companies.

Netflix Services UK Ltd

Netflix Inc. (also known as Netflix, marketed and stylised as NETFLIX) is an American multinational entertainment company founded on August 29, 1997 in Scotts Valley, California by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph. It specialises in and provides streaming media and video on demand online and DVD by mail. In 2013, Netflix added film and television production, as well as online distribution. The company is currently headquartered in Los Gatos.

Cineworld Group plc is the second largest cinema operator in Europe with 2,049 screens across 221 sites in 9 countries. The UK operations consist of arthouse chain Picturehouse Cinemas and multiplex chain Cineworld Cinemas with 24 and 82 cinemas respectively.

Nintendo Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational consumer electronics company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. Nintendo is the world's largest video game company by revenue. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it originally produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as cab services and love hotels.

The Coccinellidae are a family of small beetles, ranging from 1 to 10 mm. They are commonly yellow, orange, or scarlet with small black spots on their wing covers, with black legs, heads and antennae. Such colour patterns vary greatly, however; for example, a minority of species, such as Vibidia duodecimguttata, a twelve-spotted species, have whitish spots on a brown background. Coccinellids are found worldwide, with over 5,000 species described, more than 450 native to North America alone.

View All Fashion

Asos PLC

ASOS.com is a British online fashion and beauty store. Primarily aimed at young adults, ASOS sells over 850 brands as well as its own range of clothing and accessories. Revenue for the financial year ending 31 August 2015 was £1,119.9 million.[3] As of August 2015, ASOS PLC has net assets of £237.3 million.

Adidas AG is a German multinational corporation that designs and manufactures sports clothing and accessories based in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany. It is the holding company for the Adidas Group, which consists of the Reebok sportswear company, TaylorMade-Adidas golf company, Rockport, and 9.1% of FC Bayern Munich. Besides sports footwear, Adidas also produces other products such as bags, shirts, watches, eyewear, and other sports- and clothing-related goods. Adidas is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Germany and Europe and the second biggest sportswear manufacturer in the world.

French Connection Limited

French Connection (also branded as FCUK) is a UK-based global retailer and wholesaler of fashion clothing, accessories and homeware. Founded in the early 1970s by Stephen Marks, who remains chief executive, it is based in London and its parent French Connection Group PLC is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

French Connection distributes its clothing and accessories through its own stores in the UK, US and Canada and through franchise and wholesale arrangements globally. The company became notorious for the use of the "fcuk" initialism in its advertising campaigns in the early 2000s.

Nike, Inc. is an American multinational corporation that is engaged in the design, development and worldwide marketing and selling of footwear, apparel, equipment, accessories and services. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, in the Portland metropolitan area, and is one of only two Fortune 500 companies headquartered in Oregon. It is one of the world's largest suppliers of athletic shoes and apparel and a major manufacturer of sports equipment, with revenue in excess of US$24.1 billion in its fiscal year 2012. As of 2012, it employed more than 44,000 people worldwide. The brand alone is valued at $10.7 billion, making it the most valuable brand among sports businesses.

Matalan Limited

Matalan is a British fashion and homeware retailer based in Knowsley, United Kingdom. In 1985, it was established by John Hargreaves. Matalan have 217 stores across the United Kingdom. The current managing director of Matalan is Jason Hargreaves.

Matalan's stores average 30,000 square feet (2,800 m2). The majority of Matalan's stores are based in out of town locations, based upon a concept that John Hargreaves discovered was successful in America, and that he launched in Preston in 1985. Each store is typically divided into four departments, Women's, Men's, Kids' and Homeware.

Primark Stores Limited

Primark (branded as Penneys in Ireland) is an Irish clothing retailer operating in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States and Italy. It was founded and headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. The company's international headquarters is registered in Ireland. Its UK operations are registered in England and Wales. Primark is a subsidiary of international food, ingredients and retail group Associated British Foods.

View All Finance

Santander UK PLC

Santander UK plc is a British bank, wholly owned by the Spanish Santander Group. Santander UK plc manages its affairs autonomously, with its own local management team, responsible solely for its performance. Santander UK is one of the UK's leading personal financial services companies and one of the largest providers of mortgages and savings in the UK. The bank has circa 20,000 employees, 14 million active customers, with almost 1,010 branches and 50 corporate business centres.

The bank, with its head office in the London Borough of Camden, was established on 11 January 2010 when Abbey National plc was combined with the savings business and branches of Bradford & Bingley plc, and renamed Santander UK plc. Alliance & Leicester plc merged into the renamed business in May 2010.

Between 2007 and 2010, Santander was ranked as worst bank for customer service in the J. D. Power UK Retail Banking Satisfaction Study. However, its '123' product range was ranked third best in the UK in 2013 and in a moneysavingexpert.com poll in 2014 customers ranked their satisfaction higher than with any of other main high street banks.

Lloyds Bank PLC

Lloyds Bank plc is a British retail and commercial bank with branches across England and Wales. It has traditionally been considered one of the "Big Four" clearing banks. Originally founded in Birmingham in 1765, the bank expanded during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and took over a number of smaller banking companies. In 1995 it merged with the Trustee Savings Bank and traded as "Lloyds TSB Bank plc" between 1999 and 2013.

The bank is the principal subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group, which was formed in January 2009 by the acquisition of HBOS by the then-Lloyds TSB Group. That year, following the UK bank rescue package, the British Government took a 43.4% stake in Lloyds Banking Group. As a condition imposed by the European Commission regarding state aid, the group later announced that it would create a new standalone retail banking business, made up of a number of Lloyds TSB branches and those of Cheltenham & Gloucester. The new business began operations on 9 September 2013 under the TSB brand. Lloyds TSB was subsequently renamed Lloyds Bank on 23 September 2013.

HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London, England, United Kingdom. It is one of the world's largest banks. It was founded in London in 1991 by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation to act as a new group holding company. The origins of the bank lie in Hong Kong and Shanghai, where branches were first opened in 1865. The HSBC name is derived from the initials of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

Barclays plc is a British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is a universal bank with operations in retail, wholesale and investment banking, as well as wealth management, mortgage lending and credit cards. It has operations in over 50 countries and territories and has around 48 million customers. As of 31 December 2011 Barclays had total assets of US$2.42 trillion, the seventh-largest of any bank worldwide.

American Express Company, also known as AmEx, is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Three World Financial Center, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. Founded in 1850, it is one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is best known for its credit card, charge card, and traveler's cheque businesses. Amex cards account for approximately 24% of the total dollar volume of credit card transactions in the US.

National Westminster Bank Plc, commonly known as NatWest, is the largest retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom and has been part of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group since 2000. The Royal Bank of Scotland Group is ranked among the top 10 largest banks in the world by assets. NatWest was established in 1968 by the merger of National Provincial Bank and Westminster Bank. Traditionally considered one of the Big Four clearing banks, NatWest has a large network of 1,600 branches and 3,400 cash machines across Great Britain and offers 24-hour Actionline telephone and online banking services. Today it has more than 7.5 million personal customers and 850,000 small business accounts. In Ireland it operates through its Ulster Bank subsidiary.

View All Food & Drink

Cadbury Enterprises pte Limited

Cadbury, officially Cadbury Enterprises pte Limited, is a British confectionery company owned by Mondelēz International and is the industry's second-largest globally after Mars, Incorporated. Cadbury was established in Birmingham by John Cadbury in 1824, who sold tea, coffee and drinking chocolate. Cadbury developed the business with his brother Benjamin, followed by his sons Richard and George. George developed the Bournville estate, a model village designed to give the company's workers good living conditions.

Greggs plc is the largest bakery chain in the United Kingdom. It specialises in savoury products such as pasties, sausage rolls and sandwiches and sweet items including doughnuts and vanilla slices. It is headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange, and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. The first Greggs was opened in 1951. Originally growing regionally from its North East base, Greggs began to acquire other regional bakery chains across the rest of the country from the 1970s onwards. By the 1990s, it was the largest bakery chain in the country, after acquiring its major rival, Bakers Oven, in 1994. In 2011 the chain had 1,671 outlets.

Domino's Pizza is an American restaurant chain and international franchise pizza delivery corporation headquartered at the Domino Farms Office Park in Ann Arbor Charter Township, Michigan, United States, near Ann Arbor, Michigan. Founded in 1960, Domino's is the second-largest pizza chain in the United States and the largest worldwide, with more than 10,000 corporate and franchised stores in 70 countries. Domino's Pizza was sold to Bain Capital in 1998 and went public in 2004.

John West Foods Limited

John West Foods is a United Kingdom-based seafood marketing company established in 1857, and currently owned by Thai Union Group of Thailand. They are known as a producer of canned salmon and tuna, and also supply mackerel, sardine, herring, brisling, anchovies and shellfish.

The original company was founded by T. L. Pelling and C. H. Stanley, who created Pelling Stanley and Company in 1857. The company soon specialised in importing canned food, which at the time was a novel product. By 1879, they were importing canned salmon from the John West company in Oregon, USA. Pelling Stanley purchased the rights to use the John West name in 1888. The first shipments of John West Salmon appeared in 1892.

Nestlé UK Ltd

Nestlé is the world's largest food producer, by revenue. It was formed in the 1950s, when two companies merged. At the start in the 1860s, the company produced soluble milk that could be given to infants and babies. From about the 1930s, Nestlé also produced soluble coffee. In 2010, Nestle's revenue was about 109 billion Swiss Francs, and its net profit was about 32 billion Swiss Francs.

Carling is a brand of beer, as of 2013 owned by the Molson Coors Brewing Company. In South Africa it is distributed by SABMiller.

View All Health

Specsavers Optical Group Ltd is a global retail chain, which offers optician services, along with eyeglasses, contact lenses and hearing aids. In 2012 it had the largest single market share of the four major opticians with 42% of the UK market. The company had a total turnover of £1.5 billion in 2010/2011 and £1.7 billion in 2012, with 1,648 stores in the United Kingdom, Guernsey, Spain, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Australia and New Zealand.

Lloyds Pharmacy Limited

LloydsPharmacy is a British pharmacy company, with more than 1,500 pharmacies. It has around 17,000 staff and dispenses over 150 million prescription items annually. It is owned by the German company Celesio, formerly GEHE AG, which is in turn owned by the American McKesson Corporation.

Colgate-Palmolive

Colgate (sub-brand of Colgate-Palmolive) is an oral hygiene product line of toothpastes, toothbrushes, mouthwashes and dental floss. Colgate toothpaste was first sold by the company in 1873, sixteen years after the death of the founder, William Colgate.

Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland (HSC) is the designation of the publicly funded service which provides public health and other social care services in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Executive through its Department of Health is responsible for its funding, while the Public Health Agency is the executive agency responsible for the provision of health and social care services across Northern Ireland.

It is free of charge to all citizens of Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. For services such as A&E, patients simply walk in, state their name and date of birth, are given treatment and then leave. Patients are unaware of costs incurred by them using the service. It is sometimes called the "NHS", as in England, Scotland and Wales, but differs from the NHS in England and Wales in that it provides not only health care but social care too.

The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system for England. It is the largest and the oldest single-payer healthcare system in the world. Primarily funded through the general taxation system and overseen by the Department of Health, the system provides healthcare to every legal resident in the United Kingdom, with most services free at the point of use. Some services, such as emergency treatment and treatment of infectious diseases are free for everyone, including visitors.

The Beecham Group plc was a British pharmaceutical company. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. Beecham, after having merged with SmithKline Beckman, merged with Glaxo Wellcome to become GlaxoSmithKline. GSK still uses the Beechams brand name in the UK for its over-the-counter cold and flu relief products.

View All Home & Leisure

Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul. It comprises numerous subsidiaries and affiliated businesses, most of them united under the Samsung brand, and is the largest South Korean chaebol.

Dyson Limited

Dyson Ltd is a British technology company that designs and manufactures vacuum cleaners, hand dryers, bladeless fans, and heaters. It sells machines in over 70 countries and employs more than 7,000 people worldwide.

A Dyson vacuum cleaner uses cyclonic separation to remove dust and other particles from the air stream. Dirty air enters a conical container called a cyclone, where it is made to flow in a tight spiral. Centrifugal force throws the particles out of the airflow onto the wall of the container, from which they can fall into a bin. The vacuum cleaner uses several stages of cyclones. Dyson states that centrifugal forces can reach up to 150,000 g

Dunelm (Soft Furnishings) Ltd

Dunelm Group plc (formerly Dunelm Mill) is a United Kingdom-based home furnishings retailer with 150 stores and over 100 in-store Pausa coffee shops, throughout the United Kingdom. One of the largest homewares retailers in the United Kingdom, Dunelm's headquarters are in Watermead Business Park, Syston in Leicestershire, England. It also has its own factory for curtains, blinds and accessories, based in Leicester.

Buy it Direct LTD

Appliances Direct are the specialist appliance division of the BuyItDirect Group. BuyItDirect has an annual turnover in excess of £100m and employs over 150 staff.

IKEA is a Swedish company registered in the Netherlands that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture, appliances, and home accessories. As of January 2008, the company is the world's largest furniture retailer. Founded in Sweden in 1943 by a 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad, who is one of the world's richest people in 2013, the company's name is an acronym that consists of the initials of Ingvar Kamprad, Elmtaryd, and Agunnaryd. The company is known for its modern architectural designs for various types of appliances and furniture, and its interior design work is often associated with an eco-friendly simplicity. In addition, the firm is known for its attention to cost control, operational details, and continuous product development, corporate attributes that allowed IKEA to lower its prices by an average of two to three percent over the decade to 2010 during a period of global expansion.

AO World plc

AO World plc (formerly Appliances Online) is an online retailer specialising in household appliances. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

The company was established as Appliances Online by John Roberts (the current CEO) in 2000. John was bet £1 that he could not set up his own company by a close friend, whether the winnings were collected is still unknown. It also sold kitchen appliances on behalf of Boots, Next, House of Fraser, B&Q and Iceland.

View All Insurance

Aviva PLC

Aviva plc is a British multinational insurance company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It has around 33 million customers across 16 countries. In the UK, Aviva is the largest general insurer and a leading life and pensions provider. In addition, Aviva has a focus on five markets in Europe and, in Asia, the company is focused on the growth markets of China and South East Asia. Aviva is also the second largest general insurer in Canada.

Legal & General Group PLC

Legal & General Group plc, commonly known as Legal & General, is a British multinational financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Its products include life insurance, general insurance, pensions and investments. It has operations in the United Kingdom, Egypt, France, Germany, the Gulf, India, the Netherlands and the United States.

Swiftcover Insurance Services Ltd

Swiftcover was an internet-based UK insurance company formed in 2005 by a group of former Churchill Insurance executives. In 2007 Swiftcover was acquired by AXA and it is now a wholly owned subsidiary of AXA UK plc. It operates call centres in Tunbridge Wells, Kent and in Teesside. Customers can manage their policy (including changes to policies) online

View All Media

The Daily Express is a daily national tabloid newspaper in the United Kingdom. It is the flagship title of Express Newspapers, a subsidiary of Northern & Shell (which is wholly owned by Richard Desmond). It was launched in broadsheet format in 1900. In May 2015, it had an average daily circulation of 432,076.

The Daily Express has become a supporter of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), acting as a financial backer, and closely follows the party line.

Express Newspapers also publishes the Sunday Express (launched in 1918), Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday.

Associated Newspapers Limited

The Daily Mail is a British daily conservative, middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, and his brother Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982. Scottish and Irish editions of the daily paper were launched in 1947 and 2006 respectively. The Daily Mail was Britain's first daily newspaper aimed at the newly literate "lower-middle class market resulting from mass education, combining a low retail price with plenty of competitions, prizes and promotional gimmicks", and was the first British paper to sell a million copies a day.

News Group Newspapers Limited

The Sun is a daily tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Since The Sun on Sunday was launched in February 2012, the paper has been a seven-day operation. As a broadsheet, it was founded in 1964 as a successor to the Daily Herald; it became a tabloid in 1969 after it was purchased by its current owners. It is published by the News Group Newspapers division of News UK, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

he Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) was established on Monday 8 September 2014 following the windup of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), which had been the main industry regulator of the press in the United Kingdom since 1990. The PCC received extensive criticism for its lack of action in the News International phone hacking scandal, including from MPs and Prime Minister David Cameron, who called for it to be replaced with a new system in July 2011. The Leveson Inquiry was set up and reported in November 2012, recommending in favour of the establishment of a new independent body.

View All Motoring

The Land Rover name was originally used by the Rover Company for one specific vehicle model, named simply the Land Rover, launched by Rover in 1948. Over the following years it developed into a marque encompassing a range of four-wheel-drive models, including the Defender, Discovery, Freelander, Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Range Rover Evoque. Land Rovers are currently assembled in the company's Halewood and Solihull plants, with research and development taking place at JLR's Gaydon and Whitley engineering centres. Land Rover sold 194,000 vehicles worldwide in 2009.

Mercedes-Benz UK Limited

Mercedes-Benz is a German automobile manufacturer, a multinational division of the German manufacturer Daimler AG. The brand is used for luxury automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Peugeot is a French car brand, part of PSA Peugeot Citroën.

Audi AG is a German automobile manufacturer, designs, engineers, manufactures and distributes automobiles. Audi oversees worldwide operations from its headquarters in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. Audi-branded vehicles are produced in nine production facilities worldwide.

Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Volkswagen is the original and top-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, the biggest German automaker and the third largest automaker in the world.

Vauxhall Motors (registered name General Motors UK Limited) is a British automotive manufacturing and distribution company headquartered in Luton and an affiliated company of the German Adam Opel AG, both being wholly owned subsidiaries of General Motors (GM) in the United States. The company sells passenger cars and light commercial vehicles under the Vauxhall marque; in the past it has also sold buses and trucks under the Bedford brand. Vauxhall has been the second-largest-selling car brand in the UK for more than two decades.

View All Online

Amazon.com, Inc. is a American international electronic commerce company with headquarters in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified, selling DVDs, VHSs, CDs, video and MP3 downloads/streaming, software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, and jewelry. The company also produces consumer electronics—notably the Amazon Kindle e-book reader and the Kindle Fire tablet computer—and is a major provider of cloud computing services.

Hotmail was acquired by Microsoft in 1997 for an estimated $400 million and launched as MSN Hotmail, later rebranded to Windows Live Hotmail as part of the Windows Live suite of products. Microsoft released the final version of Hotmail in October 2011, available in 36 languages. It was replaced by Outlook.com in 2013.

WordPress is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. WordPress is installed on a web server, which either is part of an Internet hosting service or is a network host itself; the first case may be on a service like WordPress.com, for example, and the second case is a computer running the software package WordPress.org. An example of the second case is a local computer configured to act as its own web server hosting WordPress for single-user testing or learning purposes. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system. WordPress was used by more than 26.4% of the top 10 million websites as of April 2016.

eBay (UK) Limited

eBay Inc. is an American multinational internet consumer-to-consumer corporation, headquartered in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1995, and became a notable success story of the dot-com bubble; it is now a multi-billion dollar business with operations localized in over thirty countries. The company manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. In addition to its auction-style sellings, the website has since expanded to include "Buy It Now" standard shopping; shopping by UPC, ISBN, or other kind of SKU ; online classified advertisements ; online event ticket trading ; online money transfers and other services.

Facebook UK Ltd

Facebook is a social networking service and website started in February 2004. It is owned by Facebook, Inc.As of September 2012, Facebook has over one billion active users. Users may make a personal profile, add other users as friends, and send messages. Facebook users must register before using the site. Users may join user groups. These groups can be for a workplace, school or college, or other interest. The name of the service comes from the name for the book given to students at the start of the school year by some universities in the United States. These books help students get to know each other better. Facebook allows any users who say they are at least 13 years old to become users of the website.

Yahoo Limited

Yahoo Inc. (also known simply as Yahoo!) is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Yahoo was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994 and was incorporated on March 2, 1995. Yahoo was one of the pioneers of the early internet era in the 1990s. Marissa Mayer, a former Google executive, serves as CEO and President of the company.

View All Pets

Pets at Home LTD

Pets at Home is the United Kingdom's largest pet supplies retailer, with more than 370 stores and 6,000 employees. The company sells products including food, toys, bedding, medication and accessories and pets.

Pedigree Petfoods is a subsidiary of the American group Mars, Incorporated specialising in pet food, with factories in England at Melton Mowbray and Birstall, Leeds; and offices at McLean, Virginia.

n 1934, Mars Limited, a division of the large American confectionery company, that had been based in Slough since 1932, acquired Chappel Brothers in Manchester. This company took low-quality meat and canned it as dog food, branded as "Chappie".

Iams is a brand name for dog food and cat food manufactured by Procter & Gamble. The company sells pet food for cats and dogs formulated for puppy/kitten, adult and mature. Its products are developed by nutritionists and veterinarians and can be found in three main formulas: ProActive Health, Healthy Naturals and Premium Protection. Veterinary formulas for pets with special dietary requirements are also available.

JCR Products Limited

Pet Tags UK provide metal pet identity tags for dogs and cats.

View All Public Bodies

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is the largest government department in the United Kingdom, and is responsible for welfare and pension policy.

The Department has four operational organisations: Jobcentre Plus administers working age benefits such as Jobseeker's Allowance, and decides which claimants receive Employment and Support Allowance; the Pension Service which pays the Basic State Pension and Pension Credit and provides information on related issues; Disability and Carers Service which provides financial support to disabled people and their carers; and the Child Maintenance Group which provides the statutory Child Support Schemes, operating as the Child Support Agency and the Child Maintenance Service.

Her Majesty's Passport Office (HMPO) is a division of the Home Office in the United Kingdom. It provides passports for British nationals worldwide and was formed on 1 April 2006 as the Identity and Passport Service, although the Passport Office had also been its previous name.

The General Register Office for England and Wales became a subsidiary of HMPO on 1 April 2008, and produces life event certificates such as birth, death, marriage and civil partnerships.

HMPO's headquarters is collocated with the Home Office at 2 Marsham Street and it has seven regional offices around the UK, inLondon, Glasgow, Belfast, Peterborough, Liverpool, Newport and Durham as well as an extensive nationwide interview office network as all first time adult passport applicants are required to attend an interview to verify their identity as a fraud prevention measure.

View All Restaurants

The McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 68 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948 they reorganized their business as a hamburger stand using production line principles. Businessman Ray Kroc joined the company as a franchise agent in 1955. He subsequently purchased the chain from the McDonald brothers and oversaw its worldwide growth.

KFC is a fast food restaurant chain that specialises in fried chicken and is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. It is the world's second largest restaurant chain overall after McDonald's, with over 20,000 outlets in 123 countries and territories as of December 2015. The company is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, a restaurant company that also owns the Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurant chains.

Burger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain. After Insta-Burger King ran into financial difficulties in 1954, its two Miami-based franchisees, David Edgerton and James McLamore, purchased the company and renamed it Burger King. Over the next half century, the company would change hands four times, with its third set of owners, a partnership of TPG Capital, Bain Capital, and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, taking it public in 2002. In late 2010, 3G Capital of Brazil acquired a majority stake in BK in a deal valued at US$3.26 billion. The new owners promptly initiated a restructuring of the company to reverse its fortunes.

Subway is an American fast food restaurant franchise that primarily sells submarine sandwiches and salads. It is owned and operated by Doctor's Associates, Inc. Subway is one of the fastest growing franchises in the world with 40,229 restaurants in 102 countries and territories as of 11 September 2013. It is the largest single-brand restaurant chain and the largest restaurant operator globally.

J D Wetherspoon PLC

Wetherspoons (J D Wetherspoon plc) is a pub chain in the UK and Ireland, with headquarters in Watford, Hertfordshire. Founded in 1979 by Tim Martin, the company owns just under 1,000 outlets. The chain's pubs offer cask ale, low prices, long opening hours, and no music. The company also operates the Lloyds No.1 chain and Wetherspoon Hotels.

The chain is known for converting large, unconventional premises into pubs. Premises tend to be large by British pub standards, and use an open plan layout.

Starbucks Corporation is an American global coffee company and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 20,891 stores in 62 countries, including 13,279 in the United States, 1,324 in Canada, 989 in Japan, 851 in the People's Republic of China, 806 in the United Kingdom, 556 in South Korea, 377 in Mexico, 291 in Taiwan, 206 in the Philippines, 179 in Turkey, 171 in Thailand, and 167 in Germany. In addition, Starbucks is an active member of the World Cocoa Foundation.

View All Retail

 

ASDA Stores Limited

Asda Stores Limited is a British supermarket retailer, headquartered in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The company became a subsidiary of the American retail corporate giant Walmart after a £6.7 billion takeover in July 1999, and was the second-largest supermarket chain in Britain between 2003 and 2014, by market share.

Besides its core supermarket retail format, the company also offers a number of other products, including financial services and a mobile phone company using the existing network of EE. Asda's marketing promotions are usually based solely on price, and like its parent company, Walmart, Asda promotes itself under the slogan "Save Money. Live Better".

 

Tesco PLC

Tesco PLC is a British multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom. It is the second-largest retailer in the world measured by profits. and third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues. It has stores in 14 countries across Asia, Europe and North America and is the grocery market leader in the UK, Malaysia, the Republic of Ireland and Thailand.

Sainsbury's is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 16.9% share of the UK supermarket sector.  Founded in 1869, by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company became the largest grocery retailer in 1922, was an early adopter of self-service retailing in the UK, and had its heyday during the 1980s.

Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc is the fourth largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, headquartered in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The company is usually referred to and is branded as Morrisons, and it is part of the FTSE 100 Index of companies. Morrisons's market share as of August 2013 was 11.3%, making it the smallest of the "Big Four" supermarkets, behind Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's, but ahead of the fifth place Co-operative Group, which had a share of 4.4%.

Aldi is a leading global discount supermarket chain with over 9,000 stores in over 18 countries.

Marks and Spencer plc is a major British multinational retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London, with 703 stores in the United Kingdom and 361 stores spread across more than 40 countries. It specialises in the selling of clothing and luxury food products. M&S was founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in Leeds.

View All Software

Microsoft Windows (or simply Windows) is a metafamily of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft. It consists of several families of operating systems, each of which cater to a certain sector of the computing industry with the OS typically associated with IBM PC compatible architecture. 

View All Sports

Sports Direct International PLC

Sports Direct International plc is a British retailing group. Established in 1982 by Mike Ashley, the company is the United Kingdom's largest sports-goods retailer and operates roughly 670 stores worldwide. The company owns a large number of sporting brands and trades predominantly under the SportsDirect.com brand. Other retailers owned by the company include USCand Lillywhites. The company operates under low margins.

Sporting and fashion brands owned include Donnay, Slazenger, Firetrap, Dunlop (in most markets), Everlast, Kangol, Karrimor andLonsdale.

Chelsea Football Club is an English football club based in Fulham, London. Founded in 1905, they play in the English Premier League and have spent most of their history in the top tier of English football. Their home is the 41,837 seat Stamford Bridge stadium, where they have played since their establishment.

View All Toiletries

Dove is a personal care brand owned by Unilever originating in the United Kingdom. Dove products are manufactured in Argentina,Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Ireland, Mexico, Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa,Thailand, Turkey and United States. The products are sold in more than 80 countries and are offered for both women and men. Dove's logo is a silhouette profile of the brand's namesake bird.

Vincent Lamberti was granted the original patents related to the manufacturing of Dove in the 1950s while he worked for the Lever brothers.

Lynx is a brand of male grooming products, owned by the Anglo-Dutch company Unilever and marketed towards the young male demographic.

Lynx was launched in France in 1983 by Unilever. It was inspired by another of Unilever's brands, Impulse.

Vidal Sassoon, CBE was a British hairdresser, businessman, and philanthropist. He is credited with creating a simple geometric, "Bauhaus-inspired" hair style, also called the wedge bob. Establishing himself in the US in 1965, he opened the first chain of worldwide hairstyling salons, complemented by a line of hair-treatment products that became an international brand. His company's 1980s television commercials featured the popular tag line, "If you don't look good, we don't look good." Vidal Sassoon: The Movie, a documentary film about his life, was released in 2010.

View All Toys & Games

PlayStation, (officially abbreviated PS) is a series of video game consoles created and owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The brand was first introduced on December 3, 1994 in Japan with the launch of the original PlayStation console. It now consists of four home consoles, as well as a media center, an online service, a line of controllers, two handhelds and a phone, as well as multiple magazines.

Lego Company Limited

Lego is a popular line of construction toys manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of colourful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, minifigures and various other parts. Lego bricks can be assembled and connected in many ways, to construct such objects as vehicles, buildings, and even working robots. Anything constructed can then be taken apart again, and the pieces used to make other objects.

The Lego Group began manufacturing the interlocking toy bricks in 1949. Since then a global Lego subculture has developed. Supporting movies, games, competitions, and six Legoland amusement parks have been developed under the brand. As of July 2015, 600 billion Lego parts had been produced.

Hornby Railways is a British model railway brand. Its roots date back to 1901, when founder Frank Hornby received a patent for his Meccano construction toy. The first clockwork train was produced in 1920. In 1938, Hornby launched its first 00 gauge train. In 1964, Hornby and Meccano were bought by their competitor, Tri-Ang, and sold on when Tri-ang went into receivership. Hornby Railways became independent in the 1980s.

The Early Learning Centre is a British chain of shops selling toys for very young children.

Originally set up as a mail order company in 1974 and based near Swindon, by 1980 it had ten shops, and it has grown to include 215 shops in the United Kingdom, and over 80 in 19 other countries including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Canada and Australia. In addition, their toys are available in some Debenhams, Boots & Sainsbury's stores.

Tomy Co., Ltd. is a Japanese toy, children's merchandise and entertainment company created from the merger of two companies:  Tomy and long-time rival, Takara. Merged on 1 March 2006, the company has its headquarters in Katsushika, Tokyo.

Pokémon Go is a free-to-play, location-based augmented reality game developed by Niantic for iOS and Android devices. It was initially released in selected countries in July 2016. In the game, players use a mobile device's GPS capability to locate, capture, battle, and train virtual creatures, called Pokémon, who appear on the screen as if they were in the same real-world location as the player. The game supports in-app purchases for additional in-game items.

Pokémon Go was released to mixed reviews, with critics praising the game's concept and the incentive to be more active in the real world, while criticising frequent technical issues apparent at launch. Despite such reviews, it quickly became a global phenomenon and was one of the most used mobile apps, having been downloaded by more than 130 million people worldwide. It was credited with popularising location-based and augmented reality gaming, as well as for promoting physical activity and helping local business grow. However, it has also attracted controversy for contributing to accidents and becoming a public nuisance at some locations. Multiple governments expressed concerns over the game's security, with legislation regarding it being passed in some countries as a result.

View All Travel

Turkish Airlines is the national flag carrier airline of Turkey, headquartered at the Turkish Airlines General Management Building on the grounds of Atatürk Airport in Yeşilköy, Bakırköy, Istanbul. As of July 2015, it operates scheduled services to 290 destinations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, making it the fourth-largest carrier in the world by number of destinations, as of 2014. In Europe the airline company ranks first for the number of destinations served non-stop from a single airport. Turkish Airlines is also the operator that flies to the most countries (115 in total).

Uber UK Limited

Uber Technologies Inc. is an American multinational online transportation network company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It develops, markets and operates the Uber mobile app, which allows consumers with smartphones to submit a trip request which is then routed to Uber drivers who use their own cars. As of August 2016, the service was available in over 66 countries and 507 cities worldwide. Since Uber's launch, several other companies have replicated its business model, a trend that has come to be referred to as "Uberification".

Uber was founded as "UberCab" by Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp in 2009 and the app was released the following June. Beginning in 2012, Uber expanded internationally. In 2014, it experimented with carpooling features and made other updates. Klout ranked the San Francisco-based company as the 48th-most powerful company in America in 2014. By late-2015, Uber was estimated to be worth $62.5 billion

Ryanair Ltd

Ryanair is an Irish low-cost airline headquartered in Swords, Dublin, Ireland, with its primary operational bases at Dublin and London Stansted Airports. In 2013, Ryanair was both the largest European airline by scheduled passengers carried, and the busiest international airline by passenger numbers.

Ryanair operates over 350 Boeing 737-800 aircraft, with a single 737-700 maintained on the roster as a backup plane and for pilot training. The airline has been characterised by its rapid expansion, a result of the deregulation of the aviation industry in Europe in 1997 and the success of its low-cost business model. Ryanair's route network serves 32 countries in Europe, Africa (Morocco), and the Middle East (Israel).

Europcar UK Limited

Europcar is a French car rental company founded in 1949 in Paris.The head office of the holding company, Europcar Group S.A., is in the business park of Val Saint-Quentin at Voisins-le-Bretonneux (Saint Quentin en Yvelines), France.

As of 2016, Europcar operates in 140 countries covering Europe, North America, Western Asia, and Africa. Since May 2006, Europcar has been owned by Eurazeo, one of the top listed investment companies in Europe.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car UK Ltd.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car is an American car rental company headquartered in Clayton, Missouri, United States in Greater St. Louis. In addition to car rental, Enterprise also oversees commercial fleet management, used car sales, and commercial truck rental operations.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car was established in St. Louis, Missouri in 1957 by Jack C. Taylor. Originally known as "Executive Leasing Company," in 1969, Taylor renamed the company "Enterprise" after the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, on which he served during World War II. In 2009, Enterprise became a subsidiary of Enterprise Holdings, Inc., following the company's 2007 acquisition of Vanguard Automotive Group, the parent company of National Car Rental and Alamo Rent a Car. The resulting company was 21st on the 2008 Forbes list of "Largest Private Companies in America.

Qatar Airways Q.C.S.C.

Qatar Airways Company, operating as Qatar Airways, is the state-owned flag carrier of Qatar. Headquartered in the Qatar Airways Tower in Doha, the airline operates a hub-and-spoke network, linking over 150 international destinations across Africa, Central Asia, Europe, Far East, South Asia, Middle East, North America, South America and Oceania from its base at Hamad International Airport, using a fleet of more than 180 aircraft.

Qatar Airways Group employs more than 40,000 people, of whom 24,000 work directly for Qatar Airways. The carrier has been a member of the Oneworld alliance since October 2013, the first Gulf carrier to sign with one of the three airline alliances.

View All Water

Thames Water Utilities Limited

Thames Water Utilities Ltd, known as Thames Water, is the private utility company responsible for the public water supply and waste water treatment in large parts of Greater London, the Thames Valley, Surrey, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Kent, and some other areas of the United Kingdom. Thames Water is the UK's largest water and wastewater services company, and supplies 2.6 gigalitres of drinking water per day, and treats 4.4 gigalitres of wastewater per day. Thames Water's 15 million customers comprise 27% of the UK population.

United Utilities Group PLC

United Utilities Group PLC (UU), the United Kingdom's largest listed water company, was founded in 1995 as a result of the merger of North West Water and NORWEB.

The group manages the regulated water and waste water network in North West England - which includes Cumbria, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside which have a combined population of nearly 7 million. The United Utilities Group was the distribution network operator for the North West until 2010 when the electricity subsidiary was sold to Electricity North West. United Utilities' headquarters are in Warrington and the company has 5,300 direct employees. Its shares are listed on the London Stock Exchange and the FTSE 100 Index.

North West England is the wettest region in England, and water hardness across the region is soft to very soft.

Severn Trent Water Limited

Severn Trent plc is a UK water company that is traded on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

Severn Trent, the trading name owned by the above company applies to a group of companies employing more than 15,000 people across the UK, US and mainland Europe, with some involvement in the Middle East.

The main companies in the group are Severn Trent Water and Severn Trent Services.

Severn Trent Laboratories was rebranded as part of Severn Trent Services in 2010 to streamline the company better and to give a single worldwide image, rather than a series of separate organisations with different identities.

As with all UK water companies, Severn Trent is regulated under the Water Industry Act 1991.

Ofwat are a non-ministerial government department established in 1989 when the water and sewerage industry in England and Wales was privatised.

Ofwat are financed by licence fees that are recovered from the water companies and accountable to Parliament for the money we spend, also providing information to the Treasury, the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee.

Ofwat do not generally deal with individual consumer complaints or enquiries about water companies or individual water bills.

The Consumer Council for Water is the statutory consumer body for the water sector in England and Wales. If you are concerned about your water bill or have a complaint about your water company, first discuss it with your water company. If you remain unhappy, you should contact the Consumer Council for Water.

Welsh Water - Dwr Cymru is a company which supplies drinking water and wastewater services to most of Wales and parts of western England.

It is regulated under the Water Industry Act 1991 as amended by the Water Act 2014.

Welsh Water originated from the privatisation in 1989 of water supply and waste water arms of the Welsh Water Authority which itself had its origins in the Welsh National Water Development Authority that was created by the 1973 restructuring of the water industry in England and Wales.

Albion Water Limited

Albion Water was licensed by the Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) in 1999, it was as the first new entrant to compete against the monopoly water companies in England.