HAVING ended 2017 by unveiling a merger of its retail arm with rival npower, Perth-headquartered energy giant SSE spent much of the year working towards pushing the transaction through.

Everything looked to be on track when, in October, the Competition and Markets Authority ruled that as the providers are “not close rivals” on standard variable tariffs the deal could go ahead.

However, the pair called off the deal in December, citing “challenging market conditions” and the implications of the Government’s energy price cap, which comes into force on January 1.

Chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies said at the time: “This was a complex transaction with many moving parts.

“We closely monitored the impact of all developments and continually reviewed whether this remained the right deal to do for our customers, our employees and our shareholders.

“Ultimately, we have now concluded that it is not. This was not an easy decision to make, but we believe it is the right one.”

While Mr Phillips-Davies said that SSE will now consider a number of other options, including the demerger and listing of its retail arm, the FTSE 100 company’s shares suffered in the aftermath of the announcement, losing three per cent in one day.

It is not the only firm to have had a tough year in 2018. Fellow Perth-headquartered business Stagecoach has suffered several setbacks over the course of the year, losing the contract to run the East Coast rail line in the first half and writing down £85.4 million of the value in its US business – which it later agreed to sell – in the second.

The loss of the East Coast contract, which Stagecoach operated alongside Virgin Trains, came after the business last year also lost the South West Trains contract. Turnover in its UK rail business fell by 63% to £335.1m in the six months to the end of October as a result, with operating profits almost halving from £21.7m to £11.5m.

In the US, Stagecoach began exploring the option of rationalising or even selling off its operations after revealing that first-half revenues fell by three per cent to $323.3m while operating profits fell from $27.6m to $21.2m, a decline of 23%.

In its first-half results, the company said the drop in profits had led it to revise its long-term view on the profitability of its US division and write down the value of its assets there, most of which had been acquired in a £101m deal in 2012.

Last week the company agreed to sell the US business to private equity house Variant Equity Advisors for $271m, with chief executive Martin Griffiths saying it would “allow management to focus more closely on the significant opportunities for growth in the UK”.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2019.

In Fife, engineering firm BiFab, which ended 2017 in receipt of a £35m bailout package from the Scottish Government, has also had a difficult time in 2018.

Though the year started with the firm being sued by German business EEW - a dispute that was settled before reaching the courts – its accounts for 2017, which were lodged at Companies House in October, revealed that the business made a pre-tax loss of £48.7m during that year.

Although things had begun looking up for BiFab when it was bought out by Canadian company JV Driver in April, the firm was unable to secure any new work over the course of the year, leading it to lay off all but a handful of staff.

While operations director Martin Adam wrote in the 2017 accounts that he expected the business to win new work by the end of this year, delays to projects in the renewables sector, including the Moray East Windfarm, meant none of those it was tendering for have yet been awarded.

Elsewhere, there was devastating news for the founders and employees of FanDuel in the middle of this year, when the tech company’s private equity backers locked them out of participating in the firm’s sale to Irish bookmaker Paddy Power Betfair.

The deal had been expected to deliver a significant cash windfall to the five-strong team that founded the firm in Edinburgh almost a decade ago, with current and former staff members with shares and options in the business also due to receive a payout.

US private equity houses Shamrock Capital Advisers and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, which in 2014 and 2015 respectively led $70 million and $275m fundraising rounds for FanDuel, were able to exclude ordinary shareholders from the deal by exercising their majority shareholder drag-along rights.

Four of FanDuel’s five founders, including husband and wife team Lesley and Nigel Eccles, have disputed the action in the Court of Session, with a hearing expected to take place at some point in 2019.

It was not all bad news for the Eccleses, though, with former FanDuel chief executive Mr Eccles closing a $4m fundraising for his new venture, Flick, in July.

The eSports company, which is headquartered in New York but builds its technology in Edinburgh, was set up by Mr Eccles and fellow FanDuel founder Rob Jones.

Similarly, Ms Eccles, who had been head of marketing at FanDuel, raised $2.2m for her own new venture, a lifestyle app called Relish.

Celia Hodson also set up a new business in 2018, with the philosophy behind her social enterprise Hey Girls being to help eradicate period poverty in the UK.

Though the business is less than a year old, it is already proving popular, with large retailers and businesses attracted to a model that sees the firm donate an identical product every time someone purchases one of its goods.

Its tampons, sanitary pads, menstruation cups and reusable pads are already stocked in Asda and Waitrose stores across the UK with Hey Girls close to signing a distribution deal with another supermarket chain.

The success of the business has already been recognised, with Ms Hodson picking up a number of awards, including Social Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2018 Summit Entrepreneurship Awards.

At the blue-chip end of the market, drinks business Edrington had an outstanding year, driven by the popularity of its flagship brand The Macallan.

Indeed, while auctioneer Sotheby’s revealed that The Macallan had risen from being the 100th to seventh most valuable brand by value of sales in 2017 after experiencing a rise of over 4,000%, the importance of the single malt to Edrington was underscored when it opened its £140m, Speyside-based, state-of-the-art Macallan distillery in May.

Speaking at the launch of the distillery, Edrington chief executive Ian Curle said: “This is an exciting occasion for Edrington and The Macallan.

“The unsurpassed quality of The Macallan is in high demand and we face the future confidently with this new distillery.

“It’s an authentic, abiding, ambitious investment that will match consumer expectations for generations to come.”

The business will start the 2019/20 year with a new chief executive at the helm, with Mr Curle due to retire in March. Mr Curle, who has been with the business since 1986 and run it since 2004, will be replaced by Scott McCroskie, currently managing director of The Macallan.

Mr Curle said that “Edrington’s best days lie ahead of it”, adding that under Mr McCroskie the company would “continue to be an ambitious, dynamic business”.