Post Business - 22nd August 2013

postbusiness Start-ups soar Entrepreneurs harnessingthe powerofdata

Creative10-11

thisweek

Techfirmis lookingEast Big Interview 12-13

New businesses springing up across Merseyside Isanother bubbleon theway?

BigFeature4-5

GTinvestsin thefuture Legal 14

Thetea shopcyclists

Networker22

P18 &19

2 post business news

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Abbey Logistics investment rewarded with long-term deal Port staff BOOTLE transport group Abbey Logistics has secured a long-term contract with one of the world’s major suppliers of purest lime.

It follows a £1.5m investment in equipment by the Brasenose Road-based firm to serve its current contract with LHoist UK. LHoist operates lime works in Hindlow, near Buxton, and Hartley, near Kirkby Stephen, serving the construction, waste water, food industry, drinking water, agriculture, flue gas treatment, chemistry and soil stabilisation sectors.

Abbey developed a service especially to meet the requirements of LHoist at its “difficult to access” sites.

Dave Coulson, Abbey commercial director, said: “This latest contract award is testament to how Abbey have developed over the past three years – particularly in the bulk powder distribution market – and we are delighted to have secured this prestigious contract which sits in line with our five year growth aspirations set in 2010.”

LHoist sales and logistics director, Gwyn Watkins, added: “We have been impressed by Abbey’s innovative approach to service and delivery. We look forward to a long and happy working relationship.”

sent to Liverpool college

Gwyn Watkins, left, LHoist sales and logistics director, and Abbey’s commercial director Dave Coulson

Liverpool firm first to attain investigations benchmark

by Neil Hodgson

POST BUSINESS STAFF

neil.hodgson@liverpool.com

A LIVERPOOL firm is the first to achieve the top standard for investigation agencies.

Home Secretary Theresa May has announced moves to regulate private investigators from autumn 2014.

The British Standard BS 102000 for Investigative Services will be introduced this autumn and will require firms to demonstrate compliance and commitment in areas like staff vetting and training in line with relevant legislation, and control of information with protection and destruction policies.

Government regulations will deal with the licensing of individuals,

while the British Standard will act as a corporate standard for companies.

Probe Investigations, in Hunts Cross, is the first company accredited with BS 102000 after participating in a pilot scheme to assess it against the new draft British Standard.

Probe founding managing director Peter Farrington said: “We are pioneers.”

He added: “The company is well established and has been well run since we set up in 2000.”

He said the new standard will help an industry which, he believes, is seen as “shadowy”.

Mr Farrington said: “Criminals were accessing medical and financial records and selling them. People lost faith in reputable companies like ours because of the antics of these people.

“But these people somehow got labelled private investigators.

“There is nothing of the kind. We are professional investigators, or commercial investigators.

“We are almost an arm of the civil court. We provide a service in terms of legal proceedings, like a court case, where we establish facts which allow solicitors to negotiate with their opposite number. We are a legal support service.”

And he welcomed the new standard: “This will separate the wheat from the chaff straight away. It is a one-stop due diligence process that saves me having to sell our services. I can just point to BS 102000 and say ‘there is no higher standard’.”

He predicted: “As this evolves, investigators presenting evidence in court will be asked whether they meet this standard.”

Probe will receive its certificate next month.

Gender gap persists in North West BONUS payments are aggravating the gender pay gap in the North West by more than 50%, a study claims.

The survey of 2,469 managers in the region by the Chartered Man-

agement Institute (CMI) and XpertHR reveals male managers in the North West earned average bonuses more than twice as big as those of their female counterparts over the

last 12 months – £5,926 compared to £2,806.

This is on top of average basic salaries 19% bigger. Analysis of the National Management Salary Survey, which includes data from

more than 43,000 UK workers, shows on average men across the country stand to earn over £141,500 more in bonuses than women doing the same role over a lifetime.

A COMPANY supplying skilled workers to the Port of Liverpool are to send 64 staff to Liverpool Community College’s Glaciere Maritime Academy for training.

Drake Ports Distribution contracts and manages skilled personnel for the port across a variety of activities.

Of those undergoing the training, 37 will come from the Liverpool side of the River Mersey and 27 from the Twelve Quays Stena Line Terminal at Birkenhead.

The staff will be completing their Port Operatives apprenticeship with the college.

Skills include safe loading and unloading of ships, safe working, driving boats, communication skills including VHF radio usage, sea survival, first aid, and safe mooring, working at heights and team working.

Chris Symonds, manager for Drake at Twelve Quays said: “We are delighted to be working with Liverpool Community College to help up skill our staff working in these areas, which in turn will improve performance of the sector and help workers in their own careers.

“Apprenticeships are excellent programmes and Liverpool Community College works with the company to tailor them to suit the development of the skillset.”

POST BUSINESS DAILY A revolution in the way business people get their news Peter Farrington

Seafarers’ bill NEW legislation from this week will provide “decent” working conditions for seafarers, unions believe.

The Maritime Labour Convention, known as the Seafarers’ Bill of Rights, will cover welfare facilities in ports, pay issues and protections for employees.

Download today for your free 30-day trial www.liverpool dailypost.co.uk/ businessdaily

Thursday, August 22, 2013

news

Wilde McKeown to lead Visitor Economy Board ONE of the North West’s leading businesswomen has become chair of the Liverpool city region’s Visitor Economy Board.

Sara Wilde McKeown will lead the new board, overseeing the strategic development of the Merseyside tourism sector.

The new body replaces the former Visitor Economy Committee and is the

sub-region’s official Tourist Board, reporting to the main board of the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership.

Ms Wilde McKeown is currently managing director of Liverpool-based PR company, Paver Smith, a role she took up in May. She is a former commercial managing director of Trinity Mirror’s regional

newspaper group, publisher of the Liverpool Post.

Prior to that, she was managing director of Trinity’s digital and events businesses across the North West and North Wales.

Previously, she also chaired the Mersey Waterfront Regional Park regeneration scheme.

She said: “The people, businesses and attractions that

form our destination offer are among the most successful parts of the city region’s economy.

“The Visitor Economy Board must make sure further opportunities for growth are identified and that the sector carries on delivering a unique visitor experience.

“Liverpool is one of the most powerful city brands in the world.”

DNA test company is getting bigger Sara Wilde McKeown

Benefits of training and apprentices outweigh cost

by Neil Hodgson

POST BUSINESS STAFF

neil.hodgson@liverpool.com

THE head of a North West specialist engineering group has backed the use of apprenticeships to help generate future growth in the small and medium-sized firms sector.

Earlier this week a Lloyds TSB report highlighted the threat a workforce skills gap can pose for employers.

Mark Beswick, managing director of R&B Group, insists specialist training and apprenticeship schemes are vital to keep businesses competitive, profitable and able to grow.

Mr Beswick said: “The report from Lloyds, which states that 94% of companies surveyed believe that the skills gap in their workplace has a detrimental impact on their business, is startling.

“There’s little doubt that a lack of investment in training and skills can limit growth and profitability, but this isn’t inevitable and there’s definitely ways to avoid a skills gap emerging.”

He believes putting workforce training at the heart of a business is essential.

“I started my career as an apprentice more than 30 years ago and it’s my belief that this is the most effective model of training.”

Mr Beswick added: “It’s something that we have continued to implement in our business model today, with four of our current 92 engineering professionals training through a ded-

icated apprenticeship scheme.”

R&B Group specialises in the design and manufacture of full turn-key projects for the marine, power, industrial and offshore sectors.

It has five offices throughout the UK, Scotland and the USA, including Knowsley Business Park-based Switchgear Integrated Maintenance which has recently joined the Heywood-based business.

And Mr Beswick said businesses should not be put off by the cost of training an apprentice.

“For us, putting an apprentice through the appropriate training sets a business back around £20,000, and with additional training for specialist work areas this ends up being closer to £25,000.

“However, without this investment, we would not be able to operate in specialist sectors such as offshore, which accounts for around 25% of our business.”

“When you consider the investment in training compared with the generated income, it more than pays for itself, which is why it is imperative we continue to invest in further development programmes.”

He added: “For us, at R&B, our specialised skill set means we’re able to compete in a global market alongside leading engineering companies such as ABB. “In addition, think about how your sector will fare in future years. We deal primarily with energy, and as the population grows so, too, will the demand for energy.”

A LIVERPOOL DNA laboratory that provides results for the Jeremy Kyle TV show is now the fourth largest of its kind in Europe.

Alpha Biolabs was founded at the University of Liverpool’s MerseyBio incubator in 2004 and specialises in DNA, drug and alcohol testing.

Recent figures have confirmed that it has become the fourth largest DNA testing lab on the continent, based on the number of paternity tests carried out in 2012-13.

The previous year Alpha Biolabs was the ninth biggest in Europe.

Director David Thomas said the fact that its scientists work throughout the night to achieve results for clients like the Jeremy Kyle show has helped the organisation increase its workload.

He said: “We decided to open up this mega-fast turnaround service to all of our customers, which resulted in Alpha Biolabs being able to offer the world’s first next day DNA test as standard service for only £149, and legal testing from only £290.”

He added: “Due to our unique service, this has allowed Alpha Biolabs to expand throughout the UK and Europe and we have attracted lucrative partnerships with other DNA testing providers in Russia, Italy and Ireland.”

POST BUSINESS DAILY A revolution in the way business people get their news Mark Beswick, top, backs use of apprenticeship schemes, above

Youth charity seeks new trustees

Investment up

ONE of Merseyside’s longest established charities for children and young people has launched a recruitment drive to find two new independent trustees.

Merseyside Youth Association (MYA) was established

NEW research by Barclays Bank claims that 54% of manufacturers will be increasing investment spend over the next 12 months.

The greatest focus will be on new machinery and machine tools (63%) followed by new product development (62%), but only 30% will be using investment funds to help them enter new markets.

in 1890 and provides a wide range of services to help young people reach their full potential, from alternative education, arts and sports to youth work, support services and health advice.

Hanover Street-based MYA

post business 3

is seeking two independent trustees, ideally with wide experience in commercial business or fundraising, or with a human resources background. Details of the roles and how to apply can be found at www.mya.org.uk

Download today for your free 30-day trial www.liverpool dailypost.co.uk/ businessdaily

4 post business big feature

Bill Gleeson

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Healthy growth

Is Merseyside on the cusp of a much needed jobs boost?

asks whether fears of another unsustainable house price boom are unfounded

I GO away for a couple of weeks holiday and come back to find a local jobs boom in the making.

Reports suggest that, between them, Amazon and Jaguar Land Rover could create up to 2,500 jobs on Merseyside.

Amazon is actively assessing where to base its next giant warehouse in Britain. Liverpool is in the running to land what would be a significant source of employment.

However, it’s all a bit hush-hush at the moment. Amazon is saying nothing, but proposals for a massive new warehouse off the East Lancashire Road in Croxteth have been submitted to Liverpool City Council planners by Stoford Developments. The plans include two huge storage depots occupying up to 1m sq ft, highways and landscaping. Apparently a section of the River Alt is being diverted to make way for the scheme. It’s reasonable to assume that, due to the expense involved, this is not a speculative move.

However, the decision to locate here is by no means cut and dried. The city faces competition from other local authorities every bit as eager to attract the investment to their patches. There have been suggestions the development could end up in Wales. Even within the Merseyside region there has been speculation the distribution site could be housed in Halton.

City bosses hope to entice Amazon with some of the powers and cash available to them through the City Deal negotiated with government by Mayor Joe Anderson.

Potential inducements include discounted business rates or a better deal on land.

The new jobs wouldn’t be the best paid or most secure in Britain. There is likely to be a high level of seasonality, with job numbers picking up in the run up to Christmas before falling back again in January. They will involve a considerable amount of shiftwork and are likely to be low paid.

Nevertheless, it is better that these jobs come to this region as they would go some way to off-setting

N THE years following the financial crash of 2008 there was much talk of a new kind of approach to economic growth.

Consumer spending booms funded by the proceeds of unsustainable house price bubbles were a thing of the past, we were told.

The UK economy would be rebalanced back in favour of manufacturing – the “march of the makers” it was called.

However, while manufacturing may have made some progress it has been painfully slow and a Government seeking re-election needs a quicker fix that it can present to the voters in 2015.

So when it emerged last week that the housing market had emerged from its stupor, Government ministers welcomed the news.

Data from the the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) showed rises in house prices accelerating in parts of the UK. Prices rose by 3.1% year-on-year in June to £242,000 on average, marking the strongest annual upturn recorded by the ONS in the last six months.

Annual house price increases in England were driven by London (8.1%), the West Midlands (3.1%) and the South East (2.9%).

In the North West there was a slight increase of 0.1%.

One of the factors that is perhaps driving the upturn is the Government’s schemes to underwrite part of the loans people need to buy a house.

The first, Help To Buy: Equity Loan, was launched in April. It offers heavily discounted loans as a supplement to your mortgage.

Crucially you must be buying a house direct from the construction sector which means its focus is on new-build homes and it provides a stimulus to the wider economy.

However, it is the second Help To Buy scheme, which will guarantee billions of pounds worth of mortgages, that is causing concern among economists.

This will not be restricted to new-build and it is feared the policy will turn out to be counter-intuitive – that is rather than helping first-time buyers get on the property ladder it will push prices further beyond their reach.

Critics say the Government is addressing the wrong side of the problem – trying to fuel demand for houses instead of addressing the supply issue.

Economist Howard Archer, of Global Insight, said: “We do not expect house prices to race ahead in the near term given likely extended low earnings growth and the fact that housing market activity is currently still substantially below pre-crisis levels.

“Nevertheless, there is a mounting danger that house prices could really take off further out, especially as a shortage of new properties for sale could be a significant factor in some areas.

“Consequently, should the housing market gain substantial momentum over the coming months, the case for drop-

the ongoing large scale job cuts in the public sector locally.

The area has quite an expertise in handling major retail distribution operations, as demonstrated by the nearby QVC, Home Bargain and Shop Direct operations.

It’s also very well located for transport infrastructure.

Fingers crossed.

IF Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) creates 1,000 new jobs at its Halewood plant, they won’t be low paid or seasonal.

The company needs skilled workers and will therefore offer good rates of pay to its staff.

JLR’s Halewood plant is already bulging at the seams with workers and production lines. The number of staff employed there has doubled in recent years as JLR’s Range Rover Evoque has proven to be a big seller in emerging markets such as China.

The suggestion that there might be new jobs and production space created at Halewood comes from newspaper reports which have yet to be confirmed by the company.

Nevertheless, previous speculation about a third shift at Halewood turned out to be correct.

The fact the plant is already bursting with activity raises the problem of where any new staff or equipment would be accommodated.

As well as speculation about expansion of the plant, there are also ongoing talks between JLR and trade union Unite to secure jobs and production at Halewood.

Concerns arise because the Land RoverFreelander2 model, also made at Halewood, is getting close to the end of its life cycle. The union is also said to be concerned about the possible loss of production at Halewood once a new JLR plant is opened in China next year. This is where the real threat lies to UK workers. Now Tata has a joint venture with Chery, there is a risk that technological knowhow will be transferred to China over the next decade which would mean the Chinese would no longer need us.

Tony McDonough

I

More first time buyers are now coming into the housing market. Inset top, James Kersh, and, bottom, Rob Farnham ping the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme that is due to start in 2014 will look ever more compelling, even if the Government may find this politically difficult to do.”

And that is a key point, as the General Election approaches in 2015, the coalition Government will want every bit of positive economic data it can lay its hands on and a rising housing market could be just the ticket.

Alan Bevan, who runs City Residential in Liverpool city centre, certainly believes the second scheme is politically-motivated.

“Personally, I don’t think phase two of Help to Buy should go ahead as I think it is more of a political gesture.

“Any Government intervention can carry the risk of either accelerating or decelerating the market.

“Having said that, the Liverpool city centre market was very depressed so it could help bring it back to the right level. However, in more popular areas of Merseyside it could push house prices up again.

“We have definitely seen more inquiries and deals in recent times. The last couple of months have probably been the best we have seen for four or five years.

“On properties worth up to £120,000 or £130,000 we are seeing a lot of activity.

“The mortgage market is improving

‘Second scheme is more of a political gesture’

and we are seeing first-time buyers coming back in, although those who only have enough for a 5% deposit may have to wait for Help to Buy in January.”

Other estate agents in Merseyside gave a welcome, albeit a cautious one, to the latest house price data.

James Kersh, a director of Sutton Kersh, believes talk of a new bubble is premature and points out that mortgages are still more difficult to obtain than they were prior to 2007/08.

He said: “I think the upturn is good news. A lot has been said about it in the media but I think it is just part of the natural course of the economic cycle.

“We have had an increase in transactions and we are seeing more inquiries, although I think it is difficult to say at the moment whether house prices in Liverpool are rising yet. We will have to wait for the figures from the next quarter to find out.

“The Government schemes are positive and they help to build confidence in the market and I don’t think they will lead to another bubble like the one we had in the run up to 2007.

“There is definitely more availability of funding now but it is still more difficult to get than it used to be and the process can take longer.

“I said at the beginning of the year that there would be a trickle of new activity but I don’t see there being a big uplift in sales until perhaps next year.”

big feature post business 5

Thursday, August 22, 2013

or a bubble of trouble?

Housing charity Shelter says the country is in urgent need of new homes

Analysts says boom unlikely in short term but Shelter calls for more housebuilding “I think the main buyers at the moment are middle income earners either looking to upsize or downsize their properties, with a small amount of first-time buyers.

“I think the Government scheme coming in next year will help stimulate the market but a lot of people are still feeling the pain of the recession so I don’t think prices will rocket.

“I think the market will move forward slowly and cautiously.

“House prices in Liverpool are well below the national average and that obviously makes the city a more attractive place to buy a home in.

“I have heard of a few people who have lived elsewhere and are now looking to come back.”

Louis Anastasiou, managing director of Andrew Louis, is also positive about the upturn in the market He acknowledges that another bubble is a possibility once the second Help to Buy scheme kicks in but believes common sense may prevail next time around..

He said: “Hopefully everyone learned their lesson from last time around and people will be more sensible and the market won’t rise to the same extent.

“We have definitely been seeing more activity from the springtime onwards –

we have seen more activity in the suburbs.

There are also a lot of investors coming into the market. I think they have been waiting for the market to bottom out.

“We are seeing parents of students studying in the city for three years looking to buy a property rather than renting one.

“Investors are also coming into Liverpool from overseas – places such as Greece and Cyprus.”

Rob Farnham, who runs the Venmore chain from its Liverpool city centre headquarters, said he detects no desire from anyone for the market to return to its “boom and bust” cycle.

“Although the banks are lending more they are still insisting on bigger deposits and that is the biggest challenge, particularly for first-time buyers,” he said. “And I think that will still be the case next year.

“There are big divides in the UK property market – the London market is very different to places such as the North West.

“We have certainly seen more enquiries over the past few months – we are around 30% up already this year.

“The market is now a lot stronger than it was 12 months ago.”

‘Students’ parents want to buy and not rent’

ONE economic analyst told Post Business that the Government’s second phase Help to Buy scheme that starts in January 2014 does carry risk.

Ben Yearsley is head of investment research at stockbroker Charles Stanley, which has an office in Liverpool city centre.

Mr Yearsley said: “There are two aspects to the upturn in the housing market – the Government schemes are clearly helping and the banks are starting to lend again.

“They have been repairing their balance sheets and now that process has worked its way through.”

He added that the first Help to Buy scheme that started in April and focuses on new-build, had provided the economy with a genuine boost.

But he questioned whether the second scheme starting in January, which would see the Government underwriting home loans, was a sensible thing to do.

“I think the question is

should we be subsidising people who want to trade up from a £400,000 house to a £500,000 house,” he said.

“You have to wonder whether the Government should be taking that kind of risk.”

However, he added: “I think we will see another house price bubble but not in the short to medium term.

“I think it is too soon for people to make that mistake again but I’ve little doubt that it will happen again one day – perhaps 20 years down the line.

“But I don’t think we will see the return of the 125% mortgage in the foreseeable future.”

Critics of the Help to Buy scheme say the Government is subsiding the wrong end of the market and that they should be addressing the shortage of housing stock rather than the shortage of mortgages.

Housebuilders in England are starting more new properties than at any other time

in the past three years, in further evidence that the market revival is gathering pace.

But despite the recent pick-up, housing charity Shelter warned that the country is still building less than half the number of new houses it needs each year to tackle the “chronic shortage of homes”.

Around 29,510 new homes were started between April and June, marking the highest quarterly total seen since 2010, Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) figures showed.

The figures also showed that 106,820 house builds have been completed over the last year, which is still less than half of the 250,000 annual total Shelter believes is required to meet demand.

Kay Boycott, Shelter’s director of communications, policy and campaigns, said: “Unless we see radical action from the Government to tackle our chronic shortage of homes, house prices and rents will quickly rise even further out of reach for millions.”

6 post business wealth management

Thursday, August 22, 2013

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

Europe sets out on long road back to economic recovery market analysis

by Will Roberts

LIVERPOOL OFFICE OF CHARLES STANLEY RECENT developments on the continent suggest the eurozone is in danger of becoming a help rather than a hindrance for the world economy.

Last week figures showed the 17-nation bloc pulled itself out of recession after six quarters of contraction and economists are starting to suggest this stabilisation may restore the region as a prop, if not a powerhouse, for global markets.

While a boom is not on the cards any time soon, a shift in momentum may be detected on the continent and this, inevitably, could have a knock on effect for trade worldwide.

The eurozone accounts for around a fifth of global GDP so any reasonable growth in the region could be enough to offset any potential slowdown in China. This has ramifications for the eurozone’s trading partners, which is good news for the UK and could help consolidate our own tentative signs of recovery.

Indeed, JP Morgan estimates that the eurozone could grow 1.3% in 2014 (after shrinking 0.5% this year) with imports expanding 3.7% after two years of decline.

Manufacturing in Poland and the Czech Republic rose in July due to increased export orders to elsewhere in Europe. Meanwhile, Chinese exports to the EU rose 2.8% in July, the first gain in five months, and

Will Roberts

Japanese shipments to the EU increased by 8.6% in June.

However, exports have grown faster than imports in recent years, leaving the euro area’s trade surplus around 3% of GDP in the first quarter, the most since the euro began trading in 1999. For this reason, investors should be mindful this recovery is unlikely to be enough to turn the eurozone into a significant driver of global growth any time soon.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs point out that the eurozone is likely to remain a net exporter for the foreseeable future as the “club med” economies continue to repair their economies. There is no doubt the rest of the world still needs Europe to grow and needs Europe to import more.

Looking at the positives, even if demand stays soft on the continent, the very fact it has escaped the depths of the debt crisis could be enough to rally financial sentiment worldwide.

A Bank of America survey of fund managers last month revealed that only 14% cited Europe as the biggest risk, compared with 59% in July 2012.

There are also signs that the uptick will continue with manufacturing unexpectedly rising in July after two years of contraction, while confidence among executives and consumers improved to a 15-month high. Italian industrial output increased in June by the biggest margin since January and rose in Greece by the most since October, while Spain’s recession eased in the second quarter.

Serious issues still remain in Europe with unemployment at a record 12.1%. Joblessness is more than 25% in Spain and Greece with economists predicting growth of only 1% in the Eurozone next year versus 2.7% in the USA. In addition, the banking system remains dysfunctional with lending down at the lowest levels on record in June.

Political instability also remains a threat in Italy, Spain and Greece while Germany goes to the polls in the autumn. Tentative signs of recovery can easily be snuffed out by changes in the political mood.

Just over a year since the ECB vowed to “do whatever it takes” to save the euro, the situation does seem to be improving, but one must remain wary that Europe still has the potential to take a step or two back in the near future. With the economy appearing to stabilise, investors may wish to consider the levels of European exposure in their portfolios with a long-term recovery in mind.

notes ■

ONE in eight people would find doing a bungee jump or parachuting out of a plane less daunting than switching their current account provider, research has found.

The findings from Santander come ahead of a new customer guarantee being introduced from next month which will cut the length of time it takes to switch current accounts and mean that outgoing and incoming payments are automatically moved over.

Santander, which is among the providers which have signed up to the agreement, found that 12% of consumers currently feel that bungee jumping and hurtling through the sky on a parachute is less intimidating than trying to change current accounts.

One fifth of 2,000 people surveyed this month across the UK said that a trip to the dentist would pose less of a fright and one in four found the prospect of seeing a doctor or undergoing a blood test less nerve-wracking than swapping bank accounts.

■

Madrid’s Stock Exchange woes are hopefully in the past

MORTGAGE payments for new borrowers are at their most affordable in 14 years after a price war erupted between lenders, a report has found.

Payments for both first-time buyers and home movers accounted for just 27% of average incomes in the second quarter of this year, marking the lowest proportion seen since 1999, Halifax found.

Lenders slashing their mortgage rates, along with house prices having fallen in recent years, were said to be the main factors behind better affordability.

Cash is no longer king for UK consumers

Utility costs hit finances

CARD payments will overtake cash in the next decade amid a continuing shift in the way consumers spend their money, according to new figures.

The number of transactions using cash is expected to decline from 21bn in 2012 to 14bn in 2022, the Payments Council said.

Meanwhile the use of consumer cards is set to rise from 10bn to 17bn, driven primarily by the increasing use of e-commerce as well as contactless cards at shop

RISES in energy bills have seen families’ finances come under increasing pressure, a report suggests.

Utility costs have soared by 8.2% in the year to July, marking the strongest annual rise seen since August 2012, according to Asda’s income tracker report.

Overall, UK households were found to be £1 a week worse off than they were a year ago, with £160-worth of discretionary income a week.

counters, it is predicted.

Mobile payments are also expected to increase with the introduction of new technology to make account-to-account transfers using only a phone number and the use of mobile device apps to replace card usage.

However, the staying power of supposedly obsolete forms of payment is illustrated by the use of the cheque, with reports of its demise apparently proving exaggerated.

They are forecast to be used in

341m transactions in 2022, including 186m by consumers.

It is a decline of more than half on 2012’s 848m cheques – and is a fraction of the 4bn in 1990 – but means they will continue to enjoy a significant degree of use four years after they were due to be scrapped.

The Payments Council had planned to phase out the paper payment method by 2018, saying it was in “terminal decline” but was forced to back down after an outcry led by pensioners’ groups.

This is also £5 a week less to spend than a recent peak recorded in January 2010, as wages remain stagnant.

July also saw rising annual inflation on petrol and diesel prices. Vehicle fuels rose over the year by 2.4%, up from 1% the previous month.

An easing back on the cost of mortgage interest payments, after a mortgage price war recently broke out among lenders, has also helped.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Frese wins contract to supply The Shard BURSCOUGH-BASEDFrese has won a £135,000 contract to supply the luxury Shangri-La Hotel at The Shard in London Bridge, with 800 of its dynamic valves.

The valves will keep precise temperature control for the hotel's heating and cooling systems.

Frese is the UK arm of Danish dynamic valve expert. The firm will install its Frese Optima Compact and Frese Modula ranges of valves in the Shangri-La, situated inside the spire of The Shard, from floors 34 to 52 of the 72 storey, glass-clad building.

Frese valves will both ensure the hydraulic balance of the piping and offer precise temperature control.

Building service engineering company – Briggs & Forrester, specified both ranges of Frese pressure independent control valves to be fitted for heating and cooling and deliver a perfect indoor climate.

Frese Optima Compact – the pressure independent balancing and control valve – is used in heating and cooling systems for precise temperature control, high comfort and energy savings due to optimal control at lower flow and pump pressure.

Frese was founded in Denmark in 1944.

POST BUSINESS DAILY A revolution in the way business people get their news

Download today for your free 30-day trial www.liverpool dailypost.co.uk/ businessdaily

news

post business 7

Chester entrepreneurs launch new ethical clothing brand

Michael Williams, left, and Alex Franklin, have combined to form new company AM Custom Clothing

TWO young entrepreneurs have joined forces to create a new eco-friendly fashion brand in Chester.

AM Custom Clothing provides a range of high quality custom branded clothing for clients from micro SMEs to multinationals, schools, colleges and universities.

Its range is certified to a range of green and ethical standards, its AM Zero brand being carbon neutral, helping organisations to improve their corporate social responsibility standards.

Products include T-shirts, polos, jackets and jumpers, as well as hi-vis clothing and safetywear.

The two partners are Alex Franklin, who created his own green-focused Albatross Clothing business last year, and Michael Williams, 2013 Cheshire Business Leaders Young Entrepreneur of the Year and owner of MD Supplies which sells a range of bags, activewear and printed clothing.

Mr Williams said: “AM Custom Clothing is a unique opportunity for both parent companies to continue their work in the clothing industry by extending our innovative supply chain management techniques and combining and expanding our product ranges.”

Liverpool to be showcased at world summit in Morocco

by Helen Davies

POST BUSINESS STAFF

helen.davies01@trinitymirror.com

LIVERPOOL will be promoted internationally at a summit in Morocco this October.

International Festival for Business (IFB) organisers will showcase Liverpool and the event, which is being held in the city next summer, at the World Summit in Rabat.

Julie Ehlen, IFB project manager at Liverpool Vision, and Sarah Maxwell, conference events executive at Marketing Liverpool, will be promoting the city at the Moroccan summit of global leaders, which is a United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) event.

Max Steinberg, IFB 2014 chair and chief executive of economic development agency Liverpool Vision, who are organising IFB 2014 said: “Next year’s Global Leaders Summit in Liverpool will be one of the major highlights of the IFB 2014 programme.

“Attending this year’s UCLG event gives Liverpool the opportunity to build even stronger relationships with key influential and international delegates and will help us to add value to IFB 2014.”

There will be a Liverpool stand throughout the Rabat summit, highlighting the city and all it has to offer, including promoting the IFB to an

international business audience and raising the profile of Liverpool as the ultimate conference city and tourist destination.

The summit, which runs from October 1 to October 4, is expected to attract around 3,000 people from more than 100 countries.

Visitors will include local and

Business Services

ADSHOCK UK

GET YOUR BUSINESS NOTICED EVERY DAY ADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESS OR EVENT ON OUR MOBILE PHONE CHARGING MACHINES. PRICES START FROM

regional leaders, representatives from international organisations and financial institutions, together with partners from civil society and the public and private sector.

It is organised by UCLG and is being hosted by the City of Rabat and the Moroccan Government.

The event will take the theme of

Development Opportunities

FOR SALE

149 Prescot Road, Aughton, L39 4SN Existing Dwelling for Refurbishment / Development Opportunity Benefitting from Planning Permission for 3 Storey Detached, 6 Bed New Build Property Proposed GIA: 320 sq.m

ONLY £5.00 PER MONTH

£250,000

adshockuk.wix.com/adshockuk

All Enquiries

CALL NOW

07930950494

0151 207 9339

www.suttonkersh.co.uk

Business Premises

Premises to Let BUSINESS PREMISES TO LET IN HUYTON, LIVERPOOL

Musgrave Lettings are delighted to let this 8,240 sq.ft commercial located on Wilson Road in the heart of Huyton Business Park.This property consists of a two storey industrial premises consisting of a large workshop area and a ground floor reception. The immediate surrounding area provides a well established, popular industrial and trade counter location.

01244 940789

“Imagine Society, Build Democracy” and include topics ranging from fostering, well-being and managing diversity, to looking at the dynamics of change and solidarity between different territories.

The IFB is being held in Liverpool for six weeks in June and July next year.

Business For Sale

FOR SALE SWEET VENDING TOWER BUSINESS

100 Machines sited at well established locations throughout Liverpool Only 20 Hours Per Week to Service Simply re-stock and collect takings.

Guaranteed Weekly Cash Income. £37,500 Inclusive of Stock Call for details.

07770 654555

Building & Construction

FRAMELINE TRADE SUPPLY Composite Doors UPVC windows, doors, conservatories 5 day turnaround Tel: 0151 546 5577 Fax: 0151 546 5588

ACCREDITED WITH BS7412 &BS7950

FRAMELINE TRADE SUPPLY Composite Doors UPVC windows, doors, conservatories 5 day turnaround Tel 0151 546 5577 Fax 0151 546 5588

ACCREDITED WITH BS7412 &BS7950

8 post business the bottom line

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Schools and venture travel firm plans PGL expansion

by Bill Gleeson

POST BUSINESS STAFF bill.gleeson@liverpool.com

AN ADVERSE impact on travel trade from volatile political conditions in the Middle East was offset by strong demand from education-related travel at Cheshire-based camping and venture holidays business Holidaybreak.

According to the former stock market-quoted firm’s latest accounts filed at Companies House within the last few days, Holidaybreak reported annual turnover of £385.3m, which compares to £562.5m for the extended 18-month accounting period to March 2012.

With costs of sales of £285.8m, Holidaybreak reported gross profit of £99.5m, which compares to £134.4m in 2012.

Total operating costs for the year were £71.1m compared to £134.5m in the previous period. Operating profit from continuing operations was £28.4m versus a £100,000 loss for the previous financial period.

Once the costs of what the company calls a “fundamental restructuring” are taken into account, profit on ordinary activities before finance charges was £32.6m compared to a loss of £5.6m in the previous period.

Finance charges are shown at £11.5m for last year compared to £20m for the 18-month period ending March 2012.

A corporation tax charge of £7.9m resulted in a profit for the financial year of £13m. This compares to a tax charge of £4.7m and a loss for the previous financial period of £19.2m.

According to the accounts, the directors recommended a final dividend for 2013 of £10m (equivalent to 13.87p per ordinary share). No final dividend was paid in the previous period. An interim dividend of £5m (6.93p) was paid during the last financial year. This compares to £2.3m (3.35p per ordinary share) for the period ending March 2012.

The balance sheet shows total fixed assets of £328.7m, up slightly from £326.5m 12-months earlier. Goodwill accounted for £63m in 2013 and £78.4m in 2012.

The company’s cash balances were £68.6m and £41.8m in 2012 and 2013 respectively.

Creditors due after more than one year were £185.3m in 2013, compared to £157.7m for 2012. The vast majority of these figures was money owed to the bank. The company is half way

Holidaybreak’s Lanterna campsite in Croatia and, inset, its St Cast site in Brittany

through a £320m three-year banking facility.

Holidaybreak had total net assets of £94.5m in 2013 compared to £86.2m in 2012.

Holidaybreak’s education division provides residential outdoor education and adventure trips for school children through the market leading PGL brand and educational travel tours for schools and further educa-

tion students through NST and EST. The accounts state: “This division has performed well with total turnover of £135.1m (18 month period ended 2012 £188.2m) despite being adversely affected by the timing of Easter holidays.

“PGL plans to increase its bed capacity in 2014 and continues to focus on improving site occupancy at off-peak times.

“The non-schools product contin-

ues to be developed with successful partnerships with scouts, guides and other youth groups established.”

The Adventure Travel division suffered because of troubles in the Middle East whereas the Tailormade product is expected to grow to be worth 10% of the business.

The hotel breaks division reflects the continuing difficult trading environment. The camping division was adversely affected by the Olympic Games but this was partially offset by strong late demand in August and September.

In December 2010, the company acquired a 50% stake in the German-based student and school tour accommodation group Meininger Holdings from Meininger’s directors for an initial consideration of £32.2m.

During the year the company acquired a further 24% for a total consideration of approximately £20.7m and, since the year end, has bought all the remaining shares.

Housebuilder to step up construction as sales rise sharply Housebuilder Persimmon has pledged to step up construction of new homes to meet soaring buyer demand after government schemes helped half-year profits jump 40%.

The Charles Church and Westbury Partnerships group said more than 1,700 reservations had been made under Help to Buy since it was launched in April, allowing those

with only a 5% deposit to buy new-build homes.

Underlying pre-tax profits for the first half of the year jumped to £135.3m from £96.9m a year earlier, with legal completions rising 7% and forward sales increasing by more than a fifth.

Persimmon said it expected demand from home buyers to con-

tinue picking up over the coming weeks and months as the housing market recovery gathers pace.

It vowed to increase home building activity, with plans to open another 85 sites by the end of the year, adding to 390 sites already under construction.

The company said: “The group is working hard to increase production in response to the improved demand

evident in all our regional markets.

“To deliver the volume to meet this increased demand, we are maintaining our strong investment in land and stepping up our investment in construction.”

Persimmon is the latest builder to confirm a sharp increase in profits thanks to improved access to mortgages and the Help to Buy scheme..

notes ■

TROUBLED commercial property firm Warner Estate Holdings has raised the possibility of insolvency as it battles with its debts.

The owner of the upmarket Cavern Walks shopping mall in Liverpool city centre says negotiations with lenders and stakeholders were ongoing but added a solution to its problems was yet to be found.

The group operates a wholly-owned fund comprising 42 commercial sites as well as units in the Ashtenne Industrial Fund.

In a statement it said: “Negotiations continue with lenders and other key stakeholders regarding options to realise value for the security held by those lenders.

“The options being discussed would not realise enough value to repay the outstanding debt in full, a position that could result in an insolvency process.

“The group remains reliant on the continuing support of its lenders and other key stakeholders particularly because at certain times the cash held by the business will be low and headroom will be marginal.”

■

CINEWORLD is facing the sale of cinemas in three areas after being told its takeover of the Picturehouse chain could lead to higher prices for film fans.

Highlighting its concern about the impact on consumers in Aberdeen, Bury St Edmunds and Cambridge, the Competition Commission said it may order the group to sell cinemas to a rival business in these areas.

Cineworld operates 79 cinemas in mainly out-of-town locations, while Picturehouse’s 21 outlets tend to be smaller locations in town and city centres.

Cineworld, which acquired the art house chain for £47m in December, said it was disappointed with the Commission’s provisional findings and said it would continue to lobby the watchdog ahead of its final report. Chief executive Stephen Wiener said Cineworld and Picturehouse were “two fundamentally different businesses” that could operate in the same area.

small business post business 9

Thursday, August 22, 2013

small

notes

business of theweek

■

THE countdown to this year’s Small Business Advice Week has officially started with the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) supporting the week.

Now entering its 10th year, Small Business Advice Week will reach out to companies to share best practice, tips and key business information to help create jobs and growth for the year ahead.

The week’s aim is to help firms access finance, save money and get the best out of technology.

Phil Browne, an organiser of Small Business Advice Week 2013 says: “We’ve had five years of economic hardship, but despite some financial experts telling us how they’re starting to see tentative signs of recovery, it’s not rocket science to see how the average small business is still finding life incredibly tough.

“Our aim is to provide as much information as possible and to as many businesses as possible, too.

“We’re also encouraging business owners to contribute their own advice to our website on a number of subjects ranging from saving money and training staff, to new technology and future planning.”

Small Business Advice Week 2013 runs from September 2-8.

by Neil Hodgson

POST BUSINESS STAFF

neil.hodgson@liverpool.com

T

HE directors of Speke telecoms specialist Base Communications tightened their belts and took one for the team in the early days of the company.

Sharon Morgan said: “We didn’t go to the banks because we didn’t want to go into debt. We saved up our last couple of pay cheques and lived like poor people on beans – minus the sausages – for a couple of months, but it paid off.”

She and colleagues Eddie Douglas and Stephen Halligan formed the company in 2006.

They had worked together for eight years at Walton-based Northern Telecoms, but took the decision to strike out on their own.

Ms Morgan said: “We started in a garage conversion on the side of my house. After four months we needed more space so we moved to Tilston Road in Aintree above a builder’s yard, who was one of our customers.”

In 2010 they moved to their current location on the site of the former Glaxo complex on Speke Boulevard.

Ms Morgan and Mr Douglas specialised in business-to-business (B2B) sales and generate business from a range of disciplines for their venture.

Mr Halligan deals with the administrative side of the operation. Ms Morgan said: “He is like our customer service person. He has the patience of a saint.”

She added: “I had been told for years that I should go it alone, but I had two young boys and that was very time consuming, so I waited before thinking of setting up.”

Base Communications’ main focus is B2B mobile and land lines and clients range from ‘one-man bands’ to Crosby-based Delta Taxis which has more than 2,000 SIMS. Other clients include Liverpool retailer Taskers and Liverpool Chamber of Commerce.

Ms Morgan said clients tend to ask about other services after their initial phone contract: “When they see how good we are they ask us to look at their land line bills. Once people start to trust you they ask if you can look at other parts of their phone requirements.”

Mr Douglas said: “We can save people 15-20% a year on their bills.

With land lines we provide new phones, and we can install phone systems.”

Other services include lone worker services and vehicle tracking.

Lone workers could be carers in a one-to-one situation. If patients become violent the carer has a device that alerts the police.

Vehicle tracking uses a GPS system that can monitor usage and mileage of company cars, usually resulting in savings.

Mr Douglas explained: “Mobile is our busiest part of the business, then land lines, phone systems, vehicle tracking and lone worker.

“We have to keep up to date with all the new technology in the sector.”

Ms Morgan added: “We do regular training events to be accredited to sell things like the new iPhones.”

They say the fast moving nature of the industry means they have to keep on top of technological developments.

Ms Morgan said: “The mobile industry is getting less and less.

People’s bills are getting cheaper, so

■

Base Communications founders, from left, Eddie Douglas, Sharon Morgan and Stephen Halligan

Beans mean a hunger for business success we needed to add different services to keep the company growing.

“Next year roaming costs could disappear, so we will suffer from that, so we need to be looking at extra services for extra revenues.”

However, Mr Douglas revealed healthy year-on-year progress since they launched their venture.

“We have 5,000 mobile connections, and that is growing all the time.

“We retain 98% of our existing customer base and we add three or four new clients a month.

“And our turnover last year was £750,000, and it has gone up every year.”

Ms Morgan added: “The kids have got some sausages with their beans now.”

Stephen Halligan navigates Base Communications’ website

The Association of British Insurers has launched a new pension calculator to help employers in selecting a workplace pension scheme for their staff.

The calculator – http://www.pensions advisoryservice.org. uk/pension-chargescalculator – enjoys the support of the Pensions Minister, the National Association of Pension Funds and the Pensions Advisory Service.

It allows employers to input pension charges, including Active Member Discounts and initial charges, to get a simple analysis of the impact the charges will have on their employees’ retirement funds.

Tom McPhail, head of pensions research at business adviser Hargreaves Lansdowne, said: “Employers need all the help they can get in making good decisions on behalf of their employees.”

10 post business creative & digital

comment

by Lonn Landis

Beware of the Twitter pitfalls RECENT news headlines of Twitter abuse have once again highlighted the open nature of the social media platform and the potential dangers out there for businesses or individuals who use Twitter.

As a whole, Twitter provides a great platform for businesses to network, promote their products and services, while interacting quickly and easily with customers and clients.

However, there are a still a number of organisations who are reticent to engage with Twitter due to the potential pitfalls.

Therefore it is important that they are given good advice on whether social media is a worthwhile marketing channel.

Businesses should always monitor their online reputation and Twitter is no different.

Whether you use a company Twitter account or not, your staff will be able to set up individual accounts – at Mills Media we accept that as a digital firm many of our staff like to use Twitter as a means to communicate effectively with colleagues, customers, friends and contacts.

Therefore we have implemented a strong social media policy with all staff being trained in what is acceptable and unacceptable. Our employees understand their responsibility to act as ambassadors for Mills Media.

Unfortunately at the moment, comments made by someone else on your timeline cannot be removed and even if you block an abusive poster.

You may want to make your business account private, but this means that potential followers/customers will have to search for you by name and that only confirmed followers will be able to see your Tweets.

If you do choose to use Twitter, make sure it is controlled, strategic and secure – embrace it as a positive marketing platform and there can be a wealth of opportunities.

■ Lonn Landis, Client Account Director, Mills Media

Thursday, August 22, 2013 IN ASSOCIATION WITH

How open data can help a generation of entrepreneurs Alistair Houghton chairs a debate on the power of data DATA is breaking out from spreadsheets and starting to power new businesses and ways of working – that was the upbeat message from the Post’s latest digital debate.

The latest Lunchtime Round Table session, organised by the Post with support agency ACME, brought together entrepreneurs and academics to discuss the power of data.

As more and more Government bodies open up their data sets in areas from transport to weather, businesses re able to use them to create new products and services.

Meanwhile, more powerful analytics tools – such as those developed by Pingflux in Liverpool – allow anyone who does business online to analyse in real time what customers are doing.

Our panellists, who met at the Baltic Creative complex in Jamaica Street, agreed that the need for skilled data analysts would only grow more acute. And Francis Irving, CEO of digital pioneer Scraperwiki, said that one day data scientists would be as much in demand as lawyers or accountants.

He said: “Everyone now has to deal with large-ish data sets – ones you can’t just handle by hand.

“With previous generations of computers, you used a spreadsheet. You could see the data and fiddle with it yourself. Or you did something that was really valuable and you got your software or engineering department to make a big complex system costing millions of pounds that would do something really important.

“But the average person in the business didn’t need to play with the data in their own way.

“Now we have to deal with increasingly large data sets with millions of rows – and to do that you need different skills.”

Dr Simon Holgate is founder of Sea Level Research, which offers clients such as the Port of Liverpool access to real-time data on water levels and weather conditions.

He said companies like his have started springing up in recent years as governments have realised the power of opening up data.

He said: “When I first started in science, the drive for Government agencies certainly was to sell their data and to make any added value products themselves.

“If you think about the Met Office, for example, that was a very big and very closed data set. Nobody else had

Scraperwiki’s Francis Irving, left, makes a point to Dan Reilly of Ruler Analytics access to data from weather stations, or forecasts, or anything else.

“Yes, they did bring in revenue from selling forecasts and that sort of thing but here weren’t any added-value products that could piggy-back on that. If the Met Office hadn’t thought of it or didn’t have the resources, it didn’t happen.

“We’ve now switched round. Even the Met Office has to open all its data and it allows people like me, Francis and many others to build new products on that data.”

C

LEMENS Wangerin, Jason Chown and Christian Lavoie founded games firm Setgo in 2010 after leaving Sony in Liverpool.

But today their main focus is analytics software Pingflux, which allows games firms to capture data on who is playing their mobile games.

The old video games model was that developers spent lots of money making and marketing a game and made money from sales. Now, many mobile game developers give games away for free and make money from selling added extras.

To do that effectively, they need to understand exactly how their customers are using games – and that’s where analytics comes in.

Mr Chown explained: “If you’re giving the game away , and if people’s experience in the game is not right or your game is unbalanced in some way then you won’t make any money.”

Mr Wangerin added: “We pivoted onto the analytics in a way that’s not uncommon with many startups.

“We developed the analytics tech for our own internal use, originally using it with our own games. Then, after more and more conversations we were having with people externally, we got the sense that there was possibly enough here for us to focus on that exclusively and drive it into the market.”

Dan Reilly also created his analytics business as a result of work he was doing in another field.

He founded Epic New Media in 2010 and soon found he needed to develop a system to study the impact of the online marketing work he was doing.

The result was Ruler Analytics, a software package that is now available to other firms that want to measure their marketing.

“We were doing SEO and paid search,” he said. “There was a lot of ambiguity in that. So we solved the problem for ourselves first and tried to get rid of any guesswork that existed in marketing, so we could optimise and operate things better and so

our clients could get a better view of our work.

“Certainly at our clients’ level, knowledge of analytics is increasing pretty quickly.”

Dr Paul Fergus, a senior lecturer at the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at Liverpool John Moores University, has been a computer scientist for 25 years, He has moved into data analytics in the last three years, particularly in the healthcare sector, but has also worked with businesses including Manchester City FC. He said: “The common problem we get is ‘we’ve got all this data and we don’t know what to do with it’. The NHS has all these data sets everywhere and it is asking that.

“We don’t have enough data scientists coming through. There are a lot of people doing statistics and a lot of people doing maths degrees and a lot of people doing programming. We perhaps need a convergence of these skills.

“We need to create a new type of skillset. I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”

Asked how that skills gap could be bridged, Prof Fergus said: “It’s really important to create strong links between the university and industry.

“When we do placements, we try to

creative & digital post business 11

www.ldpcreative.co.uk

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Ben Hatton

Facebook faces issue of trust

The panellists at the Post’s latest digital debate. Front row, from right, Clemens Wangerin, Francis Irving, Jason Chown, Dr Simon Holgate. Back row, from right, Dr Paul Fergus, John Hearty, Enda Carey, Kevin McManus and Dan Reilly place students with a business that needs a problem solving. So rather than just finding a business to give them work experience, it’s saying ‘there’s something you can do to solve that problem’.”

Panellists agreed that governments in the UK and elsewhere were waking up to the potential of open data.

John Hearty, a data scientist and researcher in the academic and gaming sectors, said Chicago had pioneered the opening of data, allowing people to use it to create apps and software.

He added: “By making the data open, it encourages open tinkering, participation and experimentation.”

Kevin McManus, of Liverpool Vision-based agency ACME, added: “Liverpool City Council is starting to look at how to exploit data further – even with simple things like the traffic data we’ve got, can that be used to make smart transport products?”

But Prof Fergus said some organisations, particularly medical ones, were still resistant to opening up even non-confidential data.

Mr Chown warned that data gathering in many sectors was still flawed, and so care needed to be taken with the resulting numbers.

Mr Irving added: “One of the problems in businesses and in government is that a change in infrastructure is needed in skills and data, both in gathering and distribution.

“There aren’t really any easy solutions to that. We don’t have any standard way of transferring data between organisations.”

A

S BUSINESSES harness the data they collect, they are able to change the way they operate to offer more services to consumers.

But as customers realise how valuable their data is, many of them get concerned about their privacy.

Mr Chown used the examples of Google’s systems, which remember what people have searched for before, and the way Netflix recommends movies based on what customers have already watched.

Mr Hearty wondered if data capturing could become still more sophisticated, adding: “Could we end up with something like monitoring users’ facial expressions to see if they’re enjoying a given thing, like a movie?”

Jason said some might consider that “creepy”. But he added: “Nobody would are if the product is improved by that.

“If somebody said their business model depends on knowing what movies you’re watching, you might say ‘that’s a bit scary, you want to know everything I like?’

“But what if they say ‘that way I can recommend new movies to you’? If there’s a payback to the customer, why wouldn’t people share data?”

Mr Reilly added: “People are still quite defensive about it.

“Every time we do a demo of our product, and new stuff goes live every couple of weeks, the first thing we’ll get is ‘is that legal? That’s a bit creepy’. Even clued up businesspeople say ‘you can’t know that about me, surely?’

Prof Fergus said attitudes to data

‘We are only a few years into big data’

Liverpool could learn from Chicago, above, on open data were very different amongst young people.

He said: “We did an experiment a few years ago when first year students came in and we gave them a piece of paper and asked them for their name, national insurance number and card number – all personal information.

“We wanted to see how free they were at giving data away. And 90% of the class gave us those details.

“They don’t have the hang-ups the older generation has in sharing data.”

But all our panellists were optimistic that data science as an industry would continue to grow.

Prof Fergus said he is regularly talking to NHS and other government bodies about what they can do with data – and says organisations are increasingly enthusiastic about its possibilities. Dr Holgate said: “It is the beginning of this. We are only actually a few years into big data. Ten years ago it wasn’t even on the table.

“The NHS is a big beast and it’s

going to move slowly. The Government is a big beast that moves slowly.

“These things will get better. People will get better at understanding what to release and how they can do it.”

And Mr Reilly said his recent recruitment work had shown him that programming was becoming an ever more popular occupation.

He smiled: “No-one even wants to talk about building a website now – that’s frowned upon. Everyone wants to be a software developer. Everyone is talking about big data.”

Mr Hearty said more and more young people were realising the power of data. He said: “The biggest potential change for me is not technological, but attitudinal – the idea there are so many different things data can do will be widely understood.

“That’s something we’re seeing but there’s a way to go still.”

And Mr McManus added: “There’s an opportunity for Liverpool to get ahead of the game in this field.”

FACEBOOK’S announcement that it was testing a payment system was met with mixed feelings by many people.

The social network goliath’s plans involve creating a simple mobile checkout experience which could compete with digital payments giant PayPal. The product would allow customers who have previously provided the network with their payment details to make purchases through partnering apps by them entering their Facebook login details.

Facebook is to run a trial partnership with online mens’ clothing store JackThreads. The premise is that any shopper who has previously provided Facebook with their payment details will be able to make purchases on any partnering e-commerce mobile apps without the need to give billing details.

While it might seem like a head-on competitor for PayPal, it is likely to come up against problems.

It is something of a latecomer to mobile payments systems – in 2012, 10% of PayPal’s payment volume came from mobile transactions.

Another obvious spanner in Facebook’s works is that people don’t have a lot of faith in the social network’s security – particularly given the problems it has had with security policies over the past few years, and few, it seems, would trust it with their financial information. Facebook will have to work to gain the trust of its users if it is to ever make a success of running a payment system.

It would make more sense for the network to integrate Bitcoin or concentrate its efforts towards creating a platform where small or start-up companies can conduct business via a Facebook marketplace.

■ INTERNET entrepreneur Ben Hatton is founder and managing director of digital agency Rippleffect. Follow Rippleffect on Twitter @rippleffected

12 post business creative & digital

Alistair Houghton meets David Lovett, managing director of Perceptive Engineering

W

HEN HE’S trying to describe his business journey, David Lovett can’t help reaching for automotive analogies.

Lovett is co-founder of Perceptive Engineering, a small firm that helps big companies make big efficiency savings.

Perceptive’s engineers help companies from utilities firms to multinational pharmaceutical giants get more out their plants and factories. Its systems are used all over the world, and Lovett is now plotting growth in Asia after opening an office in Singapore.

Perceptive’s success is all the more satisfying for Lovett as the services it has won success with weren’t even in its original business plan and it endured a two-year “hiatus” mid-recession.

But every business journey has its twists and turns – and Lovett’s original ideas for Perceptive are now coming back into play as the business keeps growing.

His first motoring analogy arrived when he began explaining Perceptive’s current raison d’etre.

“It’s all about how to get more out of your industrial process plant,” he said, “by using mathematical models to optimise the process.

“With a waste treatment plant, if you can have not only a treatment process to treat waste water, but can also extract as much energy out of that sludge as possible and put that back into the grid, then you are optimising it.

“In pharmaceutical manufacturing and food manufacturing the objective is a bit more straightforward – it’s maximising throughput.

It’s minimising waste, maximising throughput and maximising yield.

“It’s like driving a car. You can choose to drive a car aggressively and you can use a lot more fuel than if you drive it very steadily in a predicable way.

“By using our models you can predict how a plant is going to behave in the future. And you can, therefore, avoid problems and drive it in a more appropriate, efficient way.”

Perceptive’s engineers work to make existing plants work better using the same equipment. They produce computer models of how a plant works before fitting a new control unit, on an industrial PC, that makes it operate more efficiently.

Lovett said: “The analogy would be somebody coming to you and saying if ‘I put this engine management unit on your car you can save 25% fuel costs, you can reduce your emissions and you can improve your performance all at the same time’.

U

NIVERSITY of Manchester graduate Lovett worked in the nuclear industry for three years before moving to Invensys, where he spent almost a decade developing and commissioning advanced process control systems around the world.

In 2003 he and two other experienced process control specialists joined three people from the University of Manchester to form Perceptive Engineering.

The company, backed by the university, was created to take its tech-

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Small firm helping business giants make big savings

David Lovett has now opened a Perceptive Engineering base over in Singapore. Home base for the firm is Sci-Tech Daresbury, inset nology to market. Lovett and his team secured some seed funding and set out to offer non-invasive monitoring and fault detection services to firms that ran industrial processes.

Its technology was focused on helping clients to identify problems before they happened. Sadly, Perceptive’s founders eventually spotted a problem with their own business plan.”

“If we could only say ‘we’ve followed the perfect curve’,” smiled Lovett. “We stalled.

“We had a business plan. We followed the business plan, we

developed a solution we wanted to develop over the first three years, and we found we couldn’t sell sufficient numbers of those solutions at that time.

“We then changed the business plan to focus into the sectors that we are now in – the pharmaceutical sector, the water sector, all being growth sectors. We changed our offer and did much more control engineering. “ The recession also took its toll on Perceptive. Lovett said: “It was a two-year hiatus for us.

“Since 2010 we’ve grown at 25% year-on-year. Up to that point we

q&a Best advice: Do rigorous market research while you’re funded or before you even launch your business Proudest achievement: Maintaining a culture that enables engineers to be respected for their technical achievements Still to achieve: Being a partner with prestigious engineering con-

sultancies and companies Biggest regret: You should always be on the lookout for black swan opportunities. If you’re prepared and looking out for a black swan event, you can make the most of it. I can think of two or three opportunities that I didn’t take and thought ‘that’s too risky for me to go for and take part in’

were turning over £800,000 one year and then went down to £600,000 or £500,000 in 2009.

“We didn’t lose anyone. I took a loan and held onto everyone and we rode through it. But it was a loan against my assets.”

For its first six years, Perceptive was based in Lymm.

“It wasn’t anyone’s home.” Lovett recalled. “We put a dot between the six of us at the time and it was in the middle.

“We don’t want to forget that period, but it was the period where we went ‘we’re going to have to change this business plan’.”

The Perceptive team learned a hard lesson the hard way.

“Do your market research,” said Lovett, “to make sure that you’re not over-optimistic about the size of your market and the budgets that people can actually get hold of.

“Get that right and you’ll save yourself a lot of pain. And we did that in the second phase.

“In pharmaceuticals, we had to invest a lot of money to get our software to the accreditation level that was required. But having chosen to do that and knowing that it was a growing and potentially lucrative market, we knew the competition

would also struggle to replicate what we were doing.

“You’ve got to have value in your product and it’s got to be at a price that makes sense for everyone.”

Today Perceptive, which turns over some £1.5m, works with leading water companies including United Utilities and Welsh Water.

And it works at home and overseas with multinational clients such as Pfizer, Novartis and Unilever.

As he looked for global growth, Lovett signed up to a UKTI trade mission to Singapore last year.

“That opened my eyes to the opportunities of generating new business out in that region with Asia-Pacific headquartered companies,” he said.

“All the markets we’re in are growing markets. And they’re growing faster in that region than anywhere else.”

So Lovett, who is also due to travel to China next month, chose to open a Singapore office. And, luckily, there were people in Daresbury who could help.

Perceptive’s move to the Sci-Tech Daresbury campus has, Lovett said, helped it forge many useful connections.

“We moved to Daresbury because

creative & digital post business 13

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Alex

David Lovett, managing director of Perceptive Engineering

Turner Youngsters today have the edge THE exam result period of late August sparks off the annual debate about what it all means and how well students, whether aged 16 or 18, are prepared for the next stage.

The answers are: not really, not at all – which are the usual options – or about as much as they always have been.

This year’s cohort are not more or less smart, more or less ambitious, or more or less prepared. They just have a different approach, predicated on a generationally different experience of life and their place in the world.

Among all the hand-wringing and faux hysteria about whether every teenager’s vocabulary is limited 2 txtspk (clue: it isn’t), there’s the concern usually expressed in moralistic tones that they are not ready for the world of work.

The argument is rarely turned around to ask whether employers are prepared for their workforce. After all, this generation can justifiably claim to have a set of skills and knowledge that stand them apart from a huge chunk of the rest of the workforce.

They are almost programmed to think digitally and to use technology to find their answers and solutions, even if that is sometimes in place of picking up the phone.

But, those quibbles aside, the knowledge and insight they can add should be an opportunity.

Google boss Eric Schmidt once quipped that teenagers have two states: online and asleep. That’s an awful lot of expertise that will have been assimilated, even if young people are unaware of how much they know.

Learning to apply it in a commercially beneficial way is the challenge, but it is a challenge that employers should look to harness and develop.

The pace of change in the workplace, led by technology and global competition, means that it is inevitable education will struggle to keep pace.

How can it? Anyone who has just completed a four-year degree sat their GCSE exams before the first iPhone went on sale – that’s how fast everything is changing. What employers want is people who understand the fundamentals and can apply the principles to new scenarios.

With a little bit of help and guidance, that’s what the class of 2013 can do.

‘Education struggles to keep pace with change’

of the prestige it offered and the networking opportunities,” he said.

“We also had a requirement that, because we’re dealing with lots of multinationals, we could present an infrastructure which had security, credibility, prestige. All those things matter when you’re dealing with a multinational company.

“But it has also brought us enormous opportunities to collaborate with large companies in the region as well as using the infrastructure and the little supply chain around here of small companies. We get our IT services dealt with by a company in the same building, for example.

“Another example is that one person who I met here in discussion had set up a business and lived in Singapore for 20 years. I’m now using him as a consultant for the next six months to manage some of the logistics and setting up the business plan for the region in terms of connections with Korea, Taiwan, Thailand etc.”

Last year, Lovett and his team completed a management buyout at Perceptive and are now setting sights on growth.

“We would expect double turnover within the next four

years,” he said. “That’s a lot more than a pipe dream. We now have got ourselves into a position where we’re getting contracts and a lot of repeat business.

“We’re getting contracts for three years as opposed to one-off contracts – that makes a bedrock of a business that you can grow on.

“In years gone by you used to look out and say there’s one large growth opportunity. Now we’re saying there’s about 10.

“We know four of them won’t come in, but six will. If 10 come in, we need to grow very rapidly.

If six come in we still need to grow reasonably rapidly.

“Within that four-year period we’d probably aim to grow into our own dedicated building and open offices in the US.” Perceptive currently sells its services directly to clients. But that model may now change if discussions Lovett is having with two “engineering majors” bear fruit.

“They want to use our product.,” he said. “That, of course, is the model that we desire because it’s a much higher margin – we will sell

our software product to engineering consultancies who then use it.

“To get them to do that you have to demonstrate credibility and established references.”

And, Lovett smiled, the kind of services Perceptive offers may well shift again as potential clients are interested in its fault detection services – the services it first hoped to offer back in 2003.

“In the last three years,” he said, “we’ve found that the original business plan is now coming into play.”

As Perceptive grows, it will keep working with universities to identify potential employees and bring them into the business, initially through part-funded Knowledge Transfer Partnerships.

He said: “You get, if you like, a one-year interview period and you can judge how well they fit into the culture of the company as well as their technical capabilities. That’s a very nice way to employ people and it’s seen as the norm here.”

Lovett is proud he and his board have continued to focus on quality, rather than making a quick return.

“As a small company you don’t

‘Do your research... and you’ll save a lot of pain’

choose to cut costs when you’re working with your partners,” he said. “You very often choose to over-engineer things.

“So commercially you can be quite naïve if you’re not careful.

But it’s nevertheless the right culture.

“We’re profitable. Could we be more profitable? Yes we could, but we choose to reinvest.

“Not only are our profits reinvested but a team of five people within the company are working on these R&D activities as well. We don’t have to do that, but we do for growth in the future.

“I’m not looking at generating a business where I can get a certain price and just sell it off.

“Financially if that happens, great, and everyone benefits. But what I’d like to do is develop a highly credible, highly valued niche engineering company in this field that has its own culture and where people are rewarded for their performance and their capabilities.

“You can control the culture and character within a small company.

It’s certainly a reflection on the management team. And that culture is important to us.”

■ Alex Turner is the general manager of financial training firm Ambitious Minds

14 post business legal

Ask the expert

Thursday, August 22, 2013

GT puts apprenticeships at centre of growth plan

ELAS consultant Enrique Garcia on a hot topic – zero-hours contracts

Q

Following recent media speculation that zero-hours contracts could be used to exploit staff, what do I need to know about them and how can I, as an employer, ensure that they are correctly implemented?

A

This method can in fact help reduce unemployment and give employers and workers more flexibility.

Scrutiny of zero-hours contracts has intensified after Business Secretary Vince Cable raised fears that they are being abused. This followed Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development research suggesting that some one million people could be working under them.

The findings showed that zero-hours contracts were most common in the hotel, catering and leisure industry (48%) and that employers in the voluntary sector (34%) and the public sector (24%) were more likely to use these contracts than private sector companies.

Non-guaranteed hours actually have benefits on both sides, providing employers and employees with an alternative form of flexible working.

Zero-hours contracts allow companies to draft in extra staff at short notice during busy periods or where they are let down by their employees. It is also important to note that the terms stipulate that workers are able to turn down work if it does not fit into their schedules.

Many of these contracts tend to be used by employers to hire staff who may want to fit work around their university or college studies, or their families or other commitments, making the arrangement ideal in these cases.

However, you need to ensure that proper support for employees and their rights is not being compromised through such arrangements for those that need more stability in their working hours and earnings. Zero-hours contracts cannot be used simply to override an employer’s responsibilities to its employees.

Mr Cable said he was concerned there was “some exploitation” of staff on the contracts, which give no guarantees of shifts or work patterns. He has been leading a review on the issue for the government since June and will decide in September whether to hold a formal consultation on specific proposals.

For employers, this review could mean that, if you have a genuine need to use zero-hours contracts then by all means do so, but, if a staff member gets into a pattern of working a regular or minimum number of hours then this particular custom or practice will overrule the contract itself.

Staff will be entitled to keep those minimum hours and the contract will not be able to be enforced or relied upon. If there isn’t a need to implement a zero-hours contract then the advice is do not use them.

Zero-hours contracts cannot be used to override responsibility

In association with ...

Mark Hall, an apprentice at GT Law

by Joshua Taylor

POST BUSINESS STAFF

joshua.taylor@trinitymirror.com

A LAW firm based in Liverpool has spoken of its plans to recruit more apprentices to help its expansion across the country.

GT Law, whose headquarters are in Castle Street, now has 80 branches nationwide and plans to embark on an apprentice recruitment drive.

Brand development director Mike Hatton said: “Apprenticeships are a great opportunity for us to expand the business and source people from right across the country.”

He said GT Law saw hiring apprentices as a “social respons-

ibility” and a way to unlock “great talent that is out there which, due to the economic climate, other businesses may not be set up to take advantage of ”.

Mr Hatton told Post Business: “We have got apprenticeship programmes at our Stoke-on-Trent outlet and we are also negotiating with a supplier for a fairly extensive number at our Cardiff city centre location.”

There are currently two apprentices at GT Law’s Liverpool city centre branch, one of whom is 23-year-old Mark Hall, from Bootle.

He had been unemployed for eight months before being offered the chance to study for a business administration apprenticeship

with GT Law. He will complete the course in April 2014.

Mr Hall said: “I was on jobseeker’s allowance and my Work Programme provider arranged for me to come to GT Law for an interview. I was given a week’s trial and I was offered the job on the second day of my trial.”

Mr Hall is currently helping the law firm to represent 800 Kenyan Mau Mau people who are suing the British government for mistreatment while the country was under colonial occupation.

He said: “Apprenticeships are a great way to get into the work market and get valuable work experience and qualifications.

“My view of apprenticeships has changed since I started at GT

Law, although I had always thought they were a good thing.

“Hopefully there will be a job for me at the end of the apprenticeship, but if not I have gained vital experience and a qualification. My experience here will stand me in good stead for the rest of my career.”

Mr Hall said he was pleased to see companies like GT Law investing in apprenticeships.

“It’s good when companies put faith in people who may not necessarily have gone down a particular path otherwise,” he said. “Apprenticeships are a great thing and they need to be more positively publicised. A lot of people don’t see the benefits and view them in a negative light.”

Whiplash lawyers to be hit by Government reform DOZENS of lawyers in the North West could be made redundant if the Government goes ahead with plans to raise the value of the small claims limit for personal injury, it has been claimed.

James Barker, a personal injury lawyer with

Kirwans, which has offices in Liverpool, Prenton, Moreton and Southport, said the proposed move to up the limit from £1,000 to £5,000 will push people into dealing with third party insurers directly rather than through a solicitor, leaving many

lawyers without work.

Mr Barker said: “The vast majority of whiplash claims are worth between £1,000 to £5,000. This amount is not considered to be a small claim so, as it stands, an injured party would receive their legal costs in addition to their

damages. The planned proposals to increase the small claims limit to £5,000 will divert many more cases through the small claims court, where only a minimal amount of legal costs can be recovered. Therefore, many solicitors will find

it uneconomical to take the work on and may lose a large part of their income as a result.”

The pressure has been on to rein in whiplash claims since research found the UK had twice as many whiplash claims as the European average.

15

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Advertising Feature Commercial Property

The new Exchange Station concourse has lots to offer business tenants

Connectivity key to attracting tenants

O

PERATOR, Space The high-tech infrastructure at LIP Northwest holds two of has now allowed Space Northwest to the most significant connect Exchange Station, on assets in Liverpool Tithebarn Street in the city centre, to today, with Liverpool the AIMES data centre at LIP. The Innovation Park (LIP) and Exchange digital infrastructure installed at Station. Although the two Exchange Station allows tenants to developments are very different – connect to superfast broadband and LIP is aimed more at the digital and data-centre facilities instantaneously technology sectors, while Exchange and at a fraction of the cost to most Station is more suited to major providers. professional city centre businesses – Exchange Station is just coming to there are also many similarities, the end of a £5m first phase redevelespecially in relation to opment programme, which has connectivity. breathed new life into the former train Much of LIP has been let to high-tech station building. The iconic 1888 façade businesses, attracted to the park has been fully retained but this is because of the digital and data centre where the 19th Century ends and the facilities offered in partnership with 21st Century begins, as, inside, AIMES Grid Services. Through Exchange Station has been completely AIMES, the park can reconfigured and provide internet conredesigned to incorpornectivity of up to ate all of the techno1Gbps, (up and down), logy, security, sustainserver hosting and ability and design feamany additional techtures to meet the many nical services for its requirements of busitenants. nesses today.

An all-inclusive Exchange Station package for SMEs has has connectivity at its also recently been core, not only through introduced, offering its ultrafast fibre techintegrated internet and nology but also telephone services to through occupiers taking less design-enhanced opporthan 1,000 sq ft. tunities to encourage This means that new individuals and busioccupiers can relocate nesses to connect and knowing that vital conDelyth Lloyd, innovation interact. nectivity services are Through its strategic manager at Liverpool available as soon as partnership with Innovation Park they move in.

AIMES Grid Services, Chris Holmes, marExchange Station has keting director at Zut Media, which Wi Fi provision in all of its meeting joined LIP earlier this year, said: “We rooms and event spaces, the coffee often transfer and upload files of over shop, concourse and communal areas, 2GB for clients all over the world. At whilst the office suites also benefit our old site, we’d leave a file to upload from built-in high-speed internet conand it would take between 24 and 26 nectivity. hours. We uploaded a similar-sized file The atrium has been completely the other day (at LIP) and it took 45 remodelled to create an inspirational minutes. That sort of difference saves yet functional concourse setting, with a our clients time and money, and gives vast communal area for tenants and them a better service overall.” visitors to connect and host more Delyth Lloyd, innovation manager at informal meetings.

Liverpool Innovation Park, said: Wayne Locke, director at Space “Because we have the right infrastrucNorthwest, said: “Like LIP, Exchange ture in place, our tenants have the abil- Station benefits from dedicated upload ity to transfer large amounts of data and download capabilities. This without having to pay for this service provides tenants with a great deal of all of the time, so it is incredibly flexflexibility in terms of their data usage. ible. Speed can often be an issue for “Our tenants also have the ability to our tenants too but AIMES has made save on space requirements within the service fast all the time, so we don’t their offices. This is because all of charge for speed, just for usage, maktheir data can be stored within the ing it much more cost-effective.

AIMES data centre at LIP, so tenants LIP also prides itself on its active aren’t paying for the extra square feet events calendar, which encourages ten- of space to house a server room. Likeants to interact and connect with one wise, Exchange Station has meeting another. Regular events include netrooms within its concourse, which working breakfasts, workshops and means that businesses don’t need to round tables, as well as wider business include boardrooms within their office events and tenant events, including the configuration, they can just book one annual summer barbecue. when they need one.”

CONNECTED SPACE

CONNECTED

BY TECHNOLOGY

CONNECTING PEOPLE

CONNECTED FOR BUSINESS + +

Internet connectivity of up to 1Gbps (up & down)

+

Active networking and events programme for tenants and external businesses

+ + +

AIMES secure, onsite data centres eliminate the need to provide your own server room

Free gym membership* for new tenants Suitable for any size of business Free parking*

Liverpool Innovation Park, Edge Lane, Liverpool, L7 9NJ, UK Tel: +44 (0) 151 331 4000 Website: www.liverpoolinnovationpark.co.uk @Innov8Liverpool

* subject to terms and conditions

Superfast broadband at Exchange Station Ultra-speed broadband and Wi-Fi connectivity Internet provision readily available and scalable up to 1 gigabit per second Onwards connectivity to multiple communications providers Meeting rooms and event facilities

For more information please contact us to arrange a viewing of the marketing suite.

more than just office space…

Sarah Williams - 0151 331 4005 sarah.williams@exchangestation.co.uk Tony Reed - 0151 255 0755 tonyreed@keppiemassie.com Exchange Station, Tithebarn Street, Liverpool, Merseyside, L2 2QP @Exchange_Stn 0151 227 5482

www.exchangestation.co.uk

16 post business location

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Business rates reform would make life easier for Britain’s retailers

view point

by Helen Dickinson, director general of the BRC “CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM” may feel like a term which is over-used when it comes to commenting on the economy, but it certainly sums up the retail sector’s journey since the start of the year.

A board role for Emily

2012 ended with disappointing sales figures, several high-profile administrations and shop vacancies edging up to an all-time high, but the first half of this year has regularly hinted towards growing consumer confidence, a rosier general outlook and gradual, albeit fragile, recovery.

And this sense of confidence slowly returning has been further cemented by our footfall and vacancies figures for the second quarter of 2013.

After a chequered first quarter, which saw shop vacancies reach a record high of 11.9% and footfall at

its lowest since April 2012, the former has edged down to 11.1% and the latter is back in positive territory: 0.8% up across the UK as a whole.

High streets were the stand-out performer for footfall, with shopper numbers up by 2.3% compared to the previous year.

With temperatures lifting, retailers catered well for customers by providing broad ranges and promotional activity on heatwave must-haves like summer food, fashion and outdoor living items.

With vacancies, the picture is more complex.

While the fact that the number of empty shops in our town centres is undoubtedly good news, it’s still a high percentage, masking widespread variations. Six parts of the UK have above average vacancy rates, topped by Northern Ireland at 18%.

Taken together, these figures paint a mixed picture of tentative recovery but significant numbers of shops standing empty in our town centres. It’s

‘Figures paint a mixed picture of the sector’

further fuel for the BRC’s campaign for long term reform of business rates to help town centres across the UK, and a 2% cap to ease the burden in the short term while viable alternatives are explored.

Business rates have seen steep successive rises over the last few years, and our members tell us that they’re playing an increasingly significant role in retailers’ decision making and financial outlook.

Bringing this outdated system into line with how town centres operate in the 21st century is a surefire way of offering retailers more certainty and scope to invest.

Greenwoods spends £45,000 on Birkenhead store fit-out

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has appointed a new committee member for its North West regional board.

Emily Armstrong, regional manager at Ashtenne/Space Northwest has been selected as a committee member of the board and will undertake her appointment in September.

Ms Armstrong, who is based at Liverpool Innovation Park (LIP), specialises in all aspects of property asset management.

She heads up the North West asset management team overseeing the Space Northwest portfolio.

She said: “I am delighted to be joining the committee of the North West Regional Board. This is a fantastic opportunity not only for me but also for Ashtenne.”

Commercial/Industrial Property Sale/Let

T J THOMAS 0151 708 6544 ERSKINE ST Close to City Centre Business units 850sqft £550pcm KNOWSLEY IND PARK Business units 575sqft £100pw LIVERPOOL CITY CENTRE Hackins Hey off Dale St, shop unit £115pw

www.tjthomas.co.uk

INDUSTRIAL UNITS TO LET South L’Pool 500-4000 sqft, monthly tenancy, competitive rents from £50p/w

Tel: 0151 427 5051

INDUSTRIAL UNITS 3,000- 20,000 sqft, FLEXIBLE terms 0151 486 0004

Branch manager Simon Jones, right, with colleague Marty Hodgson

Picture: MIKE DEAN (Eye Imagery)

A GENT’S outfitters in Birkenhead has completed a £45,000 facelift.

The team at Greenwoods Menswear in Pyramids Shopping Centre, are celebrating the opening of their new-look store which has been in its current location for more than 20 years.

The store will now boast an 1860 Suit Hire department which specialises in morning wear, evening wear and Highland wear hire.

The branch will also stock the Mansize range which has been developed to produce high quality clothing for the “larger gentleman”.

Greenwoods chief operating officer, Neil Roberts, said: “Our complete refit within the Birkenhead branch reaffirms our commitment to the town.

“Our new branch offers our customers a much improved shopping experience and with our brand new 1860 Suit Hire Department we really hope to grow this area of the business.

“The Birkenhead branch has now become one of our flagship stores and I urge our regular customers, as well as those who have never shopped with us before, to come down.”

CPUK wins latest in a string of healthcare sector deals

by Tony McDonough POST BUSINESS STAFF

tony.mcdonough@liverpool.com

WEST Lancashire building firm Construction Partnership UK (CPUK) has secured a £3m contract to build a new care home in Stockport.

The company, which has completed a number of projects in the healthcare sector, will construct a 48-bed home for North West-based Olea Care.

The two-storey building is being created on the site of a former council

recycling facility at Torkington Lodge and work includes refurbishing two existing lodge buildings.

Olea Care is a family business which already operates specialist care homes in the North West, including Doves Nest Healthcare in Clayton Bridge.

The contract is the latest in a wide range of projects Skelmersdale-based CPUK has delivered for healthcare providers and specialists across the region.

Its portfolio of health project work

includes a £600,000 14-bed extension to Brook View Nursing and Residential Centre, in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, for private healthcare provider Bupa.

The company also constructed a £3.5m care home in Southport for UK dementia sufferers, operated by Altrincham-based care provider Melton Health Care.

And it has built a number of health centres in the North West, including a £1.5m development in Ashton, Preston, and a £1.3m primary care centre in Rochdale.

The Hazel Grove project also adds to CPUK’s growing order book in all sectors as it sees activity grow to pre-recession levels.

The company now has more than £25m of work secured for the next 12 months, with more in the pipeline.

Steve Burke, managing director of CPUK, said: “Our considerable experience in delivering healthcare projects on time and to budget played a major part in sealing this contract.

“CPUK has a strong reputation among healthcare providers.”

location post business 17

Thursday, August 22, 2013

MDS takes space at Birchwood BILLING and customer management company MDS, together with its sister company Lavastorm Analytics, have announced that they have secured a lease on their new regional HQ based in Warrington.

The 30,000 sq ft space at The Point, Birchwood Boulevard, will be the new home to more than 225 employees following the relocation from current sites at Cinnamon Park, Fearnhead.

The new office space will assist the businesses expansion and future growth plans which includes the appointment and training of up to 10 local apprentices this year.

Dave Thomas, chief financial officer at MDS, said: “The move to larger premises will allow us to better facilitate our employees.

“Doubling the square footage reflects a significant investment by our business, and demonstrates our long term commitments.”

Sutton Kersh offering 100 lots at September auction

by Tony McDonough POST BUSINESS STAFF

tony.mcdonough@liverpool.com

A former Methodist church is among the lots at the auction

SUTTON KERSH will offer 100 lots at its next Liverpool property auction on September 4.

The event, taking place at the city centre Marriott Hotel, will include a former Church and three public houses among the lots.

The two-storey former Methodist Church at the corner of Gladstone Road and Gordon Road in Seaforth has a guide price of £50,000 to £60,000, and may suit residential redevelopment, subject to planning consent.

The pubs include The Carisbrooke in Walton, which is let on a 12-month lease at £300 per week, rising to £400 per week during the football season.

The property offers private living accommodation to the upper floors and has a guide price of £50,000 to £60,000.

Elsewhere, the Larkhill public house in Larkhill Road, on the corner of Queens Drive, is guided at £80,000 to £100,000.

It would suit continued use or redevelopment, subject to planning.

Kersh raised almost £5m at its last

Advertising Feature Independent financial advice

Low interest rates continue to effect savings and annuities

A

CCORDING to Glyn Jones of Vale Financial Services, the new Governor of the Bank of England has made his mark!

His first pronouncement states that the Bank’s interest rate will not increase until unemployment falls below 7%.

Glyn says the Bank’s own projections indicate this is unlikely to happen before 2016.

He comments: “We have all seen how often projections turn into reality, but nevertheless this appears to be an example of longer term thinking, rather than the regular news headlines and consequent analysis that has happened for the last few years every time the news is ‘no change’.”

He says he knows many people with deposit accounts will be less than impressed by this announcement, meaning as it does, the prospect of continuing low returns on their savings.

Some were also disappointed with the recent reduction in ‘prizes’ paid on Premium Bonds.

And he stresses that it is more important than ever to find competitive rates for this type of account and to use your ISA allowances.

Glyn says there are alternative investments available and he

Glyn Jones of Vale Financial Services, Denbigh thinks these can be especially relevant to those who seek an income from their investments.

Provided you understand and are happy with the way they work, you could find a worthwhile improvement in your income.

If you prefer to have a guaranteed return, he reveals there are companies offering such products.

He explains: “There is a com-

promise to be made, as the initial returns can be lower than those available from products without such guarantees.

“This is not a ‘one size fits all’ solution – each should be tailored to your own circumstances and attitudes, and indeed, products and plans can be mixed and matched.”

Glyn reports that low interest rates continue to have an effect

on pension annuities and those who have locked in over recent years could probably feel justified in having taken their benefits.

Even now, provided you use the Open Market Option, disclose any medical conditions and look at all the options, you may feel there is ‘no time like the present.’

As alternatives to fixed annuities, Glyn says there are now providers offering products which allow you to draw your pension income while your fund remains invested.

The logic behind these is that they offer the prospect of growth – as the fund grows, so can your income.

Of course, the opposite is possible, so to allay those fears a little, some providers can offer a minimum level of income should the chosen funds not perform as anticipated.

He adds: “This is a good example of choosing what suits your own circumstances and attitude to risk.

“The Eisteddfod has been and gone from Denbigh. Two years of planning and fund raising have paid off. Something to be said for having a target perhaps?” ● Vale Financial Services is a trading style of pi financial ltd which is authorised by the Financial Services Authority.

auction – selling 71 of the 91 properties on offer.

According to the latest data from the Essential Information Group, more than £467m worth of properties were sold at UK auctions in July – a year-on-year rise of 25% Cathy Holt, auction manager at Sutton Kersh, said: “The latest catalogue provides a range of stock which is ideal for first-time buyers, modest investors and those seasoned campaigners looking to expand their portfolios.

“We have consistently delivered strong results throughout the year and this latest sale will see us break the 400 barrier in terms of total lots sold.”

Another pub going under the hammer is the the Fountains Abbey in Walton Road, approximately two miles from the city centre, which has a guide of £55,000-plus.

There are also residential investment opportunities, including two apartments within the Ropewalks area of Liverpool.

The one and two bedroom properties in Portside House are let by way of assured shorthold tenancies producing income of £6,600 and £8,700 a year.

Independent Financial Advisers in your area Anglesey Security Financial Services

Ty Llwyd, Llanfaelog,Ty Croes, Anglesey LL63 5TY Contact: Richard Jones Email richard@security-financial.co.uk Phone: 01407 811268 Mobile: 07710 468970

Denbighshire Vale Financial Services

info@valefinancialservices.com Studio One,Town Hall, Crown Lane, Denbigh LL16 3TB Tel: 01745 814962 Fax: 01745 814446 Contact: Glyn B. Jones info@valefinancialservices.com

Liverpool Investec Wealth & Investment

The Plaza, 100 Old Hall Street, Liverpool L3 9AB. Tel: 0151 227 2030. Fax: 0151 227 2444 Email: paul.brokenshar@investecwin.co.uk Website: www.investecwin.co.uk Contact: Paul Brokenshar

Why choose an independent financial adviser

Because it pays to take an unbiased view

Those listed above are either an appointed representative of a network or national which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority or are directly authorised and regulated

18 post business economic development

Thursday, August 22, 2013

City start-ups following focus on

growth

by Helen Davies

POST BUSINESS STAFF

helen.davies01@trinitymirror.com

P

UBLIC sector cuts in Liverpool have spawned a wave of new business start-ups.

That’s the view of some of the city’s experts in the field following the latest Duport Business Confidence Report which showed 2,402 companies formed in Liverpool in the first half of this year, up 18.8% on the same period in 2012.

Historically Liverpool has lagged behind others in the ranks of new business start-ups and despite the surge this year it still had fewer than other cities of a similar size.

Bristol saw 3,549 new start-ups between January and June, Edinburgh 2,890 and although admittedly larger, Manchester saw 5,654.

Discussing what has caused the dramatic increase in new businesses in Liverpool and why the city has previously not seen as many start-ups as other places, Cllr Nick Small, Liverpool City Council's cabinet member for employment, enterprise and skills, said: “In the past Liverpool has been quite dependent on the public sector for jobs.

“I think what the city’s been through in the past few years has been quite negative but I’m finding people are saying it’s now or never.

“If they’ve had an idea for a business they’ve been thinking about for maybe five or 10 years now is when they’re acting on it.

“I hate to say this because it’s been really tough for some people and the city but one good thing for some is they have used this as an opportunity to do something that inspires them.”

He said the city council and Liverpool Vision, the authority’s regeneration agency, had been concentrating on start-ups as a method of economic development and working to offer budding entrepreneurs advice.

Meanwhile equity providers such as MSIF and the North West Fund have been helping hundreds of new businesses across the city.

Richard Young, fund manager at the North West Fund, which now has a regular column on the Ask The Expert page of The Liverpool Post Business Daily e-edition, said: “Liverpool has a great entrepreneurial history.

“As the UK’s leading international port in its heyday it was buzzing with independent traders and commercial activity.

“I think the culture of the city still reflects this, in an independent way of thinking, a questioning attitude to convention and authority.

“But during some painful post-war years it became what some people call an ‘hour-glass economy’, with big organisations at the top and micro-businesses at the bottom but too slender in the middle, the businesses of five to 250 people run by independent entrepreneurs, many of which folded or left and

Jeni Wadkin and Natalie Hardman started their cafe, Siren, six months ago and now have expansion plans were not replaced.

“This middle tier is where I have found most new start-up entrepreneurs emerge from.”

Paul Humphray, investment director at MSIF (Merseyside Special Investment Fund), agreed the number of large organisations in Liverpool may be behind the city’s low level of start-ups in years gone by He said: “Liverpool has historically had a smaller stock of businesses than other cities, probably because in the past there were some very large employers in the area

such as the docks plus shipbuilding and the car industry.

“However the latest figures show the region is making progress albeit from a smaller base.”

He added: “Merseyside has been one of the areas most affected by the public spending cuts due to the higher than average reliance on public sector jobs.

“Coupled with the impact of the recession which has reduced the number of private sector jobs available, the unemployed, which includes school

‘Liverpool now seems to have turned a corner’

and college leavers, have increasingly turned to self employment as an alternative.”

Now Liverpool seems to have turned the corner in terms of its business start-ups, the task is to ensure these new companies stay afloat.

Cllr Small said: “The big challenge is how we increase the company survival rate.

“We do want to get support in place for the first three years of a company’s life, if you get through that time they’re more likely to succeed.

“We want to support businesses to expand but also recognise that lots of start-ups are going to be

Picture: ANDREW TEEBAY

small businesses.

“It’s not necessarily a bad thing for someone to stay being a one-man-band if that’s what they want.”

He added Liverpool Vision has combined its business growth and start-up teams together in a bid to offer joined-up advice to those starting out on their own.

■ Emma Jones, StartUp Britain co-founder, will be in Liverpool to help people to turn a hobby into a money-spinning idea at Central Library on Saturday September 7.

For more information go to www.enterprisenation.com/events/startupsaturdaytour/

economic development post business 19

Thursday, August 22, 2013

their dreams

start-up of the month In association with

Cllr Nick Small says the big challenge is now to increase the survival rate of new businesses

Zoe Humphries at one of her events

Richard Young, from the North West Fund, advises against starting a business to get rich

Case study: Right time for starting a business FOR 27-year-olds Jeni Wadkin and Natalie Hardman, running their own business had always been a dream.

This year the pair, who have been friends since childhood, decided to take the leap and opened Siren, a cafe located at 54 St James Street near the Baltic Triangle.

Ms Wadkin said: “I

worked in restaurant management previously and Nat worked in administration.

“It’s something we’d been talking about for a while and the opportunity came up to tender for this space so we decided to go for it.”

Siren is based in the Women’s Organisation building and the cafe

owners have had free help from them starting up with advice about running their own business.

The Women’s Organisation provides free business support for women setting up or growing their own business, including one-to-one advice and business planning courses.

Ms Wadkin added: “It’s been going really well so far.

“We’re just coming up to six months and are going to open a second base in Kirkdale.

“We’re enjoying it.

“There’s parts of it that are quite stressful but it’s good. It’s nice for it to be working for yourself.”

I took voluntary redundancy six years ago to spend more time with my children, but wanted to keep my business hand in.

It was difficult though attending networking events because they don’t suit family life.

Breakfast events clash with the school run and 6pm events clash with meal times and none provide childcare.

I thought there must be other women out there like me and I came up with the idea of Networking Mums.

Networking Mums is a support network holding regular events during school hours, where children are welcome.

We enable women to have greater opportunities to access information to grow and start their business, make new contacts, promote and sell their products and services, to feel included and inspired.

It's also great for women on maternity leave, or who are thinking about setting up a business, to meet others who have done it and have the chance to be inspired by like-minded individuals.

Networking Mums is not exclusively for mums and all women are welcome.

We have a gentle structure to our events that works for both the shyest newcomer and the steeliest networker.

We also often feature inspirational women and recently Luciana Berger presented to us.

But make no mistake this is no ordinary Mother and Toddler Group, we mean business!

Liverpool Vision has provided me with great support from workshops Name: Zoe Humphries What it does: Business networking and showcases for women Email: zoe@networking-

to practical advice and the Business Growth Managers continue to communicate information relevant and useful for me and my business.

Now several of my own group are using the ‘I’m Liverpool, I’m Business’ programme accessing their free business support.

Most importantly their businesses have been boosted and they are now making money.

We are also starting to work with Liverpool Vision on holding an International Women’s day event and making it part of the International Festival for Business next year.

Networking Mums is also growing geographically around the North West and we hold events from Stockport to Wirral.

We now have a Membership Scheme and we are hosting our first ever conference on Friday October 4 at The Florrie in Liverpool, featuring inspirational speakers, workshops, exhibitions and of course the opportunity to turn dreams into a business reality.

It will also be a chance to attract women to Liverpool and show them how we can do business and manage our family lives in the way that we choose.

The next Networking Mums Liverpool event is on Tuesday September 3, Marriott Hotel, Queens Square, Liverpool.

Non-Members £14, members £10, business showcase non-members £35, business showcase members £25.

Price includes refreshments and free parking at Queens Square NCP. Zoe Humphries, founder of Networking Mums mums.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/ networkingmums Telephone: 07739396954

20 post business professional

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Architect receives Chinese accolade

International Festival for Business 2014 promotional containers at the Pier Head. The event will take place over six weeks next year

Professional and financial services meet to discuss IFB

by Helen Davies

POST BUSINESS STAFF

helen.davies01@trinitymirror.com

LEADING members of the North West’s professional and financial services community have met to discuss for the first time the benefits next year’s International Festival for Business (IFB 2014) can bring to the sector.

A meeting to talk about the event, coming to Liverpool for six weeks next summer, was led by Julie Simms, real estate partner at law firm DWF, Maria Norfolk, head of finance at Liverpool Vision and Denise Walker, corporate legal partner at Brabners with representatives attending from Liverpool Law Society, Liverpool Society of Chartered Account-

ants, Professional Liverpool and Professional Manchester, among others.

The group will look to facilitate the delivery of a diverse programme of business-focused, professional and financial services themed events as part of the festival that will promote the best of British business, industry and manufacturing.

They will be supported by professional bodies and companies both regionally and nationally all of whom will host and co-ordinate complimentary events.

Maria Norfolk of festival organiser Liverpool Vision, said: “Our region is a UK leader in professional and financial services and there is a strong desire to ensure that

we showcase our excellence to new international markets and ensure long lasting and significant economic benefit.”

IFB 2014’s professional and financial services week will start on Monday, June 30 2014.

IFB 2014 is a 50-day business festival hosted in Liverpool city region during June-July 2014 and will champion UK businesses to new markets, new products and new partners.

Comprising more than 100 world-class events, the festival is a key part of the Government’s ambition to promote economic growth, rebalance the economy and double UK exports by 2020.

‘There is a strong desire to showcase excellence’

Earlier this month Post Business revealed one million extra visitors are expected in Liverpool next summer when both the International Festival for Business (IFB) and The Open Championship at Hoylake are held in the region, providing a major boost to the visitor economy.

Liverpool Vision expects a global 250,000-strong business audience will descend on the city for the business festival over six weeks in June and July next year.

A further 250,000 are expected for the golf and around 500,000 extra for a cultural programme designed to compliment the IFB. If you wish to be involved or have events to offer for the professional and financial services week or have any queries email julie.simms@dwf.co.uk

A LIVERPOOL architect is celebrating receiving a top accolade in China.

Martin Watson, partner with Old Hall Street-based Brock Carmichael Architects, is the first Western architect to be presented with an honorary citation at the Chinese Urban Housing Conference held in Shanghai.

He submitted and presented a paper entitled, ‘Arkwright Town and the Eldonians: A comparative study of displaced communities in the UK’.

It was awarded one of five best papers from 113 papers shortlisted for conference from entries submitted from around the world.

Mr Watson’s paper was given unanimous support by the Paper Review Committee and endorsed by the Chinese City Science Research Institute and the Chinese University of Hong Kong Research Committee.

Conference organiser and chair of the Paper Review Committee, Professor Jin Yeu Tsou, said: “It showed us an alternative way.”

The aim of the paper was to highlight distinct socio-economic and psychological aspects and how they can influence the long term sustainability of displaced communities.

It was based on a previous essay submitted

by Mr Watson as part of the IDBE PGR Masters programme he is undertaking at the University of Cambridge.

It described how communities can be a source of ethical development and focused on the work of Brock Carmichael psychologist Dr Gerda Speller in Liverpool.

on the move ■

BIRKENHEADborn Matthew Callcott has been appointed as head of health, safety and facilities at North West housing group Regenda.

The new role will see him lead a team of 13 at Regenda, which has more than 13,000 properties across the region.

The group has offices in Liverpool, Newton-leWillows and Wirral, while its subsidiaries

include Liverpool-based Regenda Homes and St Helens-based repairs and maintenance firm M&Y. Mr Callcott lives in Sefton and has worked in housing since he was 17.

■

BE Group, the Warrington commerrcial property firm, has appointed two new staff members as it undergoes a management restruc-

ture prompted by the retirement of director Peter Crompton.

Simon Roddam has joined the property consultancy from DTZ Manchester to head the agency team, while Samia Syeda joins the planning and regeneration team from Rossendale council.

Meanwhile, fellow director Vince Sandwell is taking over as managing director.

■

A CHESTER-based law firm has recruited a new member to its wills, trusts and taxes team.

Wendy Randall has joined Aaron & Partners as an associate solicitor from Percy Hughes & Roberts in Birkenhead.

Ms Randall, who has expertise in tax compliance and advice as well as wills, estate administration and trusts, lives in Oxton, Wirral.

Matthew Callcott – new role at Regenda

Peter Crompton – steps down at BE

Wendy Randall – at Aaron & Partners

style post business 21

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Jewellery worth £9bn is lost but owners refuse to insure

JOSHUA TAYLOR asks how to protect the vast amount of jewellery lost in offices every year

■

THERE have been 20m pieces of jewellery lost in Britain during the past five years, according to the survey conducted by insurance group Direct Line.

■

The losses totalled £9bn – equivalent to £682 per head.

■

Almost a third (30%) of the 20.5m jewellery items that went missing over the five-year period were reportedly dropped in the street. About a quarter were misplaced in the home, 9% at work or the office and a further 9% in restaurants and bars.

W

HETHER a watch, a pearl necklace, a diamond ring or a body piercing, most people occasionally adorn themselves with jewellery.

It is not surprising to learn, therefore, that a colossal quantity of the stuff is misplaced by Brits every year.

A survey by insurer Direct Line has estimated £9bn worth of bling has gone missing over the past five years – equivalent to £682 per head.

And the office, according to Direct Line, is one of the most common places to lose jewellery – with one in 10 losses occurring at work.

Given accidental loss can never be entirely eliminated, what options are open to those who wear valuable jewellery to the office?

Louise Lumley, Direct Line’s head of private insurance, said it was “vital” to insure jewellery and have it valued regularly to take into account fluctuations in the price of metals such as gold.

However, Haywood Milton, managing director of Miltons Pawnbrokers and Jewellers, which has shops in Liverpool, Birkenhead and Chester, said many people were put off insuring expensive jewellery.

“Jewellery is high in value and easily lost,” he said. “But the cost of insuring it often puts people off.

“So there is a massive part of the population in possession of

Losses have hit £9bn

■

A further 6% of items, equivalent to 800,000 items, were lost in the bathroom, often accidentally flushed down the toilet.

■

The study found gold rings were the most frequently lost item, with 4.5m going missing during the period in question – equivalent to one for every 10 adults living in the UK.

■

Gold earrings and chains were the next most commonly lost items, with 3.1m and 2.2m misplaced respectively during the five-year window.

Haywood Milton, managing director of Miltons Pawnbrokers and Jewellers, examines some items high-value jewellery that is not insured against damage or loss.

“Sometimes items can be covered through a household insurance policy, but separate insurance for jewellery is too expensive for most.”

Mr Milton advised the cheapest

option for jewellery owners was to see whether items were or could be covered by home insurance.

He said: “People sometimes look into whether their jewellery can be covered through their household insurance policy. It can sometimes be

added on as a small premium, but otherwise it will normally cost a couple of per cent of the item’s value.

For most people it’s unpalatable.”

The Direct Line survey said gold earrings and chains were the most frequently misplaced items.

■

Approximately 1.7m diamonds were lost from rings, the study said.

■

Low interst rates have led to an increase in recent years in the number of people buying precious metals and jewellery.

past business – nostalgia

The Liverpool banking giant that pioneered computers and cashpoints

The lavish interior of Martins Bank’s former headquarters in Water Street

THE bank badged with a grasshopper was the first to make the leap into the computer era.

As this column reported last week, the early pioneers of computing believed the UK would need only a few computers.

But as technology advanced through the 1950s and room-sized computers were replaced with those merely the size of family cars, then businesses began to wonder what computing could do for them.

Liverpool-based Martins was the first bank in the UK to use a computer to use a computer to control its current accounts. It was installed in April 1961 and the first Liverpool branch was hooked up to the network by the end of the year.

Then, as now, workers feared computers would cost them their jobs.

But in an August 1961 press release announcing its new gadgetry, Martins insisted “redundancy is not expected”.

It said: “The purpose of the computer is to reduce the amount of manual work needed in bank work

and to relieve staff of the monotony that in the past has been characteristic of much of bank routine.”

And it added: “The same size of staff is needed for the greater amount of work to be done. As a result the tasks to be performed are more varied, and the opportunities for staff advancement considerably increased.”

Its computer network led Martins to pioneer another now-ubiquitous feature of banking technology – the cash machine. The first “Auto-Cashier” in the North, which cost Martins the princely sum of £1,600, went into service on October 31, 1967, at the bank’s Church Street branch.

The next day, the Post reported: “All customers have to do to get their £10 is feed a plastic card into the machine, record a special code on a push-button panel and the money comes out in a sealed packet.”

The Post added dryly: “Bank officials are confident the machine is thief-proof ”.

ALISTAIR HOUGHTON

Martins Bank installed the North’s first cashpoint at its Church Street branch in October, 1967

22 post business end piece

Thursday, August 22, 2013

trading gossip ■

TRADING Gossip has come across its fair share of PRs who make a song and dance about everything, but Iceland PR adviser Keith Hann has written a book on it.

Opera buff Keith has penned ‘The Bluffer’s Guide to Opera’, part of the five million bestselling Bluffer’s Guide series.

A veteran of more than 1,000 operas – he met his wife at a Covent Garden production – Keith aims to help avoid confusion between castratos and contraltos, or O Sole Mio with an ice cream advert.

He has been PR adviser to Deeside-based foods group Ice-

land for almost 30 years and managed to keep his passion for opera under the radar, until now.

Iceland founder, chairman and chief executive Malcolm Walker said: “Over the last three decades I have often paused to wonder what Keith did all day, and finally I know: he has been nursing a thoroughly unhealthy obsession with opera, which he can’t possibly afford.”

Malcolm Walker

Unlike Sir Bradley, we like to stop to have tea Julie Calvert in the Lake District

myday off Julie Calvert, director at Pavis Financial Management is a member of a group of cyclists known as Tea Shop Tours (TST)

A

S SOMEONE born in Kendal with a second home in Cumbria, but who lives and works in Liverpool, my working week and my free time at weekends are invariably poles apart.

Liverpool is a wonderful city and I haveloved watching it develop into the fantastic, vibrant place we see today.

However, the hustle and bustle of the city makes the tranquility of the Lake

District all the more appealing and I love driving back up there on a Friday evening or prior to a few days off.

I’m definitely the outdoors type and I have been known to take on all manner of challenges, whether it’s abseiling, canoeing, mountain bike riding or hiking 40 miles in one day.

However, my favourite pastime combines three of my greatest passions – cycling, cake and tea. I am part of a social cycling team called TST, which stands for Tea Shop Tours.

We meet regularly and cycle around the Lake District in search of the finest tea shops and most delicious cakes. We have our own professional cycling shirts, which we think are extremely fetching and look rather like the Team GB strip.

I definitely prefer to see myself as the Sir Bradley Wiggins of the team, leading from the front and looking cool in the process.

Every year, we take a vote among the team and award a prize to the venue we have enjoyed the most. One day, we hope to write a book chronicling our adventures and listing our tea shop recommendations.

We also take the tour further afield at least once a year. Last year, we cycled from the Welsh border near Chester to the Scottish border at Gretna in three days, which included the arduous Kirkstone Pass. This was in aid of the Insurance Charities, whom I represent on the

council of the Insurance Institute of Liverpool.

We recently returned from a four-day circular ride in Argyll, taking in a total of 160 miles and at least half a dozen tea shops. While there, I was preparing for a daunting hill climb when I stopped for a breather and switched on my iPhone.

I spotted an email from our MD Bob Newton saying we’d increased our client list by more than a third since the start of the year – an excellent piece of news that gave me the extra impetus to make it up the hill.

Cycling around such dramatic landscapes can be a really cathartic experience and it helps to clarify my thoughts.

Any frustrations or concerns from work or home also seem to melt away into the back of your mind as you drag yourself and the bike up the umpteenth hill, all in the name of a quality brew and a slice of tiffin.

The Isle of Man and Scotland are popular destinations for TST and we are currently putting the finishing touches to plans for a trip to France next year.

Some of my colleagues are also keen cyclists – Bob Newton recently cycled 100 miles in a day in support of Help for Heroes and Steve Robertshaw cycles from Formby to our office on Hope Street and back every day.

I keep trying to encourage them to join me on a TST ride, but so far it’s been to no avail.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

end piece

post business

23

networking

Neighbourhood in Childwall, Liverpool

Spanish network BRAND UBIQUTY held its latest networking event at Spanish restaurant Lunya in Liverpool One, sponsored

by Gregory Abrams Davidson.

Pictured, above,

Anthony Packwood and Kyle Corfield from Klinked with Felicity Wren, Domino Art Gallery, and, left, Alex Pinnington, Telegraph Furniture and Michelle Helsby, Evolve.

Mal at the crease UPMARKET hotel, Malmaison, hosted a table at a cricket legends event at Grappenhall, near Warrington.

Pictured, from left, Australian cricketer, Damian Martyn, Jude Cisse, wife of

former Liverpool FC striker, Djibril Cisse, England cricket legend Freddie Flintoff and Atomic Kitten star, Natasha Hamilton.

The event was held shortly before the England Ashes triumph.

Frank Field, HYPE founder Matthew Houghton, and Sally Kew, Magenta

BIRKENHEAD MP Frank Field met young people making the most of a course designed to help them beat long-term unemployment.

The meeting was held at the HYPE Centre at Pyram-

FRIDAY, AUGUST 23

LIVERPOOL Chamber of Commerce is hosting a charity event for Mencap Liverpool at its Old Hall Street offices, from 8.30am to 10am. Tea With Me is an opportunity to enjoy a cup of tea and piece of cake while networking and raising money for Mencap Liverpool. Mencap Liverpool supports people with a learning difficulty and all the proceeds from the

chamber morning will be donated to the charity.

The chamber said it is pleased to invite all its members to its members business suite to enjoy Tea With Me as part of its support for National Learning Disability week.

There is no entrance fee but donations are welcome.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 27

THE Employability and Skills Group of companies

Janine Melia, marketing manager at Spire Hospital Q What is your favourite lunch venue?

A Neighbourhood located in Woolton Road in Childwall, Liverpool.

Q Why is this your favourite venue?

A Neighbourhood is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner so you can just call in at any time and be assured of a great atmosphere and fantastic food. The restaurant is reminiscent of a Parisian bistro and feels warm and comfortable inside where you are waited on by friendly staff – regardless of the time of day.

MP meets youngsters

business diary

my favourite lunch

is holding a series of open days at its Bold Street site. It invites schools, pupils, careers advisors, training providers, job centres, and employers to its events which run from 10am to 4pm on the second floor of Link 19 in Bold Street’s Central Village. It says the open days provide a chance to find out how it can help individuals to obtain full time jobs via the apprenticeship programme. Contact Jules Westbrook or Pauline O’Brien on 0151-702 6111.

ids Shopping Centre in Birkenhead, which has teamed up with social housing provider Magenta Living for the third year in a row to deliver the Right Track course.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29 ‘SOCIAL Media for Business: Evolve or Dissolve’ is taking place, between 1.30pm to 2.10pm, at Liverpool Business First Centre, situated on Goodlass Road, Speke.

SATURDAY, SEPT 7

EMMA Jones, founder of Enterprise Nation and co-founder of StartUp Britain, is delivering a ‘StartUp Saturday Class’ at Liverpool Central Library, from 9.30am to 3pm. It will offer a range of helpful advice to budding

Q What is your favourite dish and why?

A The pan fried prawn linguini. I love sea food and the chilli adds a nice kick.

Q What is the best bit of business you have done over lunch?

A My husband proposed over lunch but not really sure if that's classed as the best bit of business. Lunch is good way of building relationships so for me this tends to be with our consultants. Each month I take out a different

entrepreneurs, from how to uncover your big idea to the must-do’s involved in setting up a new business. According to official labour market statistics, more than 18,200 people in Liverpool are creating their own value by working for themselves – that’s 5.8% of the working population. Last year the city topped the list for business start-ups, seeing 300 new enterprises set up by city entrepreneurs under the Government’s New Enterprise Allowance (NEA), higher than any other area of the country

Janine Melia speciality which is always entertaining.

Q Who would you most like to have lunch with?

A Barack Obama – he’s intelligent, inspirational and one of our greatest world leaders, who wouldn't want to have lunch with him. But also someone like Keith Lemon. I think he’s very witty and would keep us all on our toes and there would never be an awkward pause.

Q Where else do you like to go to for lunch?

A Eton Place as I love Turkish food but also Vanda & Co.

with the scheme. Ms Jones said: “I’m heading to Liverpool to get as many people as possible to take that first step to start a business. As I travel around the UK I am seeing amazing stories about how people are turning something they love doing into a business that brings in money. You don’t need an office or a filing cabinet or any of the trappings that used to be associated with starting-up.

You just need passion, an idea, commitment – and the confidence to get out there and do it. It’s taking

the first step that is the biggest leap.” Tickets cost £30 and can be booked at www.entrprisenation. com/liverpool

WEDNESDAY, SEPT 11

JOIN Ladies Networking Liverpool at the Olive Press on Castle Street for a free event between 10am and 12pm. The morning includes 60 second introductions and a guest speaker.

■ Send your diary events to neil.hodgson @liverpool.com

Investment Advice.

At Charles Stanley Liverpool we have a different approach to investment services. Rather than slotting you into someone else’s financial model, we custom build a service around you.

For further information please contact Derek Gawne on the details below: 20 Chapel Street, Liverpool, L3 9AG 0151 255 2680 www.charles-stanley.co.uk/liverpool Please be aware that the value of your investments may fall as well as rise and your capital may be at risk.

Made for you

n Discretionary and Advisory investment management n Advisory and Execution-Only share dealing n Charity and Trust Services n ISA and Junior ISAs n SIPPs n No minimum portfolio n Local management

www.charles-stanley.co.uk/liverpool

www.charles-stanley.co.uk/liverpool www.csfinancialsolutions.co.uk 32 UK OFFICES

Charles Stanley & Co. Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Registered office 25 Luke St, London, EC2A 4AR. Registered in England No. 1903304