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My Day Off 22

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FORRESTERS SPECIAL FEATURE

A new chapter for Forresters eading intellectual property specialist Forresters is celebrating a new chapter after moving into offices at the historic Port of Liverpool building.

The North West branch of the global firm has transferred its whole workforce from offices in Wirral to a new spacious base in the heart of Liverpool’s financial district.

The move will allow Forresters to build on its client relationships across the Liverpool City Region and also to implement further growth plans with new partners and support staff.

Founded in 1884, Forresters specialises in all areas of intellectual property, including patents, trade marks, designs and copyright, with offices in Birmingham, Liverpool, London and Munich.

North West partner Ross Walker said: “We pride ourselves on building strong, long-term relationships and meeting with clients on a regular basis. Moving to a vibrant city centre office will bring us closer to our clients and will optimise client relationships.

“The Liverpool City Region has a very strong knowledge economy as well as diversity in sectors such as life sciences, engineering and digital technology. At Forresters we can help businesses and individuals to navigate the

complex system of intellectual property and legal formalities, giving expert advice on how best to protect their technologies, products or services.

“This is the next step of an exciting journey – we look forward to meeting our new neighbours and to benefitting from the excellent facilities available in the Port of Liverpool building.”

Forresters has a variety of clients, ranging from businesses in the USA to local firms such as Birkenhead motorcycle helmet manufacturer Davida and The Cavern Club. Forresters’ Liverpool office will cover the whole of the North West as well as North Wales.

The relocation is part of a UK-wide expansion programme, with Forresters recently relocating its Birmingham and London offices and investing in new offices in Munich, the home of the European Patent Office. Forresters has also recently appointed three new partners.

Here to help you...

Port of Liverpool Building Intellectual Property can be a daunting subject; we specialise in pragmatic, robust advice.

You will find the standard and quality of our work second-to-none, with our team of specialists able to deliver a bespoke solution to your IP issues.

That’s why people have turned to us for more than 130 years.

And as our team continues to grow and we are increasingly an integral part of Liverpool City Region’s professional services sector, we felt that the location of our new offices – and the timing of our move – could not be better.

Forresters team

The Forresters team is a leader in its field; renowned across the world for cutting through complex IP issues and delivering crystal clear advice.

Our North West team – headed by partner Ross Walker – has many years of experience and expertise across a range of IP issues. Our people are at the core of our offering, bringing a collaborative approach and operating as an integral part of your team.

We will work with you, as well as for you.

Ross Walker Ross is a UK Chartered Patent Attorney, European Patent Attorney and European Trade Mark Attorney.

He joined Forresters in 2001 with a technical background in biochemistry. Ross became partner in April 2006 and specialises in providing IP advice in the fields of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

David Murphy – Associate David is a UK Chartered Patent Attorney and European Patent Attorney. David has an MSc in the management of IP with legal training underpinned by a broad and varied scientific knowledge acquired during his studies for a BSc in biomedical sciences at Keele University.

The first of the world-renowned Three Graces to be built, the Port of Liverpool Building on the

David works across a range of technical disciplines, with a specialism in biotechnology patent work.

Kate Cruse – Associate Kate is a qualified UK and European Trade Mark Attorney. She graduated from the University of Birmingham in Hispanic/ Portuguese Studies and after qualifying as a trade mark attorney worked for youth development charity Raleigh International as a Project Leader and Interpreter in South America.

Kate joined Forresters in 2013 following a role working in Costa Rica with the British Embassy, where she provided advice on IP to UK businesses operating across the region.

Pier Head is steeped in history and one of the city’s most prestigious landmark buildings.

Fully refurbished to the highest specification, the building provides modern, open plan offices, with excellent access to public transport and on-site parking available.

Whether you need help with patents, trade marks, designs or copyright, we are best placed to help – both in the UK and also around the world. We will advise you how to protect your products, services and brand names, ensuring that the many legal requirements are dealt with.

We are proud to be providing an unrivalled service from our new city centre offices, offering a thoroughly professional team at one of the city’s most accessible locations.

Sean Thomas – Patent Assistant Sean has more than 10 years’ experience in IP and specialises in patent protection.

Sean has particular experience in drafting and prosecuting patent applications in the UK, Europe and other countries, in a broad range of technologies – including electronics, optoelectronics, software, automotive, mechanical, energy and environmental and medical related subject matters. He also assists in advising on trade marks, registered design and copyright.

Phone: 0151 255 2180 Web: www.forresters.co.uk Twitter: @ForrestersIP

Thursday, November 28, 2013

news

Est Est establishes Italian restaurant in suburban Aigburth AN ITALIAN restaurant has opened its doors in Aigburth with the creation of 15 jobs.

The £500,000 Est Est development has been funded by a consortium of local investors and driven by managing director, Stephen Garrity, who previously headed up the similarly named Est Est Est chain of Italian restaurants before becoming a director of The Restaurant Group, which acquired Est Est Est in 1997 and changed its name to Gusto.

Mr Garrity said: “In cre-

ating an authentic Italian neighbourhood restaurant, we wanted to draw on the qualities of community and energy that are often found in suburban Italy.

“Replicating an all round Italian experience was very important to us and Aigburth is the perfect place to showcase our blend of traditional Italian flavours fusioned with stylish surroundings.”

The head chef of Est Est, located on the corner of Aigburth Road and Mersey Road, is Ian Crosby, who has

previously worked at restaurants such as Piccolino.

He said: “For Est Est I believe we have created a menu of real, honest Italian food that is made with the finest, freshest ingredients from local producers and Italian deli suppliers.

“We have worked hard at creating the most flavoursome Italian food, complemented by exquisite Italian wines combined with excellent service to give our customers an all round exceptional dining experience.”

Stephen Garrity, managing director of Est Est

N Brown basing UK stores roll-out on Liverpool One

STEP INTO MY OFFICE Dr Matt Fulton, project manager at the Centre for Global EcoInnovation

‘In people's everyday lives there is going to be an increase in low carbon technology that will creep in without you realising it’

by Neil Hodgson

POST BUSINESS STAFF

neil.hodgson@liverpool.com

CATALOGUE group N Brown is using its Liverpool retail store as the blueprint for a national roll-out in a bid to make the most of the multi-channel retail world.

The group opened its first Simply Be/Jacamo store in Liverpool One in 2011.

Since then it has opened a further eight, including sties in Derby Westfield and Leeds White Rose shopping centres.

But new chief executive Angela Spindler wants to develop a network of more than 25 retail sites over the next two years in a £12m investment to connect with more customers and target consumers new to the Manchester-based group.

Liverpool stockbroker Shore Capital met senior N Brown managers at the Liverpool One store, who outlined their ongoing expansion plans.

N Brown is seeking to emulate former Littlewoods group, Speke-based Shop Direct, in developing its retail spread away from the traditional catalogue form.

Following the visit Shore Capital brokers Clive Black and Darren Shirley said: “The financial thinking with respect to stores is to have profitable outlets – three out of seven are already so, a payback of around three years is expected – that act as effective outlets in their own right, but also build brand awareness and reputation as well as supporting online travel in their respective hinterlands.

“Management spoke of Simply Be online sales up around 5% in the store hinterland, Jacamo up 3%.

“Encouragingly, again, about 60-70% of store customers have not previously traded with N Brown, with about seven percent of store customers opening an account with N Brown in-store with about 20% of those taking credit terms.”

They both said they were impressed with the Liverpool One store: “Interestingly, given the older customer age of N Brown’s core client base, we found the clientele to be young.”

Jacamo, which is backed by former

post business 3

Full video interview available at www.ldp business.co.uk

Web sales up around 5% in the store hinterland

ISP ‘kill cord’ lifejacket The exterior of SimplyBe’s store in Liverpool One, which is the blueprint for a national roll-out England and Lancashire cricketer Freddie Flintoff, has been very successful, they said, accounting for approaching for 50% of store sales from a third of the space in Liverpool.

The brokers also see great potential for the group in the “significant and growing” oversize market, “one that could be hugely rewarding for shareholders if the company can evolve into an international online player”.

They added: “It is still relatively early days in the new management team’s reign at N Brown. However, we are encouraged by what we see at a strategic level. Most particularly, we like the idea of N Brown being a global leader in clothing for folk of any size and the implication that goes from that of a material programme of international e-commerce.”

With stock forecast to deliver a dividend yield of 2.7% they said Shore Capital has a “buy” stance on N Brown.

The stylish interior of N Brown’s inaugural shop in Liverpool One

BOOTLE-based International Safety Products (ISP) has designed a new bespoke lifejacket in response to an international maritime safety campaign.

The firm has developed a lifejacket which attaches to marine ‘kill cords’– a device which clip the driver to the boat and cuts the engine if they fall out.

It follows a summer of petitions and campaigns to raise awareness of the life-saving device.

ISP sales director Geoff Billington said: “We have listened to recent appeals from some of our leading maritime associations and have responded by designing a new model which can be attached to a kill cord.”

4 post business big feature

Bill Gleeson Cable right to order investigation into conduct of bankers YET another example of the arrogance of bankers has come to light.

In a report to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills, businessman and government advisor Lawrence Tomlinson has claimed that Royal Bank of Scotland took over the assets of businesses its corporate restructuring group put into administration and sold them on at a profit.

The potential conflict of interest here is obvious. Such behaviour would be deeply unethical, not that ethics appear to have worried anybody in banking recently.

Mr Tomlinson says the behaviour of the bank hastened the failure of some businesses. His comments have led to Business Secretary Vince Cable ordering an investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority.

The revelation comes as another report suggests that RBS staff are turning away too many small business loans at an early stage partly because they face increasing sanctions for putting through applications that "turn bad".

The report by former Bank of England deputy governor Sir Andrew Large found that up to 10% of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) rejected at a pre-application stage may in fact be suitable for financing.

It means that while state-backed RBS performs better than other lenders on dealing with SME loan applications, this is partly due to the fact that it screens out more potential borrowers before the application stage, Sir Andrew found.

It suggests box ticking and a culture of playing the numbers game are alive and well at the bank. The disclosures in Sir Andrew’s report are all the more disappointing because SME support is a major plank of government economic policy.

The biggest blow for banking ethics though has been inflicted by the huge shortcomings at the Co-operative Bank, which had a chairman who simply should never have been given the job. During the financial crisis,

the Co-op Bank attracted lots of new deposits placed there by savers who were fed up with the unethical behaviour and poor management at other banks. The Co-op has let these people down. It appears to have lost touch with its founding principles and has lost the confidence of many of its savers.

THERE is at least one big business that has not forgotten ethics.

Retail chain H&M has called on the rest of the fashion industry to follow its example by paying a living wage to textile workers around the world by 2018.

It's a laudable ambition.

The company is acting unilaterally. It says governments have been too slow to act, though some factories in Bangladesh have implemented a 77% rise in the country's minimum wage.

The issue is becoming all the more urgent as some workers in Bangladesh and Cambodia are protesting violently about low pay.

The western world benefited hugely from the deflationary effects of falling clothes prices throughout the 1990s and 2000s. That was in part achieved by low pay in places like Bangladesh, India and China.

Now, however, some of that benefit is likely to be lost and undone in the years ahead as the fairness agenda takes hold around the world, but it strikes me as a price well worth paying if it means we can move towards creating a decent world.

There can't be many of us who would be happy living in a world where everything was done for reasons of economic efficiency. Life can't be allowed to become that functional.

THE one-millionth Jaguar Land Rover car rolled off the Halewood production line this week.

The total has been run up in the 15 years since Jaguar production started and Ford production ended at the factory. It’s another reminder of the success of the plant, once dubbed the most productive in the Ford group anywhere in the world.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

It’s about hyperBig data and mobile explosion offer firms new levels of customer insight Bill Gleeson reports

B

USINESSES are investing huge sums in technology that will allow them to learn more about their customers and target them with tailored marketing and adverts to encourage more spending on their products.

Amazon does it all the time. If you buy a history book on its website, Amazon will immediately make other recommendations based on that purchase. A little later, Amazon will send an e-mail giving information about other related books.

The same is true of styles of music at iTunes. Whether it’s heavy metal or the baroque, a download will lead to recommendations for further purchases.

However, this is relatively simple stuff compared to what is planned by one of Britain’s largest online retailers.

Speke-based Shop Direct plans to take the marketing method a stage further. It calls such techniques “personalisation”.

The firm hopes to be able use its electronic customer records to analyse an individual’s buying habits, age, gender, whether they have young children, address etc to offer specific products to shoppers just at the very moment they are thinking about making a purchase.

As well as knowing what the customer is likely to buy, they could even be able to tell the customer’s location in town by locating them through their mobile devices.

Furthermore, through Shop Direct’s financial services arm, the company could also assess the same shopper’s credit history. As a result, a 35-year-old woman outside Marks & Spencer on a Saturday afternoon might be sent adverts offering, say, a red party dress two weeks before Christmas or school uniform offers in August. The proof of the pudding will be if it turns out that she was looking for a red party dress at that time and Shop Direct clinch the sale at M&S’s expense.

Nor is “personalised” marketing confined to online shopping. Tesco is attempting to do the same with customers visiting its supermarkets.

Signs displayed at its supermarkets offer free in-store wi-fi to anybody who signs up using their clubcard details.

Tesco can then use the clubcard information to know who is in their store, when and their purchasing history. As with Amazon and Shop Direct, Tesco can target customers with offers just as they set out to do their weekly shop.

Tesco is also installing face-scanning technology at its petrol stations to target advertisements to individual customers at the till.

The technology, made by Lord Sugar's digital signage company Amscreen, will use a camera to identify a customer's gender and approximate age.

It will then show an advertisement tailored to that demographic.

Tesco says the screens will be rolled out across all 450 of its forecourts in the UK. Marketing that targets millions of

shoppers with personalised offers necessitates sifting and organising vast quantities of data. It’s a field known as “big data”.

The phrase big data was coined more than a decade ago by IT consultancy Gartner, who were at the time applying it to the vast amounts of data stored on mainframes.

Now the advent and growth of social media and mobile gadgets such as smart phones and tablets has given marketeers a fresh opportunity to gather much more detailed information and insights about tens of millions of identifiable individuals in Britain and billions around the world. For example, banks, airlines, hotels and restaurants from Singapore to Los Angeles will know who is travelling and in need of a bed or a meal or a seat on a plane.

Big data techniques can also be used to spot unexpected trends, for example the discovery pop tarts sell well before storms in America. Microchips in engines can sense a part is about to wear out before it causes the car to break-

‘Cameras identify shoppers age and gender’

down. Doctors can use vital signs data to predict the onset of infection in patients.

Police forces could use it to predict where and when crime is likely to occur and even the likely culprits. Governments can use more detailed information about their citizens to produce more accurate statistical information, for example about economic activity.

One local firm that is helping its clients take advantage of the opportunities presented by big data is GB Group. The Chester firm says it can positively identify 2bn people online. It is now seeking to match information contained on social media accounts to the marketing databases of businesses selling anything from new cars to foreign holidays. They will, for example, be able to tell whether a customer liked their last trip to Tenerife.

GB Group’s John Joyce said: “It’s all about the hyper-connected consumer.

Whether it’s 4G or 5G, people don’t put the device down. It’s like something they wear.

“Social media is changing the landscape and the mobile explosion is the enabler of it.

big feature post business 5

Thursday, November 28, 2013

- connected consumers A combination of clubcard details and the use of in-store wi-fi can enable Tesco to tell who is in its supermarkets

GB Group’s John Joyce

Twitter uses GCHQ mathematical formula to protect its users from electronic snooping

“The tools to take the feeds from the social media pages are out there. Technology is moving so quickly that the marketeer is sometimes being left behind. The power at the marketeer’s fingertips is amazing, but that brings a whole host of challenges around skills.

People don’t know how to use the tools.

“GB has tools that can take all of the information out there from mobile, e-mail and social channels and to integrate it into a single identity database to allow the end user to attract new customers more likely to use that brand and to up-sell to existing customers.

“We call it a single customer view with many bits of data in the one place.”

Social media information can let a brand know whether an individual is a fan or a detractor. A phone call and special offers can then be used to bring the customer back onside and help restore the brand’s reputation. For that reason, the bad comments are just as useful as the good comments.

To do that, however, the business

must be certain about to whom it is talking.

Mr Joyce said: “It’s no good having a Facebook account called topdog69, because it doesn’t mean anything. You need the whole identity to understand the physical attributes and likes and dislikes and online and offline identities.”

Nor are big data techniques available only to the large firms. Small firms can also benefit.

Mr Joyce said: “We have a range of customers from very small firms and start-ups to larger and mature organisations. You can buy an e-mail platform for very little money and build them into a marketing database so you can have a digital marketing strategy quite cheaply and quickly.

“The smaller end of the market is one of our big growth areas because of the improvements in the power of technology.

“Smaller firms are more adventurous about it. They have often never known anything different.”

‘Social media is changing the landscape’

TWITTER has used an “impossible” mathematical problem first discovered by GCHQ to protect its users from electronic snooping.

The company said “perfect forward secrecy” (PFS) was now live on all its services, drastically increasing the effort required to intercept its traffic.

It is understood the move is intended to make it more difficult for data to be collected on its users without going through legal channels.

Jim Killock, director of the Open Rights Group (ORG), said it was a “policy move” driven by revelations about mass surveillance by British eavesdropping agency GCHQ and the American National Security Agency (NSA).

He said: “Companies have now realised precisely how vulnerable their information is on the internet. It’s no longer a theoretical risk. We know it’s been going on now.

“This is about asking users to trust the companies

involved and to also force the legal authorities to approach companies directly rather than attempting to seize the data in transit.”

In June it was revealed that GCHQ was using a project called Tempora to indiscriminately scoop data from fibre optic cables entering and leaving the UK. In standard encryption each side of a communication independently generates paired keys – a public key telling others how to encrypt the messages they send to it and a private one used to decode them when they arrive.

The maths involved make it almost impossible to calculate the private key from the public one. But if an attacker acquires a company’s private key it can read anything sent to and from that company’s servers – even if it was recorded years earlier.

PFS adds another stage where two machines collaborate on enormous sums to deduce a shared key which is

never shared and never used again. That means an attacker would have to use a more complicated and resource-intensive “man-in-the-middle” strategy specifically targeted at a single communication while it was still going on.

The so-called “Diffie-Hellman” method used by Twitter was first discovered by GCHQ analysts in the early 1970s, but remained classified until it was independently patented by a pair of American cryptographers.

A post on Twitter’s engineering blog explained: “If an adversary is currently recording all Twitter users’ encrypted traffic, and they later crack or steal Twitter’s private keys, they should not be able to use those keys to decrypt the recorded traffic.”

It stressed that the move was simply “part of a continuing effort to keep our users’ information as secure as possible” and that PFS should become “the new normal.”

6 post business wealth management

Thursday, November 28, 2013

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

Equities may still offer a safe haven for global investors market analysis

by Will Roberts

LIVERPOOL OFFICE OF CHARLES STANLEY AS WE approach the end of 2013, the tapering off of QE has not occurred and the issue has been put back to 2014.

The markets over the pond are still assessing the implications of Janet Yellen taking on the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve and trying to decipher her comments to see if there are any clues amongst them to provide guidance for the long awaited tapering.

One thing is for sure, it is coming at some point and ultimately that must be a good thing as it means the US authorities feel the US (read global) economy is getting better.

While the spectre of tapering is impacting bonds and emerging markets, it is interesting to read the research from some of the big banks about the prospects for equities in the West in 2014. According to HSBC, equities are unlikely to see the same surge as they have in 2013, but they do not envisage a bear market either.

They are anticipating a subdued year with returns in the region of 10%.

Encouragingly, the bank does not anticipate any clear catalysts for negative returns with an estimated 8% capital return with dividends adding a further 2%.

The key factor likely to hold back performance is the effect of tapering QE. Bond buying by the Federal Reserve since the global financial crash has caused US Treasury prices to surge, pushing yields down. In order

Will Roberts

to get some sort of return on their capital, investors have turned to other asset classes to park their money.

With cash offering negative interest rates in real terms the vast majority of capital has found its way to equities.

At the time of writing, the S&P 500 Index is pushing 1,800 (another record) and now sits 26% higher than at the start of the year. The US Federal Reserve’s $85bn-a-month QE policy has been mirrored to some extent in the UK and Japan and the results are clear to see across these stock markets, too.

The FTSE 100 Index has added 14% up to mid- November whilst the Nikkei 225 in Japan has risen 45% as “Abenomics” has kicked in.

Janet Yellen’s first comments in front of the Senate Banking Committee a couple of weeks ago were seen to be quite dovish but there is no hiding from the fact the liquidity taps of QE will begin to be turned off in 2014 and most likely this process will begin in the next few months. HSBC argues that if markets are to go higher then growth must come from improving corporate earnings and not cheap money from central banks. With the global economy improving, earnings may well fill the void left by reduced liquidity.

Meanwhile, outflows of capital from bonds to equities are likely to increase so there is potential for equities to hold up relative to other asset classes next year, albeit with some volatility.

Meanwhile, other banks have also released their outlooks on stocks for 2014.

Analysts at Nomura expect a 25-50% sell-off over the last three quarters of 2014 in global stock markets. Meanwhile, Saxo Bank feels that bullish investors are “chasing the tail” of the recent equity rally, indicating that now is not the time to be risky. Conversely, Barclays anticipates a year end S&P 500 price target of 1,900 whilst Citigroup has said that equity markets around the world have around 13% upside potential in 2014.

Stock market estimates for a calendar year are always interesting as they produce a wide variety of views (that’s what makes a market). However, one thing is for sure: Ms Yellen is likely to oversee a reduction in asset purchases in the US at some point. The effects on bonds are reasonably predictable and if the summer of 2013 is an indicator then stocks may well be hit too.

However, there are a number of reasons to suggest that this may provide equity investors with a buying opportunity as equities remain one of the few liquid assets to produce an income.

notes ■

NEARLY half of financial frauds being uncovered involve criminals trying to use someone else’s stolen personal details, a credit checking company has warned.

Experian said that identity theft is a “significant and rising threat”, accounting for 46% of financial frauds detected this year, which is almost double the rate of just over one quarter (27%) of cases seen in 2012.

It urged consumers to keep a close eye on their personal details, which criminals often use to open accounts which they can then use as a “springboard” to take out lucrative credit.

Recent studies have suggested that improvements to fraud detection and new technology are driving criminals to resort to more “old-fashioned” methods.

■

Stocks and shares will probably still hold their value

AROUND 12 pence in every £1 of consumers’ Christmas shopping this year will be spent online, according to forecasts by the body which oversees payments in the UK. Consumers are expected to spend a total of £82.7bn on their cards and by cash and cheque this December, marking a 1.2% increase from the same period last year, the Payments Council said.

Around £10bn, or 12% of the total spend, will be made up of people using their cards to make purchases on the internet, marking a 15% jump on last year and surging by 495% from just under £1.7bn 10 years ago.

The figures throw light on how consumers’ shopping habits have seen a strong shift towards the internet.

Charitable donations are ‘open to abuse’

House sales volumes rise

AROUND £170m worth of tax has been lost over the last year due to the abuse of relief on charitable donations, the public spending watchdog has found.

The National Audit Office (NAO) said that while Gift Aid was an “important source” of funding, worth £1bn or 2% of charities’ income last year, there was not enough evidence to show that relief on donations provided as much value for the sector as it could.

The NAO also highlighted a “ser-

THE number of UK house sales will top 1m this year for the first time since 2007 as first-time buyers, people paying with cash and buy-to-let investors drive the market revival.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said first-time buyer transactions had been “among the first to show signs of recovery” and some 270,000 house sales were expected to involve this sector in 2013, marking a 40% increase on 2009.

ious compliance challenge” faced

by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in respect of relief on donations.

In a report, it said that HMRC only had a “crude” working estimate of £170m for the amount of tax lost through avoidance, fraud and error for 2012/13, a total which may underestimate the scale of the problem.

The NAO said that while donors needed to have paid tax in order for charities to claim of Gift Aid, its

analysis suggested the tax man may be paying a further £55m in error where the donor has paid insufficient tax to allow the charity to make a claim.

The report said the system was at risk from criminals who may falsify donations to generate a repayment of Gift Aid relief and set up a bogus charity as a front to commit fraud.

HMRC has been putting more focus on weeding out fraudulent claims since 2009, the report said.

The number of buy-to-let transactions was also set to see an 80% increase compared with levels seen four years ago, with the total expected to reach 160,000 this year.

The prospect of decent rental returns amid strong levels of demand from tenants was said to have attracted more landlords into the sector.

Transactions involving cash buyers were set to reach around 370,000 this year.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Mentoring group in awards celebration THIS Saturday night sees a celebration by Rockstaryouth.co.uk of its work in Merseyside.

The organisation is a mentoring vehicle for young entrepreneurs, backed by people such as Dragons’ Den panellist James Caan and The Only Way Is Essex star Lauren Goodger.

Although Rock Star Youth is a national scheme, it was launched in Liverpool in February this year with its first incubator event at Liverpool John Moores University.

Since then it has assisted more than 200 young people throughout the region.

It is holding its annual awards on Saturday at Liverpool’s Crowne Plaza Hotel, starting at 7.30pm, and is aiming to raise £6,500 for its chosen charity, Wirral’s Claire House Children’s Hospice, which will keep its Respite Hospice open on Christmas Day. Liverpool Lord Mayor, Cllr Gary Millar, will officially open the evening with a champagne reception Hollywood red carpet event.

The evening will also showcase local businesses and an After Awards VIP Party will take place in Living Room’s Mosquito bar.

Tickets can be secured with a £10 donation.

For further details please call 0845 652 2905, or contact admin @rockstaryouth.co.uk

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

news

Maritime industry stars of the future reap their rewards

Some of the successful candidates in the awards with ex-LFC player and coach Sammy Lee, front right

THE next generation of engineering and maritime stars were recognised at the annual Maritime and Engineering College North West (MECNW) Apprenticeship Awards.

The ceremony, held at MECNW in Birkenhead, celebrated the achievements of learners across 11 different categories. The awards were presented by former Liverpool FC and England player and coach Sammy Lee. George Day, from Peel Ports, was named overall Apprentice of the Year and also Peel Apprentice of the Year.

Other winners included Calum Ellis of Archbell Greenwood Structures, for ECITB (Engineering Construction Industry Training Board) Apprentice of the Year. Sam Hankin was crowned Cammell Laird Apprentice of the Year and James Harding, of Cammell Laird, took home the Welder of the Year award.

Jim Teasdale, chief executive of MECNW, said: “Once again we have seen an excellent shortlist of candidates and the winners really stand out for their endeavours and achievements over the past year.”

Cards4Scousers duo in city pop-up push for Christmas

by Neil Hodgson

POST BUSINESS STAFF

neil.hodgson@liverpool.com

A POP-UP shop has been opened in the run-up to Christmas by specialist greeting cards maker Cards4Scousers.

The city-based firm uses Liverpool’s accent and phrases to produce a range of greetings cards.

The venture, set up earlier this year by business partners Gary Carney and John Jacobsen, opened the shop in the Urban Winter Village, in Williamson Square, which will be there until December 22.

Made from re-purposed shipping containers, the village features a total of 14 units ranging in size from 10ft kiosks to a 20ft “tunnel store”.

The village aims to complement the existing Christmas market and

attract the best of Liverpool’s creative and artisan retailers to provide a unique offer for shoppers this Christmas.

Cards4Scousers was set up with a £10,000 investment from Liverpool venture capital provider Merseyside Special Investment Fund (MSIF).

MSIF has recently provided a further £8,000 to enable the business to invest in stock for the shop.

Mr Carney said: “The Urban Winter Village represents a huge opportunity for us.

“Around 4m people are expected to visit the city in the run- up to Christmas, so it’s a fantastic way for us to promote our brand.”

He added: “A range of A5 cards are available for £3 each, or packs of five for £10. We are also selling wrapping paper and branded gifts, such as mugs.

“The success we have had far exceeds what we expected and we are getting some brilliant feedback.

“MSIF’s support has been crucial.

Without them we would not have been able to start in the first place and the latest investment has made it possible to capitalise on this opportunity as well as set us up for further growth in the New Year.”

MSIF investment manager Chris Walters said: “We’re really pleased to support Cards4Scousers again.

“Gary and John have worked really hard to build up their business and have a huge online following at home and abroad. The pop-up shop will be a great way for them to showcase their brand and capitalise on the Christmas market.

“We’re pleased to be supporting them again and will continue to work closely with them in the future.”

Gary Carney, left, and John Jacobsen of Cards4Scousers with Chris Walters of MSIF

Energy solutions expert advises on cutting bills Download today for your free 30-day trial www.liverpool dailypost.co.uk/ businessdaily

post business 7

A LIVERPOOL energy solutions provider is calling for better education for consumers on how to save on rising energy bills, other than just switching provider.

This week Citizens Advice revealed that households have been subjected to price rises that are eight times higher than increases in average earnings.

Patrick Richardson, Concept

LHP chief executive, suggests five ways that consumers could cut their bills.

The first is to “wrap up your home”, particularly older houses: “According to the Energy Saving Trust proper draught proofing of windows, doors and blocking cracks in the floor can save up to £55 a year.”

Secondly, LED lighting can slash electricity bills by up to

80%: “LED has a yearly average cost of £2.20, nearly £10 cheaper than conventional bulbs.”

Also, turning off lights and electrical products that would normally be on standby can save a typical household between £50 and £90 a year.

Another saving is to heat yourself and not your home.

Radiant heating is the transfer of heat energy using energy

waves, so the system heats the occupier of the room the same way the sun does.

Finally, insulate: “If your home was built after 1920, it will most probably have a cavity between walls. This cavity can be insulated so that heat is kept in and is not lost from the walls of the home. An average insulation costs up to £500 and can save £140 a year.”

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8 post business the bottom line

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Tax bill swallows profits at for sale commodities trader

by Bill Gleeson

POST BUSINESS STAFF bill.gleeson@liverpool.com

ONE of the oldest Liverpool firms, Henry Bath & Son, has suffered a huge drop in profits following a revision of its tax arrangements.

The commodities warehousing and haulage group, which reports in dollars, revealed turnover was $148.9m (£92m) for the year to December 2012, up 25% on the $120.2m recorded in the previous year. Most of the increase arose within the Princes Dock based business’s UK and European operations, while its Singapore and US sales were largely unchanged.

Cost of sales was $88.2m versus $71m in 2011. Gross profit was $60.6m, up on $49.2m.

Administrative expenses were $18.5m, up on the $15.1m recorded a year earlier, giving an operating profit of $42.1m, up 24% on 2011’s $34m. Interest receivable and other income was $674,000 versus $675,000.

Interest payable and similar charges were $256,000 versus $579,000.

Profit on ordinary activities before taxation was $42.5m versus $34.1m However, this year’s annual tax charge of $40.1m wiped out most of the surplus. It compares to last year’s charge of $6.4m. It meant profit on ordinary activities after tax was $2.4m, more than 90% lower than the $27.7m accrued in 2011.

In its report and accounts, the company explained: “The directors have prepared the 2012 group financial statements on the basis that all foreign subsidiaries in Italy, the Netherlands, Singapore, Turkey and the USA are UK resident for UK corporation tax purposes. Previously the foreign subsidiaries were considered to be tax resident in their respective geographical territories. The directors have concluded upon this change in estimate [sic] following discussions with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. The current year tax charge includes an estimate of $31.6m (including interest) to reflect the directors’ best estimate of the incremental UK corporation tax payable arising from the change in residency status of the foreign subsidiaries in the current and prior periods.”

The balance sheet shows debtors of $354.9m, up slightly on $350.7m at the end of 2011. Cash was $28.1m versus $12m and creditors were $70.1m down from $53.6m. Net assets were $311.8m, virtually unchanged from $311m at 2011.

The report and accounts state:

■

CHESTER based identity management specialist GB Group reported good trading for the six months to September 30, this week.

Revenues of £18.13m compared with £17.72m the previous year, and profit before tax came in 165% better at £1.327m, against £501,000 previously.

The cash balance stands at £6m, up from £5.8m the previous year, after paying £1.6m in share dividends and net cash payments of £1.4m for acquisitions.

During the six month period the firm saw good growth in its international services and international verification capabilities extended into five more countries, meaning the group can now provide identity verification on more than 3.6bn people.

Commenting on the results, CEO Richard Law said: “I am very pleased with our performance in the first half and GBG has progressed strategically as planned.”

■

Henry Bath & Son headquarters at No. 12 Princes Parade “Stock holdings have continued to grow throughout 2012 resulting in a positive impact on group profits. The group has continued to maintain strong margins.”

Henry Bath has been put up for sale by its parent JP Morgan Chase.

Any sale would mean the business has changed hands three times in a little over a decade. It was once part of Enron.

The report and accounts state: “On 26 July 2013, JP Morgan Chase & Co announced it has decided to pursue strategic alternatives for the physical commodities business including remaining holdings of commodities assets and physical trading operations which would include Henry Bath & Son. “There is no impact on the financial statements of the group from this announcement.”

The report and accounts add: “Taking into account of the above, the directors are of the opinion that the group and company will continue to trade profitability in the coming year.”

No payment of an interim or final dividend has been proposed.

The directors’ report adds: “The uncertain current economic environment may lead to a fall in commodity storage volumes which may in turn lead to a decline in profitability. The company has a significant level of retained reserves and earns its revenue from affiliated companies, which have a wide geographical spread which helps mitigate these risks.”

According to the company’s website, the Bath family history reaches back to Sir Walter de Bath, a knight who was Sheriff of Devon during the

reign of Henry III in 1217. Henry Bath, a descendant of Sir Walter de Bath, was a Cornishman born in Falmouth in 1776. Henry Bath's copper trading business was founded in 1794.

Henry Bath was a founder member of the London Metal Exchange.

In 1888 the company had a ship breaking business and bought The Great Eastern for £16,000, which was at the time the largest ship in the world. Built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the ship was broken up and sold for scrap at its final resting place at Tranmere. One of the ship’s masts now stands at Liverpool FC’s Anfield stadium as the club flag pole.

Today, Henry Bath & Son is headquartered at 12 Princes Parade and the firm directly employs 68 staff, up from 64 last year.

Nobody from Henry Bath & Son or JP Morgan was available to comment.

Boodles launches high value range as overseas sales rise LIVERPOOL-BASED jewellery chain Boodles reported increased revenues for the year driven by international sales and a move into more high end items.

The chain, which can trace its history back to Liverpool in 1798, achieved sales of £50.8m compared with £48.1m the previous year.

It said this was due to a rise in

notes

international sales, which now account for 25% of the company’s total turnover.

The business, with nine stores including five in London, was ranked 11th in the Sunday Times International Track 200 list of ‘Britain’s private companies with the fastest growing overseas sales’.

Boodles also announced this week

the launch of the most valuable collection of jewellery in its history.

Named ‘Greenfire’, it incorporates the finest Columbian Emeralds from the Muzo mines and will sell for more than £3m.

Director and head of stone sourcing, Jody Wainwright, said: “Typically, emeralds do very well in the Middle and Far East, however, as

our jewellery designs are always true to the ‘Britishness’ of our brand, it could still appeal to a British customer.”

Managing director Michael Wainwright said high value collections will continue to be an area of exploration for Boodles, placing it well to “take advantage of overseas opportunities that arise in the future”.

UTILITY giant Severn Trent courted further controversy over water bill hikes this week as it posted a rise in half-year earnings and confirmed a 6% increase in dividend payouts for shareholders.

The group, which supplies 4.2m households and businesses across the Midlands and parts of Wales, reported a 0.4% increase in underlying earnings to £266.9m for the six months to September 30 as water usage soared during the summer heatwave.

Its figures come as the sector faces pressure to help cash-strapped households after regulator Ofwat asked firms to consider scrapping planned price increases for 2014/15 amid the squeeze on family finances.

On a reported basis, pre-tax profits leapt 69% to £191.2m, although this was boosted by one-off gains and tax credits against charges a year earlier.

■

SUPERMARKET chain Waitrose said sales were 6.5% higher than a year ago in the week to Saturday amid strong demand for goods in its frozen food aisles.

Its website also reported a 43.5% rise in sales during the week.

small business post business 9

Thursday, November 28, 2013

small

notes

business of theweek

■

WIRRAL-based Rowe Fitted Interiors will receive a ‘Small Business Sunday’ award from Dragons’ Den investor and entrepreneur, Theo Paphitis today.

The family run business specialises in the design, manufacture and installation of quality bespoke kitchens and bedrooms, with more than 20 years of business experience. With over 20 years industry experience.

Small Business Sunday was created by Paphitis to recognise and reward small businesses that Tweet him and describe their business in one Tweet.

Each week he chooses his personal favourite six winners who are then re-Tweeted to his 35,000 Twitter followers.

Managing director Steven Rowe said: “To be publicly recognised by one of the UK’s leading business leaders and mentors is a huge honour. Since the Paphitis re-Tweet we have been inundated with new business leads and support from the local community.”

Rowe Fitted Interiors will receive their Small Business Sunday award from Mr Paphitis at a winners’ event being held today at the ICC in Birmingham.

by Neil Hodgson

POST BUSINESS STAFF

neil.hodgson@liverpool.com

A

FUNCTION in a swish marquee inspired Iain Griffiths to set up his own part-time marquee hire business.

But what started as a hobby grew in scale to the point that he packed in his job in sales and marketing in the automotive sector to dedicate himself full-time to his burgeoning business, The Party Tent Company.

Mr Griffiths, from Knowsley, was originally a Royal Navy gunner and was in the Armed Forces for five years before leaving to start a family.

After joining “civvy street” he began working with the automotive sector, establishing himself with his company over a four year period.

But in January 2012 he was inspired to start his own venture after attending the function: “I started writing a business plan and bought my first marquee,” he said.

His preparation and research involved several visits to South Yorkshire marquee maker Gala Tents to assess the potential of his business.

Using all his own funds rather than resort to banks he bought his first marquee and began hiring it out.

He said: “I was still working full-time so I started hiring out in my downtime from work. I put all the proceeds back into buying more equipment and now I have 12 different sized marquees and I’ve just invested in some larger pagoda-type marquees.”

The business started to grow, mainly based on garden parties and birthday parties, as well as events over Christmas and the New Year: “People are now having their family Christmas dinners in marquees,” he said. “All my marquees are heated and completely waterproof.”

By this summer the hire business had really taken off so he resigned his sales and marketing role and concentrate full-time on his venture.

“When I started I was doing one job a month, but with my marketing and sales knowledge I started getting more work and it got to the point where I was turning work away.

“I was fitting up to eight jobs a week in when I went full-time.”

The variety of work also increased and Mr Griffiths said he is now doing more Asian family parties and bar mitzvahs: “I can fit into any scenario.”

He said one of his more unusual events was last month: “I did a beach party where the lady filled the whole patio and marquee with sand and blow-up palm trees – in October” In the new year he intends to expand his scope even further: “I will invest in a clear span marquee to move into weddings and corporate events, like conferences.”

He acknowledged there are bigger marquee companies operating around Liverpool, but his expansion plans include geographic growth, too.

“I do a lot of work in Manchester and Chester, but I am looking at Yorkshire and the Midlands.”

He currently calls on his brother, Christopher, and several other people to work for him on a casual basis, as and when, but he said if everything goes according to plan and he opens a second operation in Yorkshire he will have to take on more staff.

■

Iain Griffiths with one of his range of marquees for hire from his Party Tent Company venture

Iain’s marquee move is the ‘best thing ever’ Despite the relatively short time his fledgling venture has been trading he revealed encouraging growth as his client list continues to grow: “In my first year turnover was about £30,000, and that was put back into the business.

“But projections for the second year are looking like £75,000 to £80,000,” he added.

He said: “This is the best thing I have ever done in my life. It is going from strength to strength all the time.

“I go the extra mile for my customers. If there’s something I can add that won’t cost me a lot, I will add it to give them a better experience.

“And I love being my own boss and making things happen for myself, instead of for other people.”

Mr Griffiths aims to expand next year in sector and geography

HERTEL, the Preston Brook-based multi-discipline construction and maintenance services company, has achieved 100% in an audit of asbestos procedures by the Thermal Insulation Contractors Association (TICA).

It is only the second time that the Association has awarded a full rating.

The audit is a mandatory requirement of TICA membership.

TICA selected the Hinkley A nuclear power station in Somerset to carry out the audit, where Hertel was involved in the project for the removal, handling and storage of more than 200 tonnes of asbestos waste.

Steve Watkins, Hertel UK and Ireland’s Asbestos Manager, said: “It is tremendous to achieve only the second 100% score given in a TICA audit.

It reflects the hard work that has been done by everyone during the last year to ensure we meet the highest standards.”

10 post business creative & digital

comment

by EMILIA PLOTKA

Data can make cities smarter LIVERPOOL is fast-transforming into one of the UK’s leading business and cultural destinations.

Last year, it went one step further and announced its intention to become the first UK “smart city” – a place that harnesses digital technology and big data to enable a better quality of life and greener economy.

As other city authorities are joining in on the race to cut costs and carbon, how can Liverpool’s smart initiative stay ahead of other competitors like London?

The answer is designing with data. So far, city authorities have focused on becoming smart through utilising big data and technology to improve operational management, for example, to improve the bus network.

But as a place that heavily relies on ambitious regeneration programmes Liverpool needs to achieve more than just better services; it must find a way to translate the benefits of big data into its design and planning processes to create places capable of responding to people’s needs and aspirations.

Imagine what could be achieved if an online SimCity-style platform was created based on Liverpool, which fed in real time data about how people use city spaces and what they think of them, in addition to environmental data. The public, businesses and government could suggest improvements, design or re-design areas, and comment on each other’s plans.

This new possibility to experiment, share ideas and test changes before building, could help create exciting new real places while also strengthening social capital and engendering digital inclusion. This revolutionary approach would not only help Liverpool get ahead in the scramble for smart, but also transform planning and architecture forever.

■ EMILIA PLOTKA is a member of the policy team at RIBA

Cities are using data to improve bus links

Thursday, November 28, 2013 IN ASSOCIATION WITH

Designer’s inspiration from the ‘worst hotel in the world’

by Alistair Houghton POST BUSINESS STAFF

alistair.houghton@liverpool.com

IT MAY have been only a mini Designival – but with talks on subjects from tweeting 114-year-old dogs in boxes to the worst hotel in Amsterdam, it had something for everyone.

The usual two-day Designival has been moved to next July to coincide with the International Festival for Business. So organisers from design agencies Uniform, Smiling Wolf and Black & Ginger decided to hold a mini event they hoped would be just as packed with inspiration for students and designers alike.

The keynote speaker at the end of the day was Erik Kessels, of Dutch communications agency Kessels Kramer, who showed off his best-known work – the promotional campaign for the infamous Hans Brinker Budget Hotel, in the centre of Amsterdam.

The hotel was Kessels’ first client – and he admitted that when he first saw it, it was the worst hotel he had ever seen.

The owner’s brief was simple – to end complaints about the quality of the hotel. So Kessels and co opted for a policy of brutal honesty.

“We found that honesty was their only luxury,” he said.

And so the hotel was advertised with a series of slogans that became online hits, such as “Now a bed in every room” and “Now more rooms without a window”.

Another poster showed a five-star luxury room. But if you looked closely, almost everything in there was marked with an asterisk and “not included”.

The campaigns continued – another read: “We can’t get any worse, but we’ll do our best”.

The agency’s work over 15 years was even compiled into a book, The Worst Hotel in the World”.

Kessels smiled: “He (the owner) still has complaints sometimes, but people are now complaining that the hotel is a bit better than they thought.”

Turning to city branding, he showed off the slogan he created to promote Amsterdam – I AmSterdam.

“Amsterdam doesn’t really have a landmark like Big Ben,” he said. “The people of Amsterdam are the landmark.”

Kessels told the crowd that he wanted to explore the blur between high budget and low budget.

“The budget for a commercial might not be the most important thing,” he said, preparing to show off two TV ads.

“The biggest budget was 1.3m euros. The lowest was 300 euros. I still don’t know which one I like the best.”

Kessels also decided to show what a future photo exhibition might look like by printing off all 950,000 images uploaded on Flickr within 24-hour period and then “dumping” them in a gallery.

“When you see it from a distance, it looks quite abstract,” he said, showing images of people rummaging through the pictures. “But up close it’s quite personal. It’s also a discussion about how private and public are quite blurred today.”

And finally, Kessels showed off

Paul Davis, right, interviewed by Patrick Burgoyne onstage at Designival Mini at Camp & Furnace some of the book he has published using photography he has found in flea markets or online, covering subjects from eBay images to holiday snaps, a rabbit with objects balanced on its head and even pictures of cows.

It takes, he said, a professional cow photographer half an hour to photograph each cow.

T

HE event, backed by Liverpool Vision’s creative sector support agency ACME, began with a talk by Matt Wells, co-founder of London agency BERG. He discussed how his agency had moved from being a design consultancy to specialising in the “internet of things” – connecting real-world objects to the internet.

He first realised the power of web-connected objects when on Platform 5 of Slough’s “horrible” station when he found himself standing in front of Station Jim, a stuffed dog in glass case.

He took to Twitter to tell his followers about the dog, who was the station’s mascot in the 19th century.

And he was soon surprised when a Twitter account in Jim’s name said: “It’s ok for you to laugh, You’re on the better side of the glass.”

He had a conversation with Station Jim – and had an epiphany that one day it would be normal for people to interact with objects around them.

He said: “I believe that networks are the new electricity – and that connecting products is the equivalent of electrification.”

Berg became most famous for its Little Printer, a web-connected receipt printer that prints out miniature personalised newspapers.

Webb said: “It’s like a little 21st century fax machine, with a face.”

Now the company is promoting

Left, Erik Kessels. Right, part of his Amsterdam marketing campaign Berg Cloud, a do-it-yourself development kit that allows people to build their own web-connected products.

And he is continuing to work on prototypes for web-connected white goods – even including the much-maligned idea of an “internet fridge”.

The second speaker was illustrator Paul Davis, who described how he finds work – and his own complex relationship with the advertising industry in which he works.

“It’s really chaotic,” he said. “I have no business plan.

“When I try and borrow money off the bank, they don’t understand what I do. I never get a loan. It’s hand to mouth all the time.

“Or I might have a first-class flight to a five-star hotel in Tokyo to put on an exhibition, because they like my pictures.”

For Davis, successful illustration work is about sticking to a personal vision.He said: “I don’t believe in focus groups, because nobody behaves in them as they would if they were reading a magazine or sitting on the

sofa in their pants scoffing pizza from yesterday.”

He added: “I’m obsessed with advertising and I despise it.”

That individual approach paid off when Diesel commissioned him to “do what you want” at its flagship Stockholm store.

The surreal images he produced – including one of a fish with the work “jubilant” below – didn’t go down well at first.

“They hated me for it,” Davis smiled. “They said they were stupid”.

But the images were a hit with shoppers – “and later Diesel said they were great”.

On another occasion, however, Davis’s vision cost him work.

He was in the late stage of pitching for work with a bank when one of its staff Googled him and found an earlier image showing two men wrestling with the slogan “I can arrange your mortgage for you”. The bank took him off the job.

Pointing to it on the Designival big screen, Davis said: “That image, which I love, cost me £10,000.”

creative & digital post business 11

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Ben Hatton

Retailers get social and festive

From left, John Lowe of Bolland & Lowe, Gemma Murrell and Sarah Ogle of the Everyman and Playhouse, and Joe Bolland of B&L

All the world’s a stage for city agency with theatre contract

by Alistair Houghton POST BUSINESS STAFF

alistair.houghton@liverpool.com

DESIGN and branding agency Bolland & Lowe has unveiled its new look for Liverpool’s Everyman and Playhouse theatres.

The agency won a contest to become the theatres’ creative partner earlier this year.

Since then, its staff have been working with the venues to create a new brand identity to be used at the theatres and in all marketing materials.

Studio director John Lowe said: “We have wanted to work with the

Everyman and Playhouse for some time now and it’s such an exciting time for everyone involved.

“On a personal level, theatre is a passion of mine and as a team, we are delighted to be named their creative partner.

“This tops a great year for us working with such a key asset to Liverpool’s culture sector in our tenth year of business.”

In the past 12 months, Bolland & Lowe has won work with the Albert Dock while continuing work with both cathedrals, National Museums Liverpool and Visit Liverpool.

Fellow studio director Joe Bolland said: “We are also producing a full

design audit that covers all print and media outputs, which will form the basis of our strategic approach to all their creative requirements.

“It’s such an exciting time to be involved with this organisation as we will be working with them on the run up to the reopening of the Everyman in 2014.”

The Bolland & Lowe team is also working on branding and marketing for the company’s youth programme and for the Everyman’s revived food offering.

Sarah Ogle, communications and sales director at the Everyman and Playhouse, said: “John and Joe have really taken time to understand our

business needs since we appointed Bolland & Lowe as our creative partner back in the summer.

“Since then they’ve worked closely with our team to deliver a fresh new look and approach for the theatres.

“We’ve valued their ideas and the creative conversations around how to take the theatres into the future, as we bring the Everyman & Playhouse back together.

“B&L have made a real difference to help us on the journey towards re-opening the Everyman next year and are a real pleasure to work with.

We love what they’ve created to date and are very much looking forward to our future partnership.”

Digital agency hunts acquisitions as expansion continues E-COMMERCE agency Webtise is on the acquisition trail as part of its ambitious growth plans for next year.

The Bromborough firm’s managing director, Graham Withe, says he hopes to acquire or merge with another small digital agency.

He said: “It’s such an exciting time for Webtise.

We’re looking to grow the marketing services significantly, and we’re currently looking to

acquire an existing small digital marketing agency to aide our development plans.

“The future certainly is looking bright for Webtise and we look forward to a larger team going into the New Year.”

The agency’s clients range from national chain Oddbins to charity Help for Heroes and cake designer Peggy Porschen.

Co-founder Daniel Clutterbuck said: “We’re delighted with the path

Webtise has taken over the past 12 months and we’re looking forward to growing the team significantly to cope with the current surge in both marketing and web design and development clients.

“A new larger marketing department will allow for our client portfolio to grow significantly and I anticipate Webtise will have fantastic growth for the year ahead.”

From left, Graham Withe and Daniel Clutterbuck

THE unveiling of Christmas adverts has become a key media event, and this has been bolstered by the anticipation created on social media.

It’s the most important time in a retailer’s year and ever more attention is being paid to supplementing campaigns this way.

Leading the way is John Lewis. Not content to just showcase its advert – a two-minute animation, “the Bear & the Hare”, costing £1m – the chain undertook a social media drive ahead of the official “premiere” in early November.

The TV advert doesn’t feature any products (apart from an alarm clock which wakes the bear) with the aim of making an emotional connection with the public by telling a heartwarming story instead of focusing on what the stores are selling in the run-up to Christmas.

Tweeting with the hashtag #sleeping bear, the campaign began before the advert was shown in full. Preview clips of the advert were shown on ITV but did not disclose the retailer behind them, prompting a questioning reaction from people on Twitter. It amassed over 86,000 Twitter mentions in the weekend of its launch, 30 per cent more than its advert launch weekend last year and has received nearly 8.5m views on YouTube.

It isn’t the only retailer to be using social media this way. M&S also took used a designated hashtag – #magicandsparkle – to create noise and so far has nearly 900,000 YouTube views for its festive ad offering.

It would seem social media is well and truly integrated into Christmas advertising to create excitement and intrigue with retailers such as John Lewis setting the blueprint for how it should be done.

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

12 post business big interview

Joshua Taylor meets JIM MORRIS, one of the four founders of law firm DTM Legal

D

TM Legal’s story began five years ago when a group of four Chester-based lawyers decided to go solo and break away from their company to start a new practice.

Anna Duffy, Richard Thomas, Julie Mogan and Jim Morris – whose surname initials were combined to form the new company’s name – persuaded 19 colleagues from law firm Walker Smith Way to follow them into the new enterprise.

“The idea behind our new venture was to provide a one-stop shop for businesses’ legal needs,” Morris told Post Business. “The four of us left with 19 people and moved to new premises in Chester, near the railway station.

“We took a 4,500 sq ft lease. The sole essence of taking that much space was that it would be too big for us, so we would have to grow.

“At the time of the split we went through a lot of emotions, but we were too busy to take a lot of it in at the time.

“We had to find new premises and we had to instil faith in the 19 employees who came with us that we were the future. We also had to go through all the regulatory and compliance procedures.

“We then had to write to all our clients to ask whether they wanted to come with us to DTM. That was a real litmus test.

“There was an awful lot going on.

Was it scary? Only afterwards. Only after we started trading did we look back and say ‘wow’.”

DTM officially launched a new office in Liverpool city centre earlier this month. Twelve people have been hired to staff the new site, although there is total capacity for around 20 employees there.

However, for a business that began trading in 2008 – as the economic downturn was taking hold – storm clouds were bound to appear on the horizon at some point.

Morris said: “We grew to about 40 employees in about two years, but in early 2011 we needed to make between five and seven people redundant. That was an exceptionally painful process.

“As a business owner, you want to create opportunities and wealth for people. It was a really hard decision.

“Were a bit fat and a bit lazy? possibly. However, the experience means we know precisely what clients are going through when they encounter difficulty. In effect, we were culling a few to save the majority, which is a horrible position to be in.

“Since then the financial stability of the company has changed significantly.”

With the business on a sounder footing, its four owners began considering expansion opportunities.

Morris said: “We went into St Helens and rented a premises, but it did not work as well as we expected it to. We signed the lease in late 2011. This business is all about investment, but St Helens was not the right market for us.

“We got to a position where the four of us realised, despite our drive, energy and enthusiasm, we had hit an impasse.

“We needed someone to come in and look at the business through a new pair of eyes.”

It was not until the firm came into contact with Mark Trousdale,

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Legal practice vies to become a major player on the stage

From left, Tom Sutcliffe, Julie Mogan, Anna Duffy and Mark Trousdale celebrate the launch of DTM Legal’s new Liverpool office previously head of risk management at KPMG and now DTM’s chief executive, that the Liverpool office became a reality.

Morris said: “We started talking

to him (Trousdale) earlier this year.

“He came in and reported back to us after analysing the business.

“He identified inefficiencies that needed to be looked at.

q&a Age: 43 Highest educational qualification: BA (hons) in history Biggest achievement in business: Being one of the founding partners of DTM Legal Biggest regret: Hopefully, I have enough years left in me to ensure there are none, or as few as possible

Best advice received: To listen Still to achieve: Beating my wife at tennis would be a good start Hobbies: Sailing, walking with my family (with my three children constantly asking ‘are we nearly there yet?’) and watching rugby Plans for future: To make enough time in the day so that I can plan for the future

“It was his idea to open a Liverpool office. He saw the opportunity and we ran with it.”

The Liverpool base so far has been a roaring success.

“Improvements are still going on but the foundations are now firmly embedded to springboard us to greater markets,” Morris said.

“We found in a short space of time Liverpool offered great access to businesses and investment.”

H

AVING seen an impressive increase in trade in the years since its formation, DTM still has ambitious plans for growth.

Morris said he wanted to see the company recruit additional staff so

it fills its Liverpool office. This could only be achieved, he said, by hunting down new clients.

He said: “Short-term, we want to maintain the growth we have achieved until we are at capacity in the Liverpool office.

“Growth in staff has to be augmented with a pursuit of medium-sized enterprises in Liverpool. We have various strings to our bow to do that.

“People generally come to a law firm because a good business colleague has recommended you or because they met you somewhere and liked you.”

Julie Mogan, another of DTM’s founders, said the firm had an advantage over competitors because its own history meant it understood

Thursday, November 28, 2013

big interview

post business 13

Alex

Jim Morris, DTM Legal’s head of dispute resolution and one of its founders

Turner RBS saga should not shock us BANKING and morality have had a tense relationship since Jesus threw the money lenders out of the temple.

So have transparency and accuracy – the money lenders were actually money changers and were not singled out for trading at the temple – but bashing bankers is not an invention of the recent recession.

Former US President James Madison is quoted as saying: “History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.”

Another victim of the historical record, for he isn’t responsible for those words, but Madison did address the broader theme more succinctly: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

Fast forward to today and the report by Lawrence Tomlinson, entrepreneur in residence at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, whose report on various aspects of banking practice has uncovered complaints of unscrupulous practices at the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Although the reaction to his report is to launch another report, this time by Clifford Chance, the initial findings and perception of unjust treatment of vulnerable firms is enough to cause a sizeable tremor.

It is an arcane idea to expect banks and businesses to act morally – although I think unconsciously many of us would instinctively separate “business” and “big business”, fairly or not – after all, they are not moral organisations.

Should we be surprised, or feel the need to feign surprise, that a profit-making, if not profit-obsessed, organisation such as a bank has a tendency towards the rapacious?

As this infects the culture it becomes internally justifiable to become increasingly unreasonable to the point of being exploitative.

The reports, inquiries and whatever delayed apologies may follow in the months ahead will be of no use to the individuals who were affected. But they will provide further evidence that the events of the last six years have not changed problems which date back centuries.

‘Arcane to expect banks and firms to act morally’

the risks taken by entrepreneurs: “When we started, we put our money into this business and our homes on the line.

“We understand the risks people take as they grow their businesses.

“We do a lot of strategic work with clients as well as the general legal stuff, such as introducing them to other clients we feel they would benefit from networking with.”

She added: “I see the future as growth, but the correct sort of growth and not just growth for growth’s sake.

“We want to add to our value for clients. We have a huge regional basis with offices in Chester and Liverpool. If you look at the wider scope, this gives us a vast regional

presence. I see us growing across the Merseyside region.”

Morris added: “The key drivers behind this business are energy and growth.

“We could never sit still. We are always looking for new opportunities. That is part of our essence. As we grow, we will service the needs of bigger clients.”

Asked whether any more DTM offices would be opened as the company expands, Mogan answered: “We would never say never to more offices, but there is no plan to do so at the moment.

“We are in two strategic positions at the moment. We took a decision to come to Liverpool because we felt it was a natural next step.”

M

OGAN’S working life began in a Liverpool chemist’s shop as a 15-year-old girl, before working at bars and restaurants across the city.

She studied at Liverpool University and Chester College of Law. After a spell working for a corporate finance firm in Manchester, Mogan relocated to Chester to work for Walker Smith Way, then an established commercial legal practice.

“I was promoted through the ranks and ended up as commercial group head, running a team of 24 people,” she explained.

It was from here that Mogan and three colleagues agreed to found

DTM Legal in 2008. Mogan serves at DTM’s head of client engagement and was the first ever woman to chair Chester Business Club.

Morris, meanwhile, began his working life at a post office as a young man.

He studied history at university before travelling abroad. He worked for the Japanese Ministry of Education during his travels.

Upon his return to Britain, he chose law as his preferred career and joined Walker Smith Way after graduating from law college.

As one of DTM’s four founders, he serves as its head of dispute resolution.

Morris divides lawyers into two groups – lovers and fighters – placing himself in the latter camp.

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

14 post business legal

Thursday, November 28, 2013

ask the expert ELAS consultant Enrique Garcia explains why employers must follow a defined disciplinary process to ensure the fair dismissal of an employee

Q

A

AS an employer, how can I make sure that I undertake the proper and correct legal procedure when it comes to dismissing an employee, should the need arise?

WHEN dismissing an employee, there are three golden rules that must be followed.

The first is fair reason, meaning that there must be valid cause for the dismissal, such as conduct, capability or redundancy. This is to ensure that people aren’t dismissed unfairly, or subjected to discrimination of any kind.

The second is fair process, meaning that the correct disciplinary procedures must be in place.

Employers should put their disciplinary procedure in writing and make it easily available to all staff.

It should say what performance and behaviour might lead to disciplinary action, and what steps might be taken as a result.

Disciplinary steps should include a letter setting out the issue and a meeting to discuss this further.

This can lead to suspension and then to an investigation, during which the employee in question must be offered the opportunity to give their version of events.

A final disciplinary hearing will allow the employee to challenge the evidence against them before an ultimate decision is made.

The third golden rule is having a sanction that’s proportionate to the offence, basically meaning that the punishment must fit the crime.

To put this in perspective, it would be wholly disproportionate to dismiss someone who had been working for you for several years because they turned up late once. Stealing, blackmail, bribery and the abuse of other staff members, to name a few, are all dismissible offences.

Not following these guidelines is the worst thing an employer could do when it comes to letting staff go.

It’s impossible to use one of the three rules above without the others, as the dismissal would otherwise be deemed unfair.

The ramifications for a boss under these circumstances could be a tribunal leading to a compensation payout of up to 12 months’ pay, loss of reputation – as all tribunal outcomes are a matter of public record – and a drop in staff morale, which may lead to plummeting productivity levels.

To keep things amiable, be professional at all times so whatever the eventual outcome, the relationship between boss and worker doesn’t sour. This will safeguard against instances where the disciplinary process starts but doesn’t lead to a dismissal and the employee remains in the post.

If that employee feels they’re being treating differently thereafter, they could make either a discrimination or constructive dismissal claim.

The worst dismissal story I’ve heard while working at ELAS is one in which a woman was dismissed via a text message for being absent with a pregnancyrelated illness.

In association with: In this example there was no fair reason, process or proportionate sanction, and it was discriminatory. This is definitely as bad as it gets.

Not following these guidelines is the worst thing an employer could do

HS2 helps profits at property report firm

by Helen Davies

POST BUSINESS STAFF

helen.davies01@trinitymirror.com

A WARRINGTON-based firm which supplies property-related searches to solicitors says it is on course to break through the £6.5m turnover barrier for the first time in its 13-year history.

X-Press Legal Services Group, which was founded by husband and wife team Lynne and Dave Lister, has seen an increase in business this year because of both the uplift in the housing market and requests for reports into the impact of the proposed HS2 high-speed railway project.

The company, which has 16 employees at its Warrington head office and 36 franchises throughout the UK, supplies a range of official documents including local authority searches, water and drainage reports and environmental surveys.

Lynne, managing director, said: “It looks like it could get busier next year in view of the growing number of house-building projects we’re hearing about.

“We are looking to further growth in the months ahead as the economy continues to pull out of the doldrums.”

In recent years X-Press has seen an annual turnover of around £4.5m.

Dave said: “It decreased a bit in line with the housing sector but we didn’t lose any staff.

“Now the property market is starting to pick up our business has too.”

Lynne and Dave are confident they will turn over £6.5m by their year end next July.

“We are looking forward to a successful New Year,” said Lynne.

“In addition to the usual demand from solicitors and conveyancers, there is growing interest in the impact of the proposed route of the HS2 railway line on properties and neighbourhoods.”

Dave added: “We have the whole of the line mapped and are seeing an increase in people who don’t want to be buying houses in the path of the proposed line.

“It’s going to blight an awful lot of homes and land.”

X-Press Legal is the brainchild of Lynne, a former editor of a business franchise magazine.

“She has seen thousands of franchise

‘Looking to further growth in the months ahead’

X-Press Legal Services Group was founded by Lynne and Dave Lister formats, a lot of them which didn’t last,” said Dave, who previously worked for Ford Motor Company training dealerships.

“Then one day she came home and said she’d seen a business idea that looked pretty good.”

The pair originally intended to take on a franchise of another firm.

But after seeking advice from a friend of theirs, who was a solicitor and told them there was a large demand for businesses producing reports for the legal

sector, they decided to set up their own company.

Dave and Lynne started by running the firm alongside their previous jobs and in 2005 expanded into the franchise sector.

They now have plans to double their client base from 440 to around 800 over the next three years.

But Dave said: “It could be when we get to 600 we see it begins to affect service and at that moment we will stop because service is king.”

Firm to raise funds for autistic boy STAFF at Liverpool law firm SGI Legal are embarking on a year-long fundraising programme for Time to Talk Liam, a charity based in Kirkby.

Liam Joyce is seven years old and has Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), which has severely affected his use and understanding of language.

Time to Talk Liam is the charitable fund set up by

Liam’s mother, Cheryl Joyce, to fundraise for Liam’s autism therapy, Applied Behavioural Analysis.

SGI Legal staff are aiming to raise a minimum of £5,000 through a year-long programme of fundraising events, ranging from bake sales to formal dinners with other law firms and businesses trading in the Liverpool area.

Joshua Bates, joint head of

the charity committee at SGI Legal, a personal injury firm on Sefton Street, said: “With many of our staff living in the area, we wanted to try and help make a difference on our doorstep.

“If we reach our target of £5,000 then we will have covered the costs for a whole year of his treatment and also helped raise awareness of autism and further support for his condition.”

Liam Joyce from Kirkby

women in business post business 15

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Emotional intelligence is key to motivating the EIC team

by Tony McDonough

POST BUSINESS STAFF

tony.mcdonough@liverpool.com

BRITAIN’S energy companies are firmly cast in the role of pantomime villains this Christmas but one executive is prepared to put her head above the parapet and defend them.

Denise Massey is managing director of the Energy Innovation Centre (EIC) in Ellesmere Port and believes the sector’s big players deserve credit for their willingness to support energy-saving innovation.

EIC was set up in 2008 with the aim of creating a bridge between small firms developing energy-saving technology and large firms with the money and resources to help bring them to market.

It was initially funded by the now defunct Northwest Development Agency and a contribution from the European Union.

Now the organisation is entirely funded by the energy sector and Denise insists the industry’s support is invaluable to the work the centre car-

ries out. “Yes they are big monolithic companies but I do see a very positive side of them,” she said.

“I met with the chief executives of the big players back in 2009 and told them the industry had an obligation to help SMEs. “And they responded positively to that. They changed their practices and will now pay small firms 50% up front.”

Denise’s team of technical and business experts are on the constant lookout for innovations by small firms that can be employed in the electricity and gas power distribution networks, and the offshore renewable energy sector.

They will then put those firms together with the big players and facilitate agreements that will help develop those technologies further.

“Some people will come with amazing ideas but they might not be commercially-aware, said Denise.

“We offer them a gateway to the big players in the industry who can help them with that.”

Denise left school after completing her Alevels and went to

work as a clerical assistant at Cheshire County Council.

It is a role she remembers with a great deal of affection.

She explained: “I was working with senior managers and I loved it.

“They had so much genorosity of spirit and they encouraged me and supported me to grow in my role.

“I was there for 20 years eventually rising to a senior management role – it was a brilliant time.”

However, Denise came to a point when she yearned for a different kind of challenge and she was invited to apply for the EIC role.

She added: “I was up against seven engineers but they decided to give me the job.

“I think business is about people and I like dealing with people “The team works very hard – we are getting 28 leads a month and that is a challenging volume.

“I don’t have the technical knowledge but what I bring to my role is a high level of emotional intelligence and I try to make the team’s life easier.”

Launch of awards

Denise Massey of the Energy Innovation Centre

ESCORTED HOLIDAY

Advertising Feature Independent financial advice

How long can interest rates stay at low level?

G

LYN Jones of Vale Financial Services recalls that Economic Pressure is the title of a song by The Alarm, which includes a phrase about interest rates going higher.

He says at the time of its release rates did not in fact increase, but like any other cycle they probably will sooner or later.

Glyn said: “Do you ever wonder why the question is asked ‘when will interest rates increase’? Or why do they have to? It would certainly benefit people with substantial sums on deposit, but not be such good news for borrowers.”

He says this leads him nicely onto the latest Government wheeze for boosting house sales... ‘can’t afford the deposit for that new house? Don’t worry, we’ll provide the banks with a guarantee to cover the shortfall.’

He believes those would be the same banks which have already been bailed out due to irresponsible lending in the past!

“So who would pick up the bill if history repeats itself ? Oh, that would be us again,” he declares.

Glyn says fixed mortgage rates over five years are,

Glyn Jones however, very attractive at present if you do have a reasonable deposit, but the problem is that first time buyers are used to seeing the low rates of recent years and do not remember the days of 15.4% rates, so can be persuaded onto two- year deals which are lower in the short term. He said: “What they will be in two years time is anybody’s guess, and I use the word guess advisedly. Forecasts are just that, and it is very rare that

EIC is inviting entries for its fourth annual UK Energy Innovation Awards.

It is seeking entries from innovative businesses. The categories are: ■ Best Innovation Implemented or Adopted by a Utility Contractor ■ New Energy Innovation Start-up ■ Best Innovation Contributing to Customer Quality and Reliability of Supply ■ International Trade Award ■ Best Asset Security Innovation ■ Best Safety Innovation ■ Environmental Impact Award ■ Best Smart Grid Innovation ■ Best University Technology ■ Best High Growth Company The closing date for entries is January 8, 2014, for further information visit: www.energyinnovationcentre .com/uk-energy-innovation-awards/

things turn out as forecast.”

Low interest rates have also impacted on annuity rates, he reports, so it is important that anybody thinking about taking pension benefits reviews all the products now available.

At the very least you should be disclosing any medical conditions, and shopping around for the best rates.

He says there are, however, some worthwhile alternatives to conventional annuities avail-

able, which could be suitable, both by enhancing your pension income and providing death benefits in a different way.

And he says guaranteed returns and/or income are important to some who are not comfortable with fluctuations, and, although higher charges can be involved, they offer certainties, either of return of capital, or of income provided.

Glyn added: “Several big name companies have now entered this market, which gives us the opportunity to compare and contrast the terms and conditions of the different products, in addition to the actual guarantees provided.”

He went on: “As ever, the important point is to tailor the plans to each individual’s personal circumstances. The classification of advisers changes continually, but we have sufficient experience of different economic cycles to be able to provide a broad range of advice, and which we apply to any new plans that are introduced, and be able to match these to the right clients.”

■ Vale Financial Services is a trading style of pi financial ltd, which is authorised by the Financial Services Authority.

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16 post business location

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Realistic and deliverable proposals to make business rates system fairer

view point

by David Ford, regional director, of rates specialists CVS JUST because it’s old it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad Everyone has an opinion on the state of the business rates system and it’s headline news right now.

Views range from the downright angry, to calls for the Government

Runcorn move for company

to make the system fairer for business rate payers.

With business rates so out of kilter with economic conditions in many locations, it is hard not to be sympathetic.

Behind the headlines however there is a lack of detail on how an alternative system would work.

There has also been a worrying silence in defence of the current system.

As I said at the beginning – old doesn’t have to mean bad.

Here at CVS, we believe that a superior and more cost-effective approach would be to improve on the current system by making the

following changes: ■ Reintroduce some of the provisions in the 1967 General Rate Act to allow rates bills to re-adjust to local economic conditions in areas where rates and rent have become disconnected.

This could be limited by allowing only one appeal per list period.

■ Base uplift in business rates on CPI and not RPI. The Government is not going to de-couple rates bills from inflation.

However, pegging the annual uplift to September’s RPI figure is

little more than a lottery.

A more sensible mechanism would be to base it on an average of CPI from the previous year.

■ Improve the rates appeals process to allow companies a speedy, efficient and cheap way of challenging their rates bills.

Implementing the Valuation Tribunal’s recommendations for speeding up the rates appeals system would be a good start.

■ Commit to maintaining the five-year business rates review cycle from 2017.

‘Using the September RPI is little more than a lottery’

Controversial perhaps, but five-yearly revaluations are in line with the current market for shorter leases and the general rent review cycle for commercial property.

And they have been proven to work well in times of economic stability.

These solutions aren’t radical.

But they are realistic and deliverable and will make a real difference to ratepayers.

We need to keep our recommendations for improving the system sensible and evidenced.

The last thing we need is an ill-conceived alternative that will do more harm than good.

Mint Umbrella moves in a Bruntwood’s Cotton Exchange

FAMILY entertainment firm Playnation has set up its new headquarters in Runcorn.

The move follows a management buyout, backed by Palatine Private Equity, and its new appointment of a non-executive chairman, Pets at Home founder Anthony Preston.

The new office space, in Berkeley Court, Manor Park, comprises 21,000 sq ft and, with all staff in the business on one floor, aims to create a more “collaborative” environment.

The new HQ also includes warehouse space to house its stock of gaming and pet tagging equipment.

Playnation, formerly the amusement and leisure division of London-based Inspired Gaming, supplies amusement and gaming machines to holiday parks, motorway services, bowling centres and airports.

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Clare Barber-Delve, right, and Nicola Rigby-Smith of Mint Umbrella, have moved into the Cotton Exchange

MARKETING and media agency Mint Umbrella has become the latest creative business to arrive at Liverpool’s Cotton Exchange.

The firm has agreed a 625 sq ft letting at the Bixteth Street building, which is already home to the likes of music events business Loud Sound, LGBT lifestyle magazine Seen and open source software engineers The Inviqa Group.

Mint Umbrella is a full-service agency headed up by business partners Nicky Rigby-Smith and Clare Barber-Delve.

It has just become the first marketing agency in the country to have established a Primary Authority Partnership with Trading Standards.

The Bruntwood-owned building has undergone a multi-million pound refurbishment in recent years and it is also now a core point of presence on the Metronet (UK) high-speed internet network.

Ms Barber-Delve said: “As the business continues to evolve, we want to ensure we are well positioned to capitalise on opportunities for further growth and getting the right premises is a major part of that equation.”

Charity offers chance to win a Prescot shop unit for a year

by Tony McDonough

POST BUSINESS STAFF

tony.mcdonough@liverpool.com

NEW charity One Ark is offering two new or expanding retailers the chance to win a unit in Prescot Shopping Centre rent-free for one year and interested firms have until Saturday, November 30, to register.

One Ark, part of the First Ark Group, was launched in August to “change the lives of people in Know-

sley” through generating investment.

The “win a shop project” was initiated by One Ark in partnership with Knowsley Chamber of Commerce, Vivark, CBRE, Knowlsey Council, The Women’s Organisation and Prescot Town Team.

“This exciting project demonstrates One Ark’s commitment to nurturing entrepreneurship and business start-ups in Knowsley while providing real investment and development for talent in Knowsley,” said Laura McCumisky from One Ark. “The partnership is looking for

unique, independent retailers to add some value to our local high streets and bring a valuable retail destination to the shoppers of Prescot and beyond.”

Alongside the shop unit, the winners will also receive additional self-employment support including membership of the Knowsley Chamber of Commerce, full refurbishment of the premises and mentoring support.

Those who are shortlisted to the second stage of the application process but don’t progress any further

will also receive support and advice from the Merseyside Special Investment Fund, The Women’s Organisation (for female business owners) and Knowsley Council.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for independent retailers or those with a business idea, who need a place to grow their business,” said Lesley Martin-Wright, chief executive of Knowsley Chamber of Commerce.

Expressions of interest in the competition should be submitted to enquiries@one-ark.co.uk before Saturday, November 30.

location post business 17

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Another letting at Chester’s Exchange LEGAT OWEN and Bolton Birch have completed their sixth letting in 12 months at the Exchange – an office complex in the centre of Chester.

Training business, Avanta, is the latest professional services company to make the move to the Exchange, relocating to a 3,375 sq ft unit.

The Avanta deal follows on from lettings to Ramboll, Exchequer Solutions, Optical Express, Advance Recruitment and Axis Recruitment.

Located in St Johns Street, the office development is set over three floors.

Will Sadler of Legat Owen said: “The Exchange is one of the most desirable office complexes in Chester that has attracted strong interest from businesses looking to relocate from both within and outside the area.

“We tested the local market and found that the scheme is an ideal fit for small to medium-sized business and we have divided the building to facilitate these requirements.

“In response to occupier demand, we have achieved 90% occupancy with only two small units now available.”

Originally a telephone exchange, the Exchange was converted to its current use five years ago.

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

Training firm takes space in waterfront Enterprise Zone From left, Jeff Mannering, director of resources, First4Skills, Liza Marco, asset manager at Peel, Ian Pollitt, development investment surveyor at Peel; and Alison Parkes, chief operating officer at First4Skills

by Tony McDonough

POST BUSINESS STAFF

tony.mcdonough@liverpool.com

NATIONAL training provider First4Skills is to relocate large parts of its business to Liverpool’s waterfront to take advantage of Enterprise Zone status.

The firm, currently based in Ellesmere Port, has struck a deal with property giant Peel to take 7,000 sq ft of office space at 12 Princes Dock.

It will move a significant part of its core business functions into the office as it looks to expand its programmes supporting businesses and young people in Merseyside and Cheshire.

In moving to the Enterprise Zone, First4Skills will be eligible to claim

for up to 100% business rates relief over a five-year period.

Princes Dock is part of the Mersey Waters Enterprise Zone, which was established by the Government in 2011 with the purpose of encouraging economic growth and development in a particular area.

Alison Parkes, chief operating officer at First4Skills, said: “Moving to Princes Dock is a fantastic opportunity for the business.

“We understand how hard it is in the current economic climate to develop for the future, as businesses face a constant challenge.

“That is where we feel First4Skills can make all the difference as future-proofing by training in business is an investment that needs to deliver the best return – we have over 30 years’ experience in helping individuals and organisations.

“The support from the Mersey Waters Enterprise Zone is vital to us to achieve our aim of leading, not following, in our chosen sectors and we’re looking forward to establishing our Liverpool base.”

Princes Dock, Liverpool Waters, is set in 14.5 hectares, situated within the £6bn redevelopment scheme of Liverpool waterfront.

Liverpool Waters received the final approval stage of planning permission last month.

The Liverpool Waters vision involves regenerating a 60-hectare historic dockland site to create a world-class, high-quality, mixed use waterfront quarter in central Liverpool.

Liza Marco, asset manager at Peel, told Post Business: “As Liverpool Waters progresses, First4Skills and its apprentices are in a good position

Office block becomes ‘place of play’

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

URBAN design collective RAAD invited local office workers to play with giant noughts and crosses, hopscotch and swings as a final send off to the derelict Churchill House at 12 Tithebarn Street, Liverpool.

Developer Capital & Centric is shortly due to begin the strip-out and remediation work at the building.

The project will see the 1970s

structure converted into “cool office space” in Liverpool’s city centre in a scheme valued at £6m.

As a final send-off before building work commences, Capital & Centric and Liverpool’s Commercial District BID, commissioned RAAD, a local urban design and architectural collective, to host a “day with a difference” at the building.

In the lead up to the event, mysterious noughts and crosses started to appear within the upper windows of the building as RAAD began to reveal its plans.

On the day, RAAD introduced small-scale “interventions” to submerge office workers back into a place of play.

Swings appeared within the colonnade of the building.

to benefit from the scheme.

“We have had a wealth of interest in the Princes Dock, Liverpool Waters offices recently which is testament to the impressive standard of the offices on offer in this unique location in the city.

“In addition, the significant financial savings both new and established companies are able to benefit from by moving into the Mersey Waters Enterprise Zone are now being recognised.”

Princes Dock is located adjacent to the Royal Liver Building alongside the new cruise liner facility.

The Leeds and Liverpool canal extension passes alongside.

There are more than 2,500 people employed within Princes Dock with occupiers including Coutts Bank, PwC, KPMG and Atlantic Container Liners.

Curve Ball deal THE ES Group’s Liverpool office, acting on behalf of Highcross, has let 9,300 sq ft at Deacon Park in Knowsley to Curve Ball Solutions, a telecoms and media company.

Curve Ball has signed a six-year lease and is in the process of fitting out the unit prior to occupation.

Robert Diggle, agency partner at the ES Group’s Liverpool office, said: “We are delighted to have secured Curve Ball Solutions – it is a significant letting for the Merseyside out-of-town office market.”

18 post business economic development

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Growth challenges face focus on

growth

by Joshua Taylor

POST BUSINESS STAFF

joshua.taylor@trinitymirror.com

T

HERE is a burgeoning consensus that lasting growth in Britain’s economy is at last being seen, with Bank of England Governor Mark Carney recently hailing: “The recovery has finally taken hold.”

As businesses in Merseyside start to take advantage of the improving economic climate, what obstacles to growth do they need to look out for?

In an attempt to answer this and other questions, Lloyds Bank staged one of its Big Picture panel debates at Liverpool Town Hall.

Officiated by BBC Newsnight presenter Gavin Esler, the panel consisted of: Prof Tom Cannon from the University of Liverpool Management School, The Real Good Food Company chairman Pieter Totte, DWF executive partner Paul Rimmer, Halewood International strategy, international and corporate affairs director Graham Oak and Amber Taverns managing director James Baer.

Prof Cannon began the debate by saying Liverpool had not previously done enough to export products.

“We have not exported very well,” he claimed. “But we are getting better.” He described Liverpool’s presence at the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010 as “a step in the right direction”.

But there is cause for optimism in the city’s export potential, according to DWF’s Mr Rimmer, who said next year’s International Festival for Business and the SuperPort expansion project would raise Liverpool’s international profile.

The panellists, meanwhile, seemed united in their frustration with the so-called skills shortage across Merseyside.

Mr Oak, whose company manufactures alcoholic drinks at Huyton Business Park, said: “We are recruiting a number of apprentices and have had a lot of success.

“But we are struggling in areas like electrical engineering. We are finding we are not getting a lot of support from local colleges. This is a bit limiting.”

Mr Baer, whose company runs an estate of more than 80 pubs, said greater emphasis needed to be placed on workers’ attitude, rather than just academic background.

“Attitude and character sometimes come second to education,” he said. “But attitude and character count for a hell of a lot.”

Prof Cannon suggested the skills shortage was a regional issue.

He said: “What we are lacking is young people who decide to become entrepreneurs locally. We need an awful lot more.

“Too many go to London and not enough stay here to create the best entrepreneurial firms.”

Mr Rimmer revealed a recent process to recruit three apprentices at

The Real Good Food Company, chaired by Pieter Totte, employs more than 1,000 people DWF had attracted more than 450 applications.

Mr Totte, who chairs the Liverpool-based ingredients manufacturer The Real Good Food Company, said young talent could be better nurtured in some businesses.

He said: “You need to have a culture in your business that understands how to give youngsters a chance, not just by being there but by giving them skills.

“We employ just over 1,000 people. If you, as an employee, see potential, you should pick it up and develop it or someone else will.”

Speaking about the high youth unemployment rate, he added: “Young people lose belief in themselves if they don’t find work. If you give them an opportunity to grow, you will be amazed what you can achieve.”

Mr Rimmer agreed, saying: “There are things, as business people, we have a responsibility to do.

“We have to invest in young people to bring them through.”

The panellists were next asked what could be done to improve the business climate.

‘Businesses have to invest in young people’

“Freeze business rates for the next two years,” suggested Mr Baer.

“You could also cut employer National Insurance payments for employees under 25.

“There is also a campaign in my industry to cut VAT.” Mr Baer said “less tax and less regulation” were the keys to stimulating business.

Prof Cannon also said it was necessary to “take female entrepreneurship seriously”, claiming there was a “deficit of female entrepreneurs who own businesses or are self-employed”.

He suggested banks should have “women start-up and growth targets” imposed on them.

Meanwhile, Mr Oak said his industry, the alcoholic drinks sector, would benefit from a reduced regulatory burden, particularly when it came to the different bottle labelling policies seen across Europe.

Mr Totte said Britain faced challenges from multi-national corporations which “pull too much money out of the economy”, while smaller enterprises deserve more credit for being the “nation’s employers”.

Closing the debate, Prof Cannon said: “This city has a deficit of start-ups and stock of businesses, yet we have so much talent.

“We have to help people realise their talent and make them believe in themselves.”

economic development post business 19

Thursday, November 28, 2013

city business

Start up month

of the

In association with Donald Sweeting

Afterburners From left, Mark Burton, Lloyds, James Baer, Pieter Totte, Glenn Bemment, Lloyds, Prof Tom Cannon, Paul Rimmer and Graham Oak at the event at Liverpool Town Hall

Liverpool’s presence at the Shanghai World Expo in 2010 was ‘a step in the right direction’

‘Confidence rising but exports still a challenge’ DURING Lloyds Bank’s Big Picture panel debate, the 160-strong audience of business leaders was quizzed about the economic recovery.

Nearly nine in 10 (88%) said they felt more confident about their future growth prospects, compared to 12 months ago.

However, the same

proportion said recruiting and retaining staff had been a challenge in the past year.

In a sign the global recovery still faces uncertainty, less than half (46%) said they expected their business to increase export activities in 2014.

Meanwhile, 89% said the recession had made their business more

lean and efficient, while 77% believed their company was now better placed to withstand future economic downturns.

Glenn Bemment, the Lloyds area director for Merseyside, West Lancashire and North Wales, said: “The results show that after several years of caution, businesses are

beginning to feel more confident and optimistic about their future trading prospects.

“The fact that the vast majority of leaders polled said that they are planning to invest for growth next year is a clear sign of intent and should act as a catalyst for the region’s economic revival.”

I LOVED sport from a very young age, writes Donald Sweeting.

At school, even though I was one of the smallest, I never backed out of getting stuck in – put a rugby shirt on me and I had no fear.

One of the greatest lessons I learned in life was ‘try it once, if it doesn’t work, then try again a different way’. I think this is why I was so eager to go into business. I tried a job I didn’t like, working in a bar and just being one of the herd, so I’m trying again a different way.

This is where the idea for Afterburners came from.

Training in a gym is about you versus yourself, rather than like sport where there is a visible opponent.

Only you can decide how far and how fast you can go.

Your mind will give up 100 times before your body does, so kicking in the ‘afterburners’ when you feel you can’t go anymore is how you fight through and get to where you want to be.

As there is a clear divide between good quality trainers and the people who genuinely need their help, I aim to act as a middle man.

I am currently working through the prestigious Marriott hotels gym facilities within central Liverpool and know that it is the personal side of personal training which is important.

Most people don’t understand that exercise should be fun.

It can provide stress relief, illness prevention, improved self-image, as well as confidence.

It is my mission to change the belief that it is a chore to be done, instead of an activity to be enjoyed.

Name: Donald Sweeting What it does: Personal Trainer Contact details: Address: donald

What most people don’t realise is using the gym effectively is a skill like any other that must be learned.

If you got into a car without having lessons you’d be very unlikely to reach your target destination without seriously hurting yourself or others in the process.

You can teach yourself, but do you really have the time to sift through the mountains of theories out there, especially as one size doesn’t fit all?

So, I had my mission statement and my vision, but like many personal trainers, I was on my own and I didn’t really know where to start.

I had to learn and I had to learn quickly – sales, administration, marketing, all had been alien to me and out of the blocks I admit that I struggled.

My aim, though, has always been to learn from my mistakes and I knew I needed advice and support.

After meeting the wonderful team at Liverpool Vision I was given direction through their Start-up course.

I learned first-hand about the challenges and successes of starting up a business in Liverpool, including how to write a business plan and making some quality contacts, to boot.

Now, rather than wandering in the dark, I understand more of the principles of not just business, but life.

How to add value to someone by actions and words and not just wanting the sale, but genuinely wanting to help.

Earning trust is key. Trust is what makes people invest their time and money into you and your service.

sweetingpt@hotmail. com Telephone: 07887 421161 Facebook: www. facebook.com/after

burnersliverpool Website: www.after burnersliverpool.co. uk Twitter: @after burnersliverpool

20 post business professional

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Chance of insolvency falling at NW firms

Professional Liverpool chief executive John Hall, left, and chair Jim Gill, right, with Lord Mayor Gary Millar at Liverpool Town Hall

Lobby group’s finances back on sound footing after scare

by Joshua Taylor

POST BUSINESS STAFF

joshua.taylor@trinitymirror.com

A LOBBYING and networking group will be able to play a greater role in tackling the “economic and social issues” of Liverpool now its finances have stabilised, its chairman said.

Professional Liverpool now has 160 members and expects to run at a surplus over the next 12 months after facing bankruptcy in recent years.

Chairman Jim Gill, the former chief executive of regeneration agency Liverpool Vision, said: “The stronger we are and the more members engage, the more we contribute to the wider economic and social issues of the city.”

The organisation’s annual general meeting (AGM) heard the group was expected to run at a surplus of £26,000 over the next year.

The organisation ran at a £20,000 loss last year and a £108,000 loss in 2011.

Mr Gill told Post Business after the AGM: “About three or four years ago, the regional development agency withdrew its funding from Professional Liverpool, which left us in a difficult position. It was really touch and go.”

The AGM heard the finances had stabilised and membership was up by 100 from a low of 60.

Treasurer Andrew Lovelady told the meeting: “Cashflow has eased. We have money in the bank and we can now pay our bills.”

Chief executive John Hall added: “We have earned a rightful place at the table of policy makers in the city region.”

Afterwards Mr Gill said: “We lost touch with our members while we were focusing on our financial issues, but membership is going back up, getting membership renewals is no longer as difficult and we are gradually building up small levels of reserves again. We are away from the threat of bankruptcy.”

At the AGM Prof Jim Keaton stood down as a director of Professional Liverpool but he will continue to serve as an ambassador for the organisation, alongside Steve Stuart.

Martin Heath and David Varey were also appointed to the board, while Mr Gill and Mr Lovelady were re-elected as chairman and treasurer, respectively.

The formal meeting was followed by a lunch at Liverpool Town Hall, attended

by Lord Mayor Gary Millar.

Attendees were briefed on the upcoming International Festival for Business, a series of more than 100 events due be held across Merseyside in June and July next year to promote entrepreneurship.

Martin Heath Mr Gill said: “We

always get a good turnout at our events. The more secure we are, the more we can do in terms of support and influence.”

He said various groups within Professional Liverpool were examining issues that affect businesses in the region, such as planning regulations, healthcare procurement reforms and unemployment.

“Professional and financial service businesses have contact with lots of other businesses and have a lot to add to wider debates,” Mr Gill said.

“Every conversation I have with people in the sector is about how the business environment is improving.

“Nobody thinks it’s plain sailing from here, but there is certainly a lot more confidence around. It’s a positive message at the moment.”

THE fortunes of professional service businesses in the North West are turning a corner, according to new research by R3, the insolvency trade body.

Around three quarters (77%) of professional service and technical businesses have seen their risk of insolvency fall over the past year – the greatest improvement out of the North West’s 10 biggest industries.

The figures relate to businesses operating in areas such as accountancy, law, public relations, advertising, architecture, research and engineering, which together account for 256,000 jobs in the North West.

The region’s biggest source of employment is retail and wholesale, which account for 531,000 staff. In this sector, 74 % of businesses improved their financial stability over the year.

Other major industries in the region include hospitality, where 76% of firms saw risk of insolvency fall, transport (75%), manufacturing (73%) and construction (71%).

Jeremy Oddie, North West regional chairman of R3, said: “Businesses in all of the North West’s biggest industries have shown major improvements in their financial stability in the past year, which indicates that we may now be turning the corner. Some sectors such as retail and construction have had well documented problems, so it is good to see signs of recovery.

“The performance of professional services is also positive as these are skilled, higher value jobs which are of strategic importance.”

on the move ■

CAPITAL & CENTRIC has recruited Anna Dooley from Knight Frank as a development surveyor.

Ms Dooley will be working on existing development projects and also assisting with finding new opportunities for the company.

She previously worked in the valuation, office and industrial agency in Knight Frank’s Manchester office.

Capital & Centric is involved in two key Liverpool schemes: The redevelopment of 12 Tithebarn Street and bringing the Art Deco former Littlewoods building in Edge Lane back to life.

■

NORTH West facilities management company Vivark has appointed Chris Saxton as a non-executive director of its board.

Mr Saxton was previously chief executive of building firm Morris and Spottiswood and managing director of Morgan Sindall’s regional construction division.

Prescot-based Vivark provides facilities management, repairs, maintenance and refurbishment services. It operates as a social enterprise, putting profits back into services.

■

LIVERPOOL accountancy practice Haines Watts has promoted one of its staff to associate director.

Gillian Edwards was senior tax manager at the Victoria Street office and is now one of five directors working with a 20-strong team of staff.

She qualified as a chartered tax advisor at GLF, part of which merged with Haines Watts in 1999.

Anna Dooley – joins Capital & Centric

Chris Saxton – on the Vivark board

Gillian Edwards – new promotion

networker post business 21

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Mistletoe minefields at the office’s festive celebrations

Helen Davies looks at the legal dangers lurking at the annual work Christmas party

T

HE office Christmas party is a good way to increase staff morale and generally causes few problems other than perhaps a nasty hangover the next day.

But employers are being warned the event could lead to costly and long-lasting repercussions as they can be liable for their employees’ actions at work-related social events which take place outside the office.

Heather Grant, employment lawyer at Maxwell Hodge, based on Liverpool’s Castle Street, said: “Most risks at office functions are caused by the influence of alcohol such as trips and falls whilst drunk, inappropriate behaviour towards other staff which, whilst not acceptable in the office, when seen through a drunken lens may seem acceptable.

“Office rivalries or feuds can equally spill over when drunken employees find themselves speaking their mind in a rather inappropriate way both verbally and physically.”

An employer can be vicariously liable for harassment of an employee by a colleague but it is a defence under law if the employer can show it took all reasonable steps to prevent the alleged perpetrator from carrying out the act.

“It may therefore be useful to employers to implement guidance as to acceptable behaviour in and out of the workplace, which can be relied on

SMEs feel festive ■

OVER 20% more small firms than last year in the North West plan to hold a Christmas party for staff.

The latest Close Brothers Business Barometer revealed 63% of small and medium sized enterprise (SME) owners will host a festive event for their workers this year, an increase of 23% on 2012.

Andrew Metcalfe, regional sales director for Close Brothers, said: “Christmas parties have fallen victim to the recession over the last few years and this noticeable increase is a positive sign that business confidence is picking up.”

■

Employers can be liable for their employees’ actions at work social events. Inset, Heather Grant should things get out of hand,” said Ms Grant.

“I would not recommend drafting a specific policy outlining acceptable standards of behaviour at Christmas parties but something within the more general disciplinary rules

would not go amiss.

“An employer should be sure to take seriously and fully investigate any complaints received.”

It’s not all doom and gloom though, and Ms Grant says employers should be careful not to overestimate the

risks to the expense of the majority of employees who will enjoy the party without causing problems.

She said: “In most cases your staff are likely to behave themselves and any poor behaviour is usually laughed off after the event.”

PETER Forshaw, a health and safety lawyer at Liverpool’s Weightmans, is playing Wishee Washee in a production of Aladdin this Christmas.

But the keen amateur performer is warning others staging pantomimes to take care if they want to avoid lawsuits waiting in the wings.

He said: “Competition for audiences is so intense that production companies are constantly under pressure to push the spectacular to new heights, meaning more lavish costumes, restricting actors’ movements and sometimes vision and the most breathtaking pyrotechnics which create a fire risk.

“There’s also other special effects and the most heart-stoppingly energetic or acrobatic dances and fight and slapstick routines, all of which greatly increase risks of personal injury.”

past business – nostalgia

Why an ‘unprepossessing’ street became a Royal home twice over

Work under way on the Royal Insurance and Post & Echo buildings off Old Hall Street in the early 1970s, with Exchange Station behind

WHEN Royal Insurance opened its skyscraping sandcastle headquarters in 1976, it was celebrating both the power of modern building technology and its own proud history.

Royal Insurance was founded at No 1 Old Hall Street in 1845.

Four years later, it moved to the corner of North John Street and Dale Street. In 1897, it replaced its existing home with the lavish gold-domed office complex that still stands today.

But by the 1960s, the Royal was spread between its HQ and a number of what it called “old and inadequate” buildings nearby – so the company sought a new home.

By 1966, it decided that the developing Old Hall Street area offered the most potential. And so, alongside the Post & Echo and Liverpool Corporation, it agreed to redevelop the area between the street and The Strand to create the beige behemoth that still

dominates the district today.

In a Post supplement to mark the building’s opening in 1976, Eric Parmley, director and project manager at building firm Tysons, explained that this seemingly “unprepossessing piece of Liverpool” was suitable for the Royal for many reasons.

“Firstly”, he noted, “the scale of the buildings demanded a large site with open aspect to the river so that space around ... would enable them to be viewed in their entirety against a suitable backdrop.

“Secondly, the area was being developed commercially and would ultimately become a vigorous business area as shown by the development of the John Moores Centre, Silkhouse Court, Richmond House, the Cotton Exchange, Tithebarn House and the Atlantic Hotel.”

The 1,100-place car park was built first, before Tysons started work on the towers themselves.

With many roads and the Mersey Tunnel nearby, and with work on the Post & Echo offices ongoing next door, this was a complex site – and one so constricted that site offices were built on stilts over Old Hall Street. Mr Parmley said: “Immense amounts of material had to be removed from the site of the car park forming three levels each taken down to solid rock as the whole building is sited on hard sandstone.”

But the new landmark’s concrete towers rose quickly as Tysons used the “slip forming” technique, in which concrete is poured into a moving mould.

The towers grew at an average rate of 9in an hour.

As Mr Parmley wrote: “As these concrete towers rose overnight almost, many of the thousands of commuters passing the site daily must have wondered what was going on.”

ALISTAIR HOUGHTON

22 post business networker

trading gossip ■

IF YOU’VE ever thought of designers as being serious types, then last week’s Designival Mini will have made you think again.

There were, as we report on page 10, only three speakers – but they provided enough surrealism and cheeky cynicism to warm the cockles of any creative heart.

Illustrator Paul Davis was a particular hit with his honest appraisal of just how tough the industry can be.

Davis, below, may work in advertising but can’t resist biting the hand that feeds him. He told

the tale, for example, of how he lost a £10,000 deal when a bank employee found an old illustration of his they didn’t like.

Davis also bid for work with designer Marc Jacobs with a picture of a chemical plant with “Marc Jacobs perfume” daubed on it. He was told that Jacobs loved it – but would never use it.

And at one point, Davies worked on a project that saw him sell his handwriting to computer giant IBM for a year.

He wasn’t allowed to use his writing in any other campaign. So when Sony came calling, he went to a copyright lawyer – who advised the right-handed Davies that he should write with his left hand for the year.

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

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Hold on to your ribs – Laura is taking to the comedy stage myday off Laura Doyle is an international player liaison manager for the football agency, the Stellar Group – and she also has a talent for performing stand-up comedy

I

AM lucky to have led a pretty colourful life so far, having lived and worked abroad for many years in various countries, from the tropics of Brazil to Arctic Norway.

Working mostly with NGOs and foreign services overseas, I decided to undertake a complete career change and headed back to Liverpool to study for an MA in marketing.

I then took up a career in PR only to then move into one of the most dynamic and fast-paced industries of them all – football.

There was, however, always one unfulfilled adventure that eluded me, one clown-nosed siren calling out, stopping me at every intersection asking “so why did the chicken cross the road, Laura?” and that siren was stand-up comedy.

I’d done a few comedy performances in the past, hosting my own trashed-up, Cilla Black-inspired blind date night as a student in Cardiff, participated in a charity comedy night for Downtown Liverpool and at a private party for Boodles.

I even wrote a comedy musical in Portuguese about the history of Ireland which I planned to stage in Rio de Janeiro.

I presented the project in person to the then Prime Minister of Ireland, Bertie Ahern, when he was on a state visit there. Needless to say neither Bertie nor the Brazilians shared my enthusiasm for what could have been, in my opinion, one of the greatest musicals since Oklahoma.

When it came to taking the plunge properly, I would always allow myself to be conveniently distracted by work, love, life, cleaning the kitchen cupboards – whatever it took to convince myself that “I’d look into it next week”.

Then, working as an international player liaison manager for the Stellar Group, one of the biggest football agencies in the world, I found myself

‘I found myself inspired by our players’

Laura Doyle is finally taking the plunge into the world of stand-up comedy inspired by so many of our players.

They are young adults who had a dream, worked hard, believed in themselves, never gave up – even on the bad days when they’re being booed from the terraces – and went on to become some of the most successful footballers in the Premier League That’s not to say “so watch out for me folks, next stop ECHO Arena”, but it showed me that nothing’s easy and if it was, then everybody would be doing it and if you really want to give comedy a go you are going to have to get out there and start writing, start gigging and stop worrying about the boos.

So I finally got my act together started gigging and on Tuesday, December

3 this year, I will be launching a new open mic comedy night at Sound Food and Drink in Duke Street, Liverpool.

The event will be called the Laugh Support Machine.

The idea behind the Laugh Support Machine is to offer new, aspiring comedians like myself the chance to perform in front of a live audience, in a supportive, friendly environment.

Whether the first time they knock ‘em dead or die on stage, the aim is to encourage them to rise again and keep trying until they find their mojo.

Too many potential comics never get the chance to develop their craft due to the loathsome gong show atmosphere of so many open mic nights.

This night will offer people the

chance to perform on a regular basis in front of a supportive crowd, which makes all the difference in the early days, when you are trying to find your style.

Although the night is a showcase for new acts, there will also be a number of more experienced comedians from the circuit, who the newer acts can watch and chat to about their experiences.

So if you are a budding comedian who has always wanted to give stand-up a go or just have five minutes of funny you want to share with the world, then the Laugh Support Machine wants to hear from you – unless of course Real Madrid get me on a Bosman first.

Thursday, November 28, 2013

networker post business

23

networking

The Ethical Glass

my favourite lunch

Kimpton party

MORE than 400 guests were invited to Wirral’s Thornton Hall Hotel to celebrate the 50th anniversary of local mechanical building services firm, Kimpton.

Kimpton delivers building services.

Pictured, above, are Carol Posner and Ray Morrison from Chester Zoo and, left, Richard and Sarah Kimpton.

Neston sports event INTELLECTUAL property specialist Forresters and estate agents Constables were the sponsors at the inaugural Neston Sports Awards, held in the Cranston Suite at Neston Cricket Club.

Noodle bar opening

A TASTE of the Orient has come to a Birkenhead shopping centre with the arrival of a new fast food outlet which has created four jobs.

Chopstix noodle bar at Pyramids Shopping Centre

FRIDAY, NOV 29

PRODUCTS from some of Merseyside’s leading creative small businesses run by women will be showcased at a new event, a two-day Arts Craft and Gift Fair at the Women’s Organisation building, 54 James Street, on November 29-30. The fair has been organised by business support and events company SMC2020 Management Consultancy with the aim of putting

the spotlight on the creativity of independent businesses. The fair will run from 3-7pm on Friday November, and from 11am-3pm on Saturday.

Some stalls are still available. For more information contact SMC2020 Management Consultancy by emailing smc consultancy1@gmail.com

FRIDAY, NOV 29

HALTON Chamber of Commerce is staging an event

Q What is your favourite lunch venue?

A The Ethical Glass on Harrington Street Q Why is this your favourite venue?

A Lots of reasons: it's tucked away downstairs, it's relaxed and informal, the music is just right, the staff are great, and then there's the fact that it serves pies – only pies, but the best ones in town.

And the pie kitchen is called Pie-O-My, named after the racehorse of my favourite TV character ever, Tony Soprano.

The event was hosted by the club’s new president, Tony Bush, and his team Right, Forresters associates Kate Cruse and David Murphy, and marketing executive Kirsty Gallagher at the event.

business diary

Jonathan Caswell, head of PR at Marketing Liverpool

at the Conference Centre, The Heath Business and Technical Park, Runcorn, to help companies tackle the problems of stress in the workplace. It says stress affects one in five of the working population and is now the single biggest cause of sickness in the UK, with more than 105m working days lost to stress each year, costing UK employers £1.24bn. Stress that is directly caused by the workplace and left unaddressed can lead to prosecution under health and safety law and this

is now serving in the food court and follows on from other new openings.

From left, Ristea Nicoleta Felicia, Camilia Mutu, Philip Chan and Ristea Eugen.

workshop looks at what stress is, how it affects the individual and the business, what causes stress, ways of reducing stress, and how to support stress.

Places cost £45+VAT for chamber members, or £65+VAT for non members. Book at: http://www. haltonchamber.co.uk/ events/non-members or speak to Nicola on 01928 516142.

MONDAY, DEC 2

BW Macfarlane chartered accountants is staging a free seminar, “Helping

Q What is your favourite dish and why?

A The beef and stout pie with mash, peas and gravy is my favourite so far.

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

A I regularly meet Liverpool business people, whether established or new start-ups, to tease out their stories to help them get a presence in the media which will, in turn, help promote their goods or services. And every time we succeed, it’s a

Charities Drive Growth via the Internet” from 4pm to 6pm at The Gateway Conference Centre on the city centre’s London Road. It is aimed at executives and trustees of any charities and not-for-profit organisations who would benefit from a better understanding of how to capitalise on the use of the web to increase fundraising, boost volunteer engagement and extend reach, including tips on using social media channels. It will also feature a special talk on the importance of driving legacy giv-

ing. There are five speakers, who will be followed by a festival buffet and networking. To book, please contact Vicki Harper on 0151 236 1494 or email vicki.h@bwm.co. uk

TUESDAY, DEC 3

AWARD-winning journalist Mary Murtagh is hosting a free hour-long PR taster workshop aimed at entrepreneurs, small business owners and social enterprises. The workshop covers 10 top tips for great press releases and offers

Jonathan Caswell lunchtime well spent.

Q Who would you most like to have lunch with?

A If he’s cooked it then Michel Roux Jnr, otherwise James Gandolfini. Failing these two then I’m never happy then when I’m out with my wife and children.

Q Where else do you like to go?

A Panna Kitchen and Canteen if in the city centre, or if out and about with family and friends we head for Pruno in Childwall, which is run by my friends Sheila Benson and Sean Millar.

advice on what journalists want. The training is useful for any social enterprise, charity, public sector organisation, or business, however big or small. It takes place at The Gallery, Bank Quay House, Sankey Street, Warrington, from 4pm to 5pm. To book for this event, please visit: https: //www.eventbrite.co.uk/ event/8993902003 ■ Send your diary events to neil.hodgson @liverpool.com