BQ West Midlands Spring 2016

BUSINESS QUARTER

West Midlands: Spring 2016

Celebrating and inspiring entrepreneurship

Kings of cutlery Family firm values keep Arthur Price at top table

Quillow talk

Cofi Coo and the entrepreneur sisters

A soldier’s tale From the horrors of war to business success

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Charlotte Rogers has proved the TV panel wrong

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EN T R E P R EN EU R I NT E R V I E W S

B U SIN ESS U P DAT E

Business Quarter Magazine

West Midlands: Spring 2016

Dragon slayer

IN SIGHT

LIFES T YLE

E VE NT S

BUSINESS UPDATE bqlive.co.uk

EDITOR’S VIEW WEST MIDLANDS ISSUE 13 At a national level, the doom merchants are moaning: oil prices are collapsing, China’s growth is slowing, commodity prices are falling and companies across many sectors are under increasing pressure. And yet here in the West Midlands, I still feel there’s a feel-good factor, and that what we welcomed as a slow economic turnaround a couple of years ago is still alive and breathing. But perhaps I’m just spending too much time with new entrepreneurs and youthful businesses – because nothing seems to have dampened their enthusiasm.

Take this BQ’s star entrepreneur, Charlotte Rogers: she’s the young founder of Aquatiser, a new bottle design that turns plain water into a tasty but healthy fruit drink. Rogers launched her business a year and a half ago after university, and has had virtually no help, apart from family and friends. Her business was even criticised by Peter Jones on TV’s Dragons’ Den, when all the dragons turned down the chance of investment.

But today, in her second year of operations, Rogers is set to turn over some £250,000, making a £40,000 profit after paying herself a salary. And she’s got even bigger plans for the years ahead. Another of this issue’s entrepreneurs is John Loveday, who endured shocking experiences as a soldier in Afghanistan, and initially found it difficult to find peace of mind and satisfying work in ‘civvy street’. Yet since launching Birmingham-based Spearhead Compliance Training, he’s never looked back. He and his partner quickly turned their £6,000 debt into a £30,000 profit, and have now signed a contract worth up to £5m to train 8,500 staff by 2020. As well as our four entrepreneurs, we also catch up with several of the region’s established business leaders – and again, they talk brightly about the West Midlands. Paul Kehoe, chief executive of Birmingham Airport, is insistent that he needs government help to really take off, but even without it he’s predicting steady growth in 2016/17. Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, chairman of WMG at Warwick University, explains how Jaguar Land Rover continues to drive the health of the region’s car industry and engineering suppliers. Meanwhile, Judith Armstrong, the new chief executive of Millennium Point, reminds us of the boom that the HS2 high-speed rail link will soon bring to the West Midlands. And Simon Price, the boss of historical Staffordshire cutlery makers Arthur Price of England, reveals how his family business continues to prosper after 114 years of operations. So are we facing difficult times ahead? Perhaps, but let’s not talk the West Midlands out of the economic stability that we’ve enjoyed in the past two years.

Happy reading – and don’t forget to email me at steve.dysonmedia@gmail.co.uk with your feedback and ideas.

Steve Dyson, editor, BQ West Midlands

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CONTENTS 68

Spring 16

POETRY IN MOTION

John Hodgson is bowled over by the Aston Martin V12 Vantage S

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BUSINESS LUNCH

Sitting down with a part time boss who’s a full-time mum

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OFF THE WAGON

James Spreckley ends dry January with wines from Chile and Spain

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QUILLOW TALK Entrepreneur sisters gained business inspiration from their mother

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CLEAR US FOR TAKE OFF Paul Kehoe, Birmingham Airport’s chief executive calls on government for help

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Celebrating and inspir ing entrepreneurship

FEATURES

REGULARS

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SHE’S GOT BOTTLE Now Charlotte Rogers is proving the dragons wrong

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BIG ISSUES John Duckers calls on London for fair deals

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KINGS OF CUTLERY Family firm values keep Arthur Price at top table

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BUSINESS UPDATE Business news from around the region

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QUILLOW TALK Entrepreneur sisters gained business inspiration from their mother

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AS I SEE IT Matt Davies busts some common myths that surround financial management

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A SOLDIER’S TALE Businessmen who learned their trade amid the horrors of war

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COMMERCIAL PROPERT Y A look at the West Midlands’ biggest deals

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BUSINESS LUNCH Sitting down with a part time boss who’s a full-time mum

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WINE James Speckley comes off the wagon

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MOTORING John Hodgson puts Aston Martin’s V12 through its paces

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EQUIPMENT Supermac’s every day car

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CHART TOPPER Profile of Ninder Johal businessman and bhangra pop star

55 S P E C I A L F E A T U R E LEGAL AND FINANCE QUARTER Interview with Dr David Ward the new UK managing partner of IP Specialists Marks & Clerk P L U S ‘West Midlands: a manufacturing economy’ in partnership with Warwick Manufacturing Group

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EXECUTIVE TRAVEL Steve Dyson stops in London and Durham

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CHART TOPPER Profile of Ninder Johal businessman and bhangra pop star

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THE BIG ISSUES bqlive.co.uk

Lions led by donkeys John Duckers, the business commentator who West Midlands leaders love to hate, has a rant about what he sees as London pulling all the strings Why is a southern elite of politicians de facto running our city? Birmingham has had Government-appointed commissioners sent in to sort out education and child protection, while Lord Bob Kerslake produced a damning review into the running of the city council – and the fall-out is ongoing. Next up is the imposition of an elected mayor. For decades there has been a London economic stranglehold and now they have gone the whole hog and we have a political one.

OK, it is partly because our leadership has been so inept, with the council, the biggest in Europe, mired in Trojan Horse scandals and dreadful child abuse failures.

But the level of ‘interference’ is beginning to get worrying. On the face of it there is much to be proud about – the Genting Arena, Grand Central and New Street Station, work in progress on Paradise, HS2 edging closer, an expanding airport and soaring demand for commercial property.

Improvements are being made yet one wonders whether these can be sustained and built upon given the fundamental weaknesses which remain – an appalling lack of skills, unemployment persistently higher than the national average, and an over-dependence on low paid leisure and retail jobs.

And the future does not look brilliant. Irwin Mitchell’s latest UK Powerhouse report predicts that over the next 10 years Birmingham’s gross value added (GVA) will grow by 19.5%. The value of the economic gap between London and the West Midlands currently stands at £247bn and is expected to reach £325.9bn in 2025, according to the study. So much then for the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise

Partnership making any significant difference.

Opportune for a cynical government to smother us in yet another unwanted local government reorganisation, trampling democracy in the process. Despite Birmingham having twice rejected an elected mayor, it is being forced through, only this time region-wide, a further layer of bureaucracy making politics ever more remote from real people. Expect the usual mix of dead-beats and self-promoters to put their names forward. The city council will still have the biggest wards in the country. But there will now be an inverse pyramid of councillors, cabinet, leader, West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) and elected mayor.

Is it any wonder voters are fed up with politicians and disengaged from the system? The WMCA, an aberration of a name more likely to put off inward investors than attract them, will supposedly be making decisions on the likes of transport, planning and skills.

But while London has apparently agreed a generous financial settlement it is mostly the same pile of cash being shuffled about in a kind of official money laundering scheme. Big Brother in London still holds the purse strings and Big Brother London still decides what crumbs will fall from the South-East table. We are actually more removed from localisation than we have ever been. And behind the scenes of this farce you can be sure that the same old wrangling between Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton will continue unabated.

What we are seeing is all smoke and mirrors.

And that’s because we’ve benefitted from the national economic recovery and are being buttressed by the success of Jaguar Land Rover and the car industry. JLR and the supply chain drip-down is generating the high tech jobs which this region desperately needs, (if only there were enough skilled workers here to fill them). And it’s doing it with very little appreciation or help from anybody else.

Indeed the Government has just abolished the greatly valued Manufacturing Advisory Service which says everything about its ignorant attitude to industry, and automotive in particular. Amidst this structural and political shambles, hard working Midlanders graft away, resilient to all that is thrown at them. What is it they said in the aftermath of World War One? Lions led by donkeys – this is the West Midlands today. n

Hitachi train

BUSINESS UPDATE Bank finances expansion A Black Country granite manufacturer has created three local jobs thanks to £148,000 of financial support from Lloyds Bank. Marble and Granite Trading, based in Tipton, has bought its existing factory premises which means it can expand operations, operating at Optima Designs. The company previously rented the three adjoining units on the Princess Industrial Estate, but can now expand to double its staff to six and take on more orders.

A specialist manufacturer and supplier of granite, marble, quartz and sandstone products, Optima’s products include work surfaces, tiles, and fireplaces.

The firm also operates a showroom in Erdington, Birmingham. Mala Sokhal, managing director of Optima Designs, said: “The acquisition of our premises will allow us to grow the business whilst also creating new jobs for local people.

We’ve enjoyed our relationship with Lloyds Bank for many years, and their guidance has been invaluable.” Rob Taylor, relationship manager at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking, said: “Local manufacturing is proving to be one of the key

businessteam@bham.ac.uk www.birmingham.ac.uk/partners

drivers of economic growth, and it’s vital for us to support firms like Optima to reach their potential.”

The car industry’s David and Goliath MG Motors – the small Birmingham car maker with a big, historical name – has announced plans to expand its UK dealer network.

The Chinese-owned business ended the 2015 year with UK sales up 35.5% on 2014 – its most successful year since taking over the remnants of the old Longbridge factory in 2008.

Despite the sales rise, MG’s annual volumes remain small at 3,152 cars, equal to a market share of just 0.12%. However, the company’s looking to build on its growth which has been driven by the popularity of its MG3 supermini.

Matthew Cheyne, MG’s head of sales and marketing, said: “We’ve got a product development plan for each year until 2020, so it’s an exciting time to consider joining us. We know we’ve still got gaps to fill and often get asked when we’ll be announcing dealers in specific areas.” He said the company was targeting areas

Marble and granite traders, poised for expansion

around Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham and Southampton. Meanwhile, Jaguar Land Rover has become Britain’s largest car-maker after breaking the 500,000 unit milestone in 2015.

The company – with two of its main factories in Solihull and Castle Bromwich, Birmingham – has more than trebled UK output since 2009, and has more than doubled its workforce to 35,000 in the last five years.

See Professor Lord Bhattacharyya’s Insight feature on UK automotive success on pages 60 to 62.

Flying record Birmingham Airport saw more than 10 million passengers take off or land during the 2015 calender year, its most successful 12 months since opening in 1939. A total of 10,188,889 passengers were handled across the year, up 5% on 2014, and more than 683,000 were in December, up 10% on December 2014 and the busiest on record. Long haul traffic saw the greatest increase, 21.4% up on 2014 due to greater capacity to destinations such as Dubai, Delhi, Amritsar and Beijing. Paul Kehoe, chief executive of Birmingham Airport said: “We not

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only handled more passengers than ever before but we also broke the news that eleven new airlines were being added to our growing list of carriers. With brand new services launched to Reykjavik, New York, Madrid, Warsaw, Budapest and Poznan, plus additional frequencies added to key hubs such as Dubai, Istanbul and Delhi, we are seeing more airlines realise the huge benefits of flying to and from Birmingham. Looking forward, 2016 is set to be even busier as we get set for the launch of Qatar, Blue Air, Iberia and Czech Airlines, as well as welcoming the Emirates A380 aircraft each day from March.”

Read more about the airport’s plans in our Insight feature with Paul Kehoe on pages 36-40.

Light technology down under LightwaveRF, the Birmingham-based home technology company, has placed it first order for the Australian market worth £175,000.

The news comes after the company – whose cofounder John Shermer was featured in the Winter 2015 edition of BQ West Midlands – signed a technology licence agreement with Powerdiverter.

Consumers will be able to use the LightwaveRF app to decide where to divert surplus generated electricity using connected sockets and switches, and a licence fee will be paid for every LightwaveRF-enabled Powerdiverter product.

Powerdiverter’s Australian distributor Apricus will begin to sell associated LightwaveRF products with the Powerdiverter unit, and the first order of £175,000 has already been placed. This new contract brings the company’s current order book to more than £1.2m.

IT firm’s best year Vanti, the audio, visual and IT systems specialist, has announced that 2015 was the company’s best year of trading, with the creation of 11

jobs. The company, based at the Innovation Birmingham Campus, reached an annual turnover of £2.5m. Established in 2006, Vanti works with clients to make the most of their existing or new technology. It’s had an average growth of 32% since 2012, now has 23 staff and estimates revenues will reach £3m by 2017.

High profile clients including Tottenham Hotspur FC, Canary Wharf Group, Library of Birmingham, Bosch and Siemens. Mike Brooman, Vanti’s chief executive, said: “As one of the few businesses that pre-build, assemble and test our equipment before installing it on-site, our office and lab facilities at the Innovation Birmingham Campus are integral to ensuring that we continue to grow year-on-year.”

“It’s had an average growth of 32% since 2012, now has 23 staff and estimates revenues will reach £3m by 2017” Dubai growth for Harrison West Midlands hospitality design and branding specialist Harrison has expanded its Middle East business by sending two senior designers to work on local projects. The company, with headquarters in Sutton Coldfield and offices in London and Texas, has tasked bar and restaurant senior designer Kerrie Gray and hotel hospitality designer Jim Rankin to assist the Dubai projects.

They will work alongside technical director Warwick Snelling and design director and Dubai head Jon Bentley on new projects from clients such as Meraas Holdings, Al Tayer Group, Meraki, Jumeirah Group and Food Fund International.

Totem poles £50k for growth Totem Learning, a games company based in Coventry, has secured more than £50,000 to finance its next release of online learning tools. Birmingham-based Midven’s Early Advantage fund has invested over £25,000, with a co-investment coming from some of the company’s existing private investors. The funding will help Totem, which evolved from a games company, to continue to deliver online personal development solutions for training providers.

Richard Smith, Totem’s managing director, said: “We have just released an exciting new leadership skills training game which is generating some great reviews from both training providers and business users and now, with this additional money, we can continue with our next training modules.” Gio Finocchio, investment director at Midven, said: “We’ve followed Totem Learning for some time and felt the time was right for investment into this growth sector and in a company with plenty of potential.”

TOP TWEETS @GBSLEP Growth Hub team @finditinbham’s #budgetconsultationevent2016! Need help with business support? 0800 032 3488 – @BrumChamber Birmingham has been named the most investable city in the UK for a second year running – @GBSLEP Britain’s top corporate employer is Jaguar Land Rover, Bloomberg survey finds – @business Birmingham council should be premier debating chamber in the country outside Westminster, says @johnclancy #waytogo #bcc – @ChamberlainFile Shots of #DavidBowie’s performances at the NEC back in ‘83, ‘90 & ‘03. #RIPDavidBowie. Your music will live forever – @GentingArena In @thesundaytimes today, Birmingham comes out on top as UK’s number 1 startup hotspot according to @StartUpBritain – @business_bham Business: Jobs axed with giant Furniture Barn store to close in Sutton Coldfield, West Bromwich #Birmingham – @TheBrummie Regional collaboration...business without boundaries. Good catch up as always @ninderjohal. Lots of great ideas – @GBChamberBoss Our chefs at @Aria_Birmingham are working their magic on our new a For frequen t la carte menus. Launching soon so bu siness ch at at your keep an eye out! – ‫@‏‬HyattBham finge rtips on demand

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BUSINESS UPDATE bqlive.co.uk/breakfast

HS2 work up for grabs

China help on hand The organisation that helps businesses export to China has appointed a new adviser in the West Midlands. James Westwood who set up three businesses in Shanghai over 10 years, joins the China-Britain Business Council (CBBC) as China business adviser for the West Midlands. Westwood was born and grew up in Birmingham before heading for Shanghai at the age of 23 to work and learn the language and culture. He set up Gusto Fine Foods, which supplied organic Western fruit, vegetables and herbs to hotels in Shanghai, and went on to jobs in the carbon consulting industry, urban regeneration and environmental analysis. Westwood, who has a Masters degree in chemistry from Leeds University, also launched a craft beer company with his brother David, which sells to 20 bars and clubs in three Chinese cities. Now back in Birmingham, he will use his extensive knowledge of trading in China to help West Midlands SMEs to start exporting there as part of a UKTI/CBBC partnership. Westwood said: “China is a very different market from the UK, and you have to have patience, commitment, resources and good planning skills to succeed.” China is still one of the key export markets for the West Midlands.

Westwood can be contacted via james. westwood@cbbc.org.

West Midlands firms have been urged to bid for millions of pounds’ worth of contracts to help deliver the HS2 high speed train line and stations. Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce is looking to hold local supply chain events to allow companies to meet representatives from HS2 and main contractors involved in the project. A portal detailing the contracts that are available and the main contractors to liaise with has been released and is available at www.gov.uk/government/ publications/hs2-contract-opportunities. Louise Bennett, chief executive of the chamber, said: “HS2 will be one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the UK for decades and while there has been a great deal of debate around it, it’s vitally important that local companies are given the opportunity to apply for contracts.

“I would urge our members in construction and engineering to log onto the portal to see if there are opportunities that would suit them straight away.”

Clothing firm’s £11m growth Incorporatewear, the West Midlands-based corporate clothing specialist, has revealed an £11m sales growth in three years.

The company, with its headquarters at Hams Hall, Coleshill, has seen revenues rise 78% from £14m to £25m since 2012, with more than 300,000 people now wearing its uniforms on land, sea and in the air. It puts its success down to a series of client and contract wins, resulting in a growing workforce and the opening of a new warehouse in Birmingham.

A key contract came from Marks & Spencer which appointed Incorporatewear to clothe its 100,000 staff members across the world, this single deal meaning a 25% increase in turnover.

Other high-profile clients include Virgin Atlantic.

Entrepreneur awards New small business owners have just a few weeks left to enter the 2016 EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards. Now in their 30th year globally and 17th in the UK, EY’s awards

WEBSITE OF THE QUARTER www.artbusinessloans.co.uk the improved website of Aston Reinvestment Trust, offering loans from £10,000 to £150,000 for businesses and social enterprises across the West Midlands.

QUO TE OF THE QUAR TER “George Osborne and David Cameron, back in 2010, were saying: ‘No ifs, no buts, there can be no runway three at Heathrow.’

But they were hit by lobbyists and so brought in the commission, chaired by the eminent Sir Howard Davies. My cynical view is that he was told: ‘The answer is Heathrow; now go away and make sure it’s Heathrow.’”

Paul Kehoe, chief executive of Birmingham Airport celebrate business leaders who are helping to reshape the regional economy. EY is calling for nominations for people who have demonstrated entrepreneurial flair whilst growing or turning around the fortunes of their organisation in the UK or overseas. Entries are welcome from companies that are private or listed, socially orientated, family-owned or private equity backed, across all commercial and industrial sectors. To nominate entries, contact Andrew Spence on 0121 535 2887 or aspence1@uk.ey. com or visit www.ey.co.uk. Entries close on 11 March 2016, with finalists announced in April.

PROFILE JLT Speciality

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Doing things differently JLT Specialty Limited provides insurance broking, risk management and claims consulting services to large and international companies. The Midlands Risk Practice operates out of Birmingham and Nottingham, and is led by Sally Swann “At JLT Specialty, we believe in doing things differently,” commented Sally.

“This is because, in the world of insurance broking, risk management, claims consulting and settlements, the only way we can develop solutions, which really deliver, is to fully understand all of the different challenges our clients face. We know the answer does exist, no matter how difficult the question is.”

JLT Specialty has built its success by focusing on sectors where it can make the greatest difference.

By using insight, intelligence, and imagination to provide expert advice and robust (and often unique) solutions. In the Midlands we specialise in Food & Agriculture, Engineering & Manufacturing and Construction, as well as operating a successful M&A Team across the region, providing advice on mergers and acquisitions and insurance due diligence.

“JLT Specialty understands the challenges businesses face, and just as importantly, how to overcome them” The approach is to build partner teams that work side-by-side with clients to deliver responses, which are carefully considered from all angles.

“Because of this approach, we know our clients trust us,” said Sally. “They have a total confidence in knowing the vital elements of their operations are covered, enabling their business to be even more ambitious and surpass expectations. We are passionate about we do and we know our clients say we stand out because of the quality of our specialisms and because we are approachable and responsive.”

JLT Specialty places over £3.2 billion of premium into the global insurance markets every year, giving the leverage and reputation to secure the best deal for clients.

For more information, or to discuss your insurance and risk management needs, contact: Sally Swann JLT Specialty Ltd, 45 Church Street, Birmingham, B3 2RT 0121 633 3377

Sally Swann

Sally_Swann@jltgroup.com www.jltspecialty.com

Risk Management Risk surrounds us all, creating consequences in terms of general safety and security for individuals, our society, the environment, businesses and technology. The impact of risk can be financial, economic, social, cultural, political or reputational.

In business, risk is the effect of uncertainty on an organisation’s ability to meet its objectives. The effect may be positive, negative or a deviation from the expected. Risk is often described as an event, a change in circumstance or a consequence. Risk is a very personal subject and each company will have a different view and requirement. The shareholders and directors view on risk is very important as this will outline all the risk thinking and planning the business undertakes and ultimately affect the design of any subsequent insurance programme. The basic stages of a risk management process are as follows: Risk identification: What are the risks? Once identified the risks should be catalogued and maintained on a risk register.

Risk Analysis: What is the likelihood and potential impact of the risks?

Risk evaluation: Comparing the results of the risk analysis with risk criteria to determine whether the risk and/or its magnitude is acceptable or tolerable.

Risk Planning: How should the risks be managed?

Compiling a risk register helps to formalise the risk and risk transfer process and aids the risk planning process to ensure any issues can be addressed by the insurance programme.

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BUSINESS UPDATE bqlive.co.uk/breakfast

Brum still tops start-up league

MOVERS AND SHAKERS Mark Anderson (far left) has been appointed head of chambers at No5 Chambers, a national group of barristers with its head office in Birmingham. Anderson has been one of the deputy heads of chambers since 2014 and is a leading specialist in commercial dispute resolution and professional liability, as well as being authorised to sit as a Deputy High Court Judge. He replaces Paul Bleasdale QC, who has held the post since 2010.

Business and finance adviser Grant Thornton has appointed Birmingham-based Barry Dean as national head of forensic investigations for the public sector. Dean re-joins the firm where he first qualified as a chartered accountant after more than 30 years working across the Midlands and UK, mainly specialising in public sector investigations into fraud.

Ken McConomy has become chief spin doctor for Jaguar Land Rover. JLR’s new head of UK public relations will lead all media work for product, brand and corporate matters.

The current UK PR offices for Jaguar and Land Rover – led by Dan Connell and Kim Palmer respectively – remain unchanged but will now report to McConomy.

Birmingham hosted more start-up companies than any city outside London in 2015, it has been revealed. The city saw 14,152 companies registered during the year, according to figures released by StartUp Britain, which was more than 4,000 fewer than the 18,337 in 2014.

But the latest Birmingham figures still dwarfed its nearest rival Manchester, which saw 8,712 companies registered. Sue Summers, chief executive of Finance Birmingham, said: “Although Birmingham recorded fewer new company registrations than in 2014, it remains a highly popular location for start-ups and entrepreneurs. The city offers a large, skilled and youthful workforce, established infrastructure and strong digital connectivity - all of which are critical to helping new ideas and ambitions flourish, particularly in the creative and tech sectors.”

“Although Birmingham recorded fewer new company registrations than in 2014”

Aston University graduate Howard Watson has been appointed chief executive of BT Technology, Service and Operations (BT TSO). Watson, who led the technical teams behind the launch of BT Sport in August 2013, is currently BT’s chief architect and managing director of Global IT Platforms. He graduated with a 1st class honours degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Aston University in 1984.

Dr David Ward has been appointed managing partner at Marks & Clerk, the UK’s largest firm of patent and trade mark attorneys.

Based in the firm’s Birmingham office, he has been elected for a three-year term and will be working with the international and UK boards to lead the UK firm, which has eight offices, over 150 patent and trade mark specialists and several hundred support staff.

Steve Hollis, former Midlands chairman of accountancy firm KMPG, has taken over from club owner Randy Lerner as chairman of Aston Villa FC. Hollis, who is also deputy chairman of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership, has been tasked with turning around fortunes at the club as it battles for Premiership survival.

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Cadbury’s choc-a-block Xmas A record number of visitors enjoyed a sweet Christmas visit to Cadbury World in Birmingham. The Bournville-based family attraction finished 2015 on a high after welcoming more than 43,000 people to its sold-out Christmas events – 19% up on 2014. Overall visitor numbers reached just over 647,000 for 2015 – one of the busiest years yet for the attraction.

PROFILE University of Birmingham

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How secure is your business?

90% of large businesses and 74% of small businesses experienced a security breach in 2015. The average cost to small businesses of their worst security breach of the year is over £75,000.

Hot chip

Cyber security is an issue that impacts every business sector.

As the volume of cyber-attacks continues to soar, and the associated financial implications – from the attacks themselves and the fines they attract from the Information Commissioner’s Office – rise, a team at the University of Birmingham is fighting back against the criminals.

The Security and Privacy Group is a team of eleven academic staff based in the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham. For eleven years the Group has remained committed to its ethos of tackling cyber security problems that are important to society. Working in collaboration with academia, industry and government, the Group consistently produces internationally leading research on key issues that has led to recognition by GCHQ as an Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research.

With industrial partners ranging from HP Labs to L-3 TRL to Jaguar Land Rover, the research at

“For eleven years the Group has remained committed to its ethos of tackling cyber security problems”

Birmingham is having real-world impact on products and services, safeguarding the security and privacy of businesses, governments and individuals.

An important factor of the research conducted by the Group is the range of expertise, including applied cryptography, formal protocol verification, wireless security and cloud privacy, as well as security issues in the Internet of Things, industrial control systems and next generation automobiles. This intellectual output is complimented by the Group’s passion for education, including an MSc in Cybersecurity that has been provisionally accredited by GCHQ as part of the national need to train the next generation of cyber security experts.

If your business is looking to improve its security and privacy from the threat of cyber-attacks and if you’d like to explore how your organisation might benefit from being involved with our research, please contact us. For further information contact, Tim Yates, Business Engagement, University of Birmingham, 0121 414 8635, t.yates.1@bham.ac.uk

The Trusted Computing Group (TCG) is an industry consortium including Microsoft, Intel and AMD consisting of around 120 companies. The group’s hardware chip, Trusted Platform Module (TPM), is present in over 500 million laptops, desktops and servers globally.

The TPM enables a level of security that cannot be obtained from software alone, is supported by major operating systems (including Windows and Linux) and is increasingly likely to be utilised for the protection of those operating systems.

In 2008, Professor Mark Ryan from the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham discovered two attacks targeting TPM 1.2, and presented the findings to the TCG. The results meant that attackers could in certain cases gain access to confidential information that is meant to be protected by the TPM. The attacks discovered by Professor Ryan were the most wideranging weaknesses found so far for the TPM and applied to about 100 of the TPM’s 120 commands.

The TCG consortium adapted the revised protocols that Professor Ryan and his colleague Liqun Chen at HP had created in order to fit them into the new command structure and have incorporated them into the new specification – TPM 2.0.

The primary beneficiaries are professional computer users worldwide, by having systems that are more secure. The TCG consortium and its 120 member companies also benefit, by having more secure TPMs in their products, and software manufacturers benefit by being able to leverage greater security from the TPM. TPM 2.0 began shipping in October 2013 and hundreds of millions are expected to ship over the coming years.

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BUSINESS UPDATE bqlive.co.uk

£100k grant for Hopper Social media specialist Hopper HQ has secured a £100,000 Regional Growth Fund grant as part of its £400,000 investment plan. The company, based at the Innovation Birmingham Campus, was launched in August last year and claims to be the world’s first fully-automated scheduling tool for Instagram. It enables users to post content for specific times and dates, similar to popular applications such as Hootsuite and Buffer which schedule posts across Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. The £100,000 grant will be used alongside an additional £300,000 investment from parent company, Turn Partners, to fund global growth and to expand staff by 50% in 2016. Mike Bandar, who co-founded Turn Partners with James Vardy, said: “Just five months since the launch of Hopper, the business has grown considerably and we’re now working with hundreds of customers across over 30 countries. The Regional Growth Fund grant will provide vital support as we continue to build the business and extend our offering to new and existing customers.”

BPN boost for hospitals The Birmingham Publicity Association (BPA) donated £10,000 to Birmingham Children’s Hospital and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham Charity in 2015. And more than 200 guests attended the association’s annual Christmas lunch event at the Burlington Hotel where they helped to raise another £1,500 towards the charities for 2016. BPA has existed since the 1930s, supporting the media and creative industries in the region and raising money for key charities.

City’s new posh beds More than 150 jobs will be created when a £50m hotel opens in Birmingham this March. The new Park Regis hotel, based in the former Auchinleck House at Five Ways, will boast 253 deluxe bedrooms, a Pan Asian restaurant on its 16th floor, and an executive level with conference and meeting spaces. New staff are needed to work across the entire hotel, with positions available in guest services, housekeeping and concierge.

GIVING SOMETHING BACK The NEC Group gave nearly £30,000 to Birmingham Children’s Hospital after a successful year of fundraising. Money was raised through a variety of activities including food sales, tickets sales contributions and donations. And Paul Thandi, the NEC’s chief executive, presented the cheque for £29,260.66 at the group’s annual awards ceremony in December.

West Midlands law firm Sydney Mitchell raised over £7,000 in 2015 for the Maria Watt Foundation and the Birmingham Women’s Hospital Charity. The funds came from the firm’s annual ball, charity quiz, Shirley Fun Run, cake bakes, dress down days and various other fundraising activities.

Birmingham Repertory Theatre’s ‘Big Give Challenge’ saw 14 local businesses donate £13,000 to help 260 disadvantaged children to enjoy a Christmas trip to the theatre.

Businesses that helped The Rep’s education and community work included Barclays, Binding Site, Ellisons, Grosvenor Casinos, Jaguar Land Rover, JLT, Just Good Food, Lloyds, Pertemps, Pinsent Masons, Revolver Coop, RBS, SGH Martineau and Wragges.

KPMG’s Birmingham office handed over a cheque for more than £6,500 to the St Basils homeless charity, raised from staff donations over the past year. As well as raising money, KPMG has also supported St Basils through pro bono work, including working with the young people at St Basils on applying for jobs, CV writing and interview skills.

Russell Roof Tiles raised £8,000 for Help the Heroes after a number of charity events to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Customers, suppliers and staff of the Burton on Trentbased company took part in a football match, a Zumba fitness class in the summer and an anniversary celebration event attended by 200 guests, which included an auction and raffle.

Recruitment consultant Reena Nathwani, of the Brindleyplace-based Parna Group, has raised more than £3,300 for charity after a 3,500km journey across India. She For up-to-da took on the two-week challenge travelling in a rickety four-wheel motor described business ne te ws sign up for BQ as a ‘glorified lawn mower’. The money raised is to be split between two charities Breakfast including the Giles’ Trust brain tumour fund at QEHB Charity.

FIND OUT MORE ONLINE AT BQLIVE.CO.UK

bqlive.co.uk/ breakfast

Are you retiring comfortably? smith.williamson.co.uk BQ Magazine advertorial_magazine banner_18mmx175mm_Feb 16.indd 1

03/02/2016 12:53:45

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AS I SEE IT bqlive.co.uk

Financial truth often Matt Davies, lecturer in finance and accounting at Aston Business School, dispels four common myths about financial management After 25 years as an accountant, trainer, university lecturer and consultant working with a wide variety of organisations, I’ve realised there are some common myths on the subject of financial management. Dispelling these myths is an important part of developing financial literacy. My recommendation is that business owners and managers invest the time and effort to ‘unlearn’ these misconceptions, in order to develop key financial skills and knowledge.

Anyone involved in business can benefit from being able to communicate financial concepts more confidently and, ultimately, manage more effectively. So here’s the truth about four of the most widely held misconceptions:

Myth 1: ‘The balance sheet provides a reliable measure of the value of a business.’

False. The balance sheet (or statement of financial position as it is now referred to) provides information about your financial state of the business, not its value.

Many valuable assets (such as people and internally generated brands) are not recorded on the balance sheet, and those that are recorded are generally shown at their original cost (and for longer term assets, depreciation is then deducted).

Value is determined by the future performance potential of the business, whereas the balance sheet is only based on past transactions and

events. Generally, therefore, a balance sheet can significantly understate the true worth of your business.

Myth 2: ‘Profit is a reliable measure of financial performance.’

False. It’s important to recognise that profit is merely an ‘opinion’ on the business’ financial performance and should never be regarded as an entirely reliable measure.

There are several choices and judgements involved in the measurement of accounting numbers. Examples include depreciation, accruals and provisions, none of which can be measured with 100% accuracy.

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lies behind the numbers Myth 3: ‘Profit is the same as cash flow.’

False. It’s perfectly possible to have positive profits and negative cash flows. The reasons why there is a difference between profit and cash flow include: Sales made on credit are recorded in the income statement when the sale is made, not when the cash is received.

Expenses are recorded as they are ‘consumed’, not when they are paid for.

The cost of inventory is only recorded as an expense when inventory is sold, not when it is bought or manufactured.

Cash spent on capital expenditure is not recorded in the income statement, whereas depreciation (a non-cash expense) is.

Myth 4: ‘It’s possible to measure the true cost of a product or service.’

False. Many of you may be placing far too

Take care when making pricing and product mix decisions using cost information which is not always very reliable

much faith in your accountant’s measure of ‘cost’.

Whilst some costs (‘direct costs’ such as materials and labour) can be accurately related to a product, there are many costs (‘overheads’) which are far more difficult to deal with.

Many businesses use very arbitrary systems for sharing the overheads across the product range.

These systems might appear to be reasonable but they don’t necessarily provide a guide to a product’s ‘true cost’.

You therefore need to take care when making pricing and product mix decisions using cost information which is not always very reliable. n

Matt Davies teaches on programmes for the Centre for Executive Development (CED) at Aston Business School. CED works closely with clients to create tailored programmes that deliver measurable returns on investment.

Impact assessments are built into all its programmes to demonstrate and quantify how intended results have been achieved. The programmes blend new, research-based thinking with relevant, proven tools to help executives think more clearly and creatively to meet strategic goals. Find out more at www.aston.ac.uk/aston-business-school

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A simple bottle that crushes fruit to encourage people to drink more water fell flat as an idea on TV’s Dragons’ Den. But now Charlotte Rogers is proving the dragons wrong. Steve Dyson reports She was standing up and he was sitting down, but fledgling entrepreneur Charlotte Rogers still felt dwarfed by the six foot, seven inch frame of Peter Jones.

It was in May 2015 that she found herself facing Jones on TV’s Dragons’ Den at the BBC’s Manchester studios, along with his co-dragons – Deborah Meaden, Sarah Willingham, Nick Jenkins and Touker Suleyman.

Rogers was only 22, and her little heart was beating fast as she stood – all five-foot two inches of her – awaiting the dragons’ verdict on her Aquatiser bottles, designed to squeeze fruit into tap water

She’s got the bottle to beat the dragons

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

“Peter Jones said he didn’t understand it, nor could he understand why I’d sold so many”

to encourage healthier lifestyles.

“I had some really good comments,” says Rogers. “But they all decided it was not for them. And then one bad comment came from Peter Jones. He said he didn’t like the concept.

He thought you could just put fruit into a normal water bottle and shake it. He didn’t understand it, nor could he understand why I’d sold so many.”

That was less than a year ago, when Rogers’ business had only been running for eight months, and yet she was already selling hundreds of her bottles. And although no dragons invested and her part in the show was never aired, she was already convinced that she had a successful product.

Born in Castle Bromwich, near Birmingham, Rogers is the daughter of local girl Susan Rogers and Cynrick Lescott, who was born in St Kitts and Nevis. Her parents have split, although between them they gave Rogers a close family of two half-brothers and two half-sisters.

She attended the local Hodge Hill Girls School, then took A-levels at Sutton Coldfield College, scraping a D-grade in Biology, a better C in Psychology, and a smart A in Sociology, along with a BTEC distinction in Dance.

Rogers had originally dreamed of taking a science major at university but her grades meant she had to find a course that she could both enjoy and qualify for. She headed off to Birmingham City University (BCU) in 2011, but soon transferred to Nottingham Trent where she took a degree in Exercise, Nutrition and Health.

She says: “I wasn’t happy at BCU, where there were lots of mature students, but when I moved to Nottingham I loved it. It was just how I expected university to be: living away, meeting people more like me, and building a social life and my confidence.

“I wanted to do science but couldn’t do the course I wanted because of my A-levels. But I’d always been into health and so browsed

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courses which involved biology. When I saw Exercise, Nutrition and Health I thought: ‘Here’s a course I can do.’ It had all the elements I wanted, and specialised in sport. There was still a lot of biology, but it was practical.”

In her third year, Rogers took an optional module in entrepreneurship, and was asked to come up with a sports-orientated business plan.

“That’s how Aquatiser started,” she recalls.

“I wanted it to be something that included nutrition and health, as well as sport. My dissertation had been around hydration, and I’d found out that lots of people didn’t know what the recommended daily intake of water was.

“What was worse was that so many people were not drinking anywhere near enough water.

And from hydration – or the lack of it – I started thinking about water bottles, and how to make them different, to stand out and to be attractive.

“As I was getting my idea together I thought about fruit-infused water. I’d been working as a waitress, and people were always asking for water but saying: ‘I want lemon in it,’ and this made me realise that people don’t like plain water. I thought there could be a demand for

“I’d been working as a waitress, and people were always asking for water but saying: ‘I want lemon in it,’ and this made me realise that people don’t like plain water. I thought there could be a demand for fruit-infused water”

fruit-infused water, encouraging people to drink more and enjoy it at the same time.”

Rogers’ idea is simple: the Aquatiser bottle contains a juicer in a screw-in base, allowing users to insert their favourite fruits to infuse into plain added tap water. The result is water tasting of any fruit you choose – but without sugar or harmful additives.

As part of Rogers’ course, she worked with a product design student, and he took detailed notes on what she wanted, producing a 3D computer-aided design, while she kept the intellectual property.

“I told him exactly how I wanted it to look and work. I paid a small fee – about £250 – but that was a bargain as it would have been far too expensive outside university.

Then I had to source a manufacturer.

My brother, Michael, is a businessman and had a contact in China, and they found a specific firm to make the original glass moulding. I did it all online, and they shipped the result to me here in Birmingham.”

At university, Rogers hoped the project would impress her teachers, but was surprised and worried when they only gave her a 2:1 mark (equal to a B-grade).

“When I launched the idea they didn’t seem to like it, and I was really disappointed because it was one of my best pieces of work, and I’d put so much time into it. I’d been getting first-class marks in the rest of my studies and so this 2:1 really got me worried.”

As it turned out, Rogers got a first-class degree anyway, and since then Nottingham Trent have been back in touch – typically impressed after the event, asking her to write a student profile on how she succeeded.

But at the early stage of launching her business, she says there wasn’t much support – not from the university, nor from anyone else who should be supporting and encouraging young entrepreneurs.

She applied to her local Solihull Council for a mentor programme, but found the application process too long. “They were at least willing to come out and meet me,” she says, “but there wasn’t much apart from pointing me towards a couple of workshops. I could see it was going to be very difficult to get a mentor, because it was so competitive.

“At university, we had student membership of the Institute of Directors, and that was useful, mainly for networking. But I think there needs to be more support for people like me – something that’s easy to access.”

Eventually, with her networking and one or two ideas from the workshops, Rogers researched the market and launched the business largely by herself – with a bit of helpful advice from family and friends.

Her brother and mum loaned her a total of £8,000, which along with her own savings of £5,000 she ploughed into Aquatiser’s startup costs. The first bottle was made of glass, primarily for home use, and she quickly designed a second plastic model with refinements that made it easier to use during sport and exercise, like a better drinking nozzle.

Both Aquatiser products cost between £3 and £4, including the cost of importing them to the UK from China. Rogers then sells the glass model for £19.99, and the sports version for £17.99. To date she’s had 10,000 units made, and has sold more than 7,000.

Aquatiser as a company was launched in October 2014, its revenues reaching around

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£100,000 in year one, making £14,000 profit after costs that included a small salary for Rogers. In year two, she estimates revenues will grow to around £250,000, with profits of around £40,000.

She employs a part-time worker assisting with warehouse, picking and packing orders at her Castle Vale business unit, which itself costs around £600 a month in rent. A trademark for the UK cost around £150, and she’s recently spent another £600 on a European trademark.

“When I started there was nothing like it in the UK,” says Rogers. “Now there are so many different water bottles involving fruit. But the Aquatiser’s juicer component is unique. There’s a US version but not one in the UK, which makes it stand out.

“Being first to market in the UK was my advantage. It means I’ve built up a large following of loyal customers, which is a great head start. Now I’ve invested in a better website, and in better target marketing through social media.”

Although Rogers has a couple of wholesalers and one or two small retailers who stock Aquatiser, more than 90% of sales are direct via her website. And her main marketing budget – in terms of time and resource – is invested in Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

She’s also made the big decision to put herself at the centre of her marketing – in pictures and videos, engaging in sporting activities. Luckily, her own good looks and body frame stands up to this, although many people probably wouldn’t like the public scrutiny.

“For me it’s the main route to marketing,” says Rogers. “I’m trying to get customers to know me rather than just the product. I want to be part of it.” Rogers’ warm and confident manner only cracks when I ask too much about her family: her elder sister Camille died a couple a years ago, in what was a tragic end to quite a long-term depression. But while her death rocked the family, Rogers says it now helps her to keep her focus. “We lost Camille,” she adds, “but work has helped me to keep going.”

She’s already got year three expansion plans: a bigger range of products, which include a branded bottle cooler at £2.50 and fruity ice ball-maker at £3. “I started giving these away as freebies but soon realised they were popular and so started to sell them,” she says.

The next idea is a branded foam roller – the

“The whole experience did so much for my confidence. If I can face the Dragons with all those cameras and lights, I can do anything.

And besides, if nothing else, I’m enjoying proving that Peter Jones was wrong..!” cylindrical device that you see people rolling on after exercise to massage their muscles. Rogers’ version has handles and a hollow tube which can carry a compressed towel, headphones and an Aquatiser bottle.

“It’s almost a bag,” explains Rogers, “and I’ve already had a sample made. There’s nothing out there like it.” Once her brand is more established she wants to launch gym clothing under a new Aqwear brand, including sports

bras, leggings and tops.

Aquatiser sounds to me like a business that someone on Dragons’ Den should have invested in, but Rogers is not at all bitter: “The whole experience did so much for my confidence,” she adds.

“If I can face the Dragons with all those cameras and lights, I can do anything. And besides, if nothing else, I’m enjoying proving that Peter Jones was wrong..!” n

PROFILE Investec Wealth & Investment

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Offering Birmingham the financial world At the Birmingham office of Investec Wealth & Investment we recently celebrated a milestone – our 10th anniversary Adrian Quin

In the past 10 years the Birmingham office has grown substantially, and is one of the 15 Investec Wealth & Investment offices throughout the UK which are responsible for around £26.5billion of client assets (as at 30 September 2015), our staff numbers have risen to 30 including 13 investment directors.

Over the past 3 years the office’s wealth management offering has been bolstered by the addition of private and corporate banking giving us the ability to provide a full range of financial, wealth and banking solutions.

At our annual VISION presentation briefings we had 200-plus introducers, professionals and clients in attendance keen to absorb our thoughts on how we perceived the investment outlook through 2016. So we have come a long way. And so has the financial world as John Wyn-Evans, our head of investment strategy, part of a very strong UK research team of which we are particularly proud, outlined in a retrospective. It is notable, he pointed out, how 20 per cent of the FTSE 100 members in late 2005 are no longer with us.

“It promises to be an eventful ten years to come and we look forward to it” There were only two outright casualties of the financial crisis(Northern Rock and HBOS), with almost all the others being taken over, mainly by overseas companies, including names steeped in UK industrial and consumer history – ICI, BOC, Hanson, Boots, Reuters and Scottish & Newcastle. The UK really is one of the world’s most open economies, which might sit badly with some, but continues to make it an attractive investment destination.

The ten best performing stocks amongst FTSE 100 current constituents have been ARM, Ashtead, Next, Hikma, Babcock, Compass, Shire, Admiral, easyJet and Whitbread, and there are some themes that permeate this list – a scalable business model, relatively low capital intensity, low financial leverage and good cashflow generation, all attributes we seek to capture in our investments.

On the other side of the ledger: Tui Travel, Taylor Wimpey, Wolseley, Standard Chartered, Tesco, Intu, Barclays, Lloyds, Anglo American and RBS – there is plenty of evidence here of the risk of being caught in highly leveraged, capital intensive businesses at the wrong stage in the economic cycle.

Equities as an asset class have faced challenges – the FTSE All-Share Index racked up a mere 13 per cent capital return over the decade, although the total return including dividends was a slightly more respectable 41 per cent, which is a timely reminder of the importance of dividends.

One global development over the period has been China. In nominal dollar terms its economy has expanded five-fold from $2.2 trillion to around $11 trillion. Its contribution to global GDP growth has risen from a fifth to a third, and it is now in purchasing power parity terms the world’s largest economy though second to the US in actual dollars.

The country is hugely important for the West Midlands, given our export exposure, Jaguar Land

Rover’s major presence there, as well as levels of Chinese inward investment into the region.

China’s economy grew by 6.9 per cent in 2015, still in comparison with most countries a remarkable achievement, but its slowest rate in a quarter of a century. But while there may be some short term pain China’s rebalancing of its economy from exports to consumer should benefit Greater Birmingham.

Other general concerns take in commodities, oil prices, the direction of interest rates, and global tensions. However there are differences to the 2007/8 crash – world growth is predicted to be 3 per cent this year, people are less willing to take on debt, there is more stringent regulation of the banks and the banking and property sectors are no longer so highly leveraged.

It promises to be an eventful ten years to come and we look forward to it – advising for the long term, explaining the need for diversified portfolios and keeping calm in a crisis.

The value of shares, and the income derived from them, may fall as well as rise. The information contained in this publication does not constitute a personal recommendation and the investment or investment services referred to may not be suitable for all investors; therefore we strongly recommend you consult your Professional Adviser before taking any action.

For further information please contact Adrian Quin, Head of the Birmingham office for Investec Wealth & Investment, Colmore Plaza, Colmore Circus, Birmingham, B4 6AT. Tel: 0121 232 0700 Email: adrian.quin@investecwin.co.uk investecwin.co.uk

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Laying the table for 114 years Simon Price is the fourth generation to head legendary cutlery company Arthur Price.

He takes Jon Griffin on a whirlwind tour of a story that began in 1902 It supplied the Titanic’s knives and forks, the Queen and Prince Charles have dined with its products, and David and Victoria Beckham ordered its cutlery for their wedding.

Lichfield-based Arthur Price has been at the top table of the cutlery world for more than 100 years – but the values and principles first instilled in 1902 remain untarnished.

The Staffordshire firm is currently run by chief executive and self-confessed ‘cricket-loving maverick’ Simon Price, great-grandson of original founder Arthur Price, the Victorian visionary who first saw a niche in the UK market for high quality cutlery.

Unlike his ancestor, the younger Price occasionally jets across the globe to the likes of China and Hong Kong on family business – but the beating heart of the company remains firmly in the West Midlands. While the Indians and Chinese dominate the region’s car industry and the Americans continue their revolution at Cadbury’s, the family name and business ethos live proudly on at Arthur Price.

A hard-earned reputation for discretion and quality was underlined just two years ago, when the firm received an emergency call from Kazakhstan to ship over 450 top grade knives, forks and spoons to supply David Cameron’s entourage for the first visit by a British Prime Minister to the distant Asian state.

But it hasn’t always been Royals and Prime Ministers on the waiting list for Arthur Price

cutlery. The firm owes its 21st century prosperity to the simple desire of Aston-born Arthur Price to better himself and provide for his wife Priscilla and four children back in the early 1900s.

Simon Price says: “My great-grandfather, Arthur Price, was born in 1865 and he started the company in October 1902. He had worked in various silverware companies in Birmingham.

“He was from Aston, a real Birmingham lad.

He was born into the working-classes. He was a foreman and used to work in various cutlery companies.

“In those days more spoons and forks were made in Birmingham than in Sheffield. My great-grandfather wanted to better himself. He started making his own stuff in the garden. He was making tools for cutlery products. He would have been making what we call fancies, gift sets

such as fruit spoons or pastry sets. He made the patterns and may have got some manual workers in to help out.

“I never met my great-grandfather – he died in 1936 when my own father was only eight. My grandfather Frederick had been born in 1897.”

Slowly but surely Arthur Price’s dreams began to take shape. Turnover for the first year was £2,930, while the first quarter’s profits were £5, 16 shillings and 9d. A West Midlands industrial dynasty was born.

“My grandfather Frederick joined the company in the 1920s. In a matter of a few years he lost his father, the war began and then he lost his brother. My grandfather never expected to be running a business, he always expected his brother Arthur was going to do that. The factory was in Vauxhall Street, Aston.

“I loved my grandfather – he died in the 1980s when he was in his late 80s. He had worked up until the 70s. The firm had moved into Alum Rock in the early 1970s “My dad John Price had joined in 1948 at the age of 20 and was often one step ahead of things. He could see that Britain was not going to be the manufacturing force it had been and saw what was happening in the likes of Hong Kong and Korea.

“The name of the game was supply and demand. ‘Made in Birmingham’ was not known for quality products … my dad had seen the trends. If you’re doing volume cutlery for an

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airline and they can get silver spoons for a third of the price, what’s the point?

“In 1982 they took the decision to close the factory in Alum Rock and moved to Lichfield. At its peak, it had employed 250.”

Simon Price’s formative years had been spent at boarding school in Birmingham and Repton School in Derbyshire, where he was a contemporary of Jeremy Clarkson.

“I went to Repton in 1973. I didn’t like the place but boarding schools are very different today to how they were then. In my day, they were more like institutions.

Jeremy Clarkson was in the same year as me, although we were in different houses. I remember him as a very insular type of chap, not academic, and not a sportsman. I didn’t see a lot of him.

“I made a big mistake at Repton – do not try to be liked, and I paid for that by being bullied.

It was a tough time for me, I was in a strange place with some strange people. But those people who made my life hell, they turned out to be d***heads.”

Price resisted attempts by staff at Repton to push him into a polytechnic. “I said: ‘If you think that I’m going to a polytechnic after what my dad has put me through here, you have got another think coming.’

“Apart from playing cricket for England, my ambition was always to join the business. To get a degree was a real achievement although I am not very good at book-reading. I was no academic but got 10 O-Levels and B and D grades at A-Level.”

Price cut his teeth in industry while studying managerial sciences at Bradford University from 1978. “It was a new course and it turned out to be business studies with a year in industry.

I worked for British Steel in Stocksbridge, near Sheffield.

“I did a year there, including time on the track.

It was just after the steel strike and some of the workers thought I was a spy. I was regarded as a foreigner, from management. I eventually got a 2:2 degree.”

Price’s career in the family business began in autumn 1982, a few months after the firm moved to Lichfield. “In the Easter of 1982, my dad had closed down Alum Rock and moved here. He decided that we would stop selling volume stuff and concentrate on cutlery sets.

Dad is a visionary in many ways.

“This will never be a corporate company. There are other things in life than just making money. It’s not about the short term. It is not about making the last half cent in a pound to satisfy some shareholder in London” “It never caused me problems having my father as boss. I am a great believer that you earn respect, you do not automatically get it. I got stuck in and earned the respect of people. It was fun.

“The business model was set up at that point, the principles have remained the same.

We had a warehouse facility in Lichfield, a manufacturing site in Birmingham and there was silverware in Sheffield.

“It was a boom time in the mid-1980s – we were opening concessions, we were really motoring. We got the Royal Warrant to the Queen in 1987, the Royal Warrant to Prince Charles in 1988. We also supplied the Queen Mother and Princess Diana. We began importing products in the early 1990s from Korea.”

Decades of service at the helm of this quintessentially family firm have taught Price lifelong business values: “If you try to turn a family company into a corporate company, it will fail. What people do not get about family companies is that they are not corporate.

“This will never be a corporate company. There are other things in life than just making money.

“It’s not about the short term. It is not about making the last half cent in a pound to satisfy some shareholder in London. It is about enjoying going to work and enjoying work, it is about

family values and that includes the people we work with, such as suppliers.

“I have made a few mistakes. I’ve kept people on I should not have done. In 2005, we had 100 concessions in the UK, now we have 22. We had gone the wrong way.”

The next generation of the Price family is already making waves in the cutlery world, with Simon Price’s son, James, on board as business development manager and John is still chairman at the age of 87. Simon Price added: “People live and breathe the business, they go the extra mile, and not because they are told to. I’m 56 now but I don’t think about retiring, I enjoy what I do. My average working week is 11 hours a day, and I pop in on Saturdays. Getting out and about is important, you can’t run a business from just sitting there.”

He’s bullish about Arthur Price’s future, with a workforce of 150 across three sites in Lichfield, Birmingham and Sheffield. He’s keen to expand the firm’s export base, with China and the Middle East potentially lucrative. “Turnover is £8m but should be nearer £10m,” he says.

His great grandfather and company founder Arthur Price would surely approve of that relentless desire to improve, which has sustained this most British of firms for what will soon be a remarkable 114 years. n

SUCCESS STORY bqlive.co.uk

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

From pillow talk to trendy success Alina Masood won ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ in Birmingham after she and her sister launched a children’s lifestyle brand based on a comfort blanket first made by her mum.

Ros Dodd reports

When Alina and Ammara Masood’s mother brought home a ‘quillow’ – a pillow that opens out into a quilt-like blanket – she’d made at her textile class, little did she think it would one day form the centrepiece of a business her daughters plan to turn into a global brand.

“We hadn’t seen one on the high street before Mum made hers and we haven’t seen one since,” explains 26-year-old Alina, co-founder of Cofi Coo, a children’s soft furnishings and lifestyle company. “When she came home with it – more than ten years ago now – we loved it. We would sit on the sofa watching TV and if we were cold we’d open the cushion out into a blanket and sit with it round our shoulders.

We thought it was a brilliant idea and always

wanted to do something with it.”

However, the two sisters from Moseley in Birmingham, initially seemed destined for more traditional careers: Ammara, now 33, went to work in the university sector and Alina wanted to become a banker like her father, grandfather and great-grandfather before her.

Yet the idea of bringing the ‘quillow’ to market didn’t go away and in 2012 the sisters decided to take the plunge and set up their own company. This was despite the fact Ammara was working full-time and Alina had just been offered two banking jobs.

Four years on, their company – Cofi Coo – is about to start trading. The sisters are in the process of placing their first bulk order with an overseas manufacturer and are in talks with large retailers. Alina

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

“When she came home with it – more than ten years ago now – we loved it. We would sit on the sofa watching TV and if we were cold we’d open the cushion out into a blanket and sit with it round our shoulders”

has already won ‘Young Entrepreneur of the Year’ in Birmingham City Council’s Enterprise Catalyst Awards 2015, and the company was runner-up in the ‘Innovation Award for Business’ category.

The duo’s ambitions are about as lofty as they get: they want to create a global lifestyle and entertainment brand, extending their current homeware range, which includes cushions and duvet sets, to encompass merchandise ranging from rucksacks to clothing. They also want to get into brand licensing and even aim to produce a children’s television programme.

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“When we made the decision to set up Cofi Coo, I’d just graduated from university and I had two banking roles linked up,” Alina recounts.

“But I rejected them both and instead applied to join a venture programme with Interiors & Lifestyle Futures (ILF), which supports start-up and existing companies in the West Midlands.”

At that point, the sisters had only a prototype – their mother’s original soft furnishing – to show for their business idea. But it was enough to set them on the road.

“The ILF panel liked it and it was they who suggested developing it for children, rather than for adults, which was our original idea,” says Alina. “They took us on and within a few months we were exhibiting as part of the ILF collective alongside the likes of JLR at Birmingham Made Me, an annual celebration of the Midlands’ design-led manufacturing achievements.

“As a result, we were encouraged to register the business in order to motivate us to carry on with the idea. It was one of the best things we did, because from that, other doors opened.”

One of them was the opportunity to help run the Birmingham Made Me collective in the Mailbox.

“We pitched for it and we got it. We knew by then that we wanted to get into the children’s market, and we came up with some children’s designs, but we also had to decide on a brand name. We wanted it to be catchy and quirky, so we bounced words such as ‘cosy’, ‘comfy’ and ‘cool’ off each other – and came up with Cofi Coo, which also gave us the idea for two ownbrand characters, Cofi and Coo.” The designs, based on eight colourful characters that are aimed at three to six-year-olds, are intended to be educational as well as fun. The company website features online activities such as storyboards linked to each of the characters.

“The idea is to develop children’s cognitive skills from an early age; to get them story-telling with the Cofi Coo characters and taking charge of their own thoughts and minds,” explains Alina.

“All the characters have particular moral traits, such as loyalty or determination, and portray certain messages. Space Fairy, for example,

shows girls they can be an astronaut and be feminine at the same time.

“We’ve also avoided stereotypical colours – so it’s not strictly blue for boys and pink for girls.

Instead, we’ve gone for bright colours that will appeal to everyone. Our aim has been to create a fun, bright and quirky brand that also encourages children to use their imagination.”

At the Birmingham Made Me outlet, Cofi Coo tasted early trading success, selling cushions, and the sisters gained valuable retail and business experience.

In 2013, Alina was accepted on to an enterprise course run by the Prince’s Trust, which also gave the company a £1,500 grant.

“One of the cool things about the Prince’s Trust is that they recently asked me to go along and give an inspirational talk to people who are now on the programme I was on.”

A £250 grant from The Digbeth Trust’s Enterprise Catalyst scheme paid for digital fabric printing in Manchester, with the products being stitched in Digbeth.

In 2015, the sisters’ joined RBS/NatWest’s

“The sisters had only a prototype – their mother’s original soft furnishing – to show for their business idea.

But it was enough to set them on the road”

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

“Our aim has been to create a fun, bright and quirky brand that also encourages children to use their imagination”

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

Meet the Cofi Coo characters Cofi and Coo: Co-owners of an afterschool club for a range of characters, each of which epitomise different moral traits.

Candy Rain: A girl called Ella, whose raison d’être is to make children happy and care for one another. She has a magical umbrella that, when opened, showers people with candy rain, making them smile. She travels the world, looking out for people and trying to turn frowns into smiles.

Tiny Explorers: Brother and sister adventurers Paul and Poppy have free round-the-world tickets, which they use to visit lots of places and meet different people. They love learning, about other cultures and countries, by themselves through their own experiences.

Space Fairy: Arabella might be a fairy, but she’s also an astronaut. Her best friend is Eva the space cat, who has bestowed upon Arabella special powers that enable her to talk to other space animals. Eva and Arabella fly around Space World, solving problems along the way.

Tangled Giraffe: Ollie is a cheeky-chappy giraffe, who loves to play silly tricks on his friends and make them laugh. He is known for making lots of mistakes, but always learns from them. He does this, in part, by listening to others.

Speedy Snails: Alan, Chase and Justin are whizzy snails who aspire to being the fastest in the world. Their goal is to win the Snail Trail Championship, but to do so they must work hard and believe in themselves.

Flying Cupcakes: Emerald, Fizz and Kiwi are in a pop group called the Flying Cupcakes. They are also great friends, and help each other get the best grades at school while also dreaming of being the best-loved band in Sweet Valley.

Space Bots: Zayn’s science teacher gives him a special project – to draw the solar system. The seven-year-old magically turns into an astronaut and travels through space, learning about each of the planets.

“It’s been quite a journey, but everything is finally in place and we feel this is our year. We aim to start trading properly in April and we’re confident we have got the brand right”

Entrepreneurial Spark free business growth accelerator programme and moved into the RBS offices in central Birmingham.

“Entrepreneurial Spark is one of the best programmes there is,” enthuses Alina. “Not only have they helped us grow the business, but they’ve taught me to look at myself as a leader.”

Alina has also become an effective networker.

Among the valuable contacts she’s made is John Lewis’s managing director, Andy Street. “I met Andy at the Entrepreneurial Spark hatchery, where he saw our prototype and he gave me his card. That resulted in a meeting with a buyer, who suggested we came up with some new designs for a bedding range.”

The sisters were given just four weeks to do so, but together with their graphic designers they produced three new designs. “Another big reason for starting a business was that quite a lot of our friends, who at the time were third-year university students, were moaning and worrying about the lack of opportunities and jobs in the

design and textile sector. After speaking to them, we decided we wanted to start a business in which we took care of the business side of things while working with our friends and collaborating on the designs. And that’s what we’ve done.

We use two freelance designers – both of whom are friends.” So far, the sisters have funded the fledgling business with start-up grants and their own savings, totalling about £6,000, but are now about to take out a loan.

“It’s been quite a journey, but everything is finally in place and we feel this is our year,” says Alina.

“We aim to start trading properly in April and we’re confident we have got the brand right.

We’re in talks with some retailers, so we’re very hopeful the business will take off.

“Rejecting a secure job in banking and going into something that carried so much uncertainty was scary, and it has been difficult at times.

But we’ve not given up and now we’re on the cusp of what I believe will be a big success.

And taking risks is what has got me here.” n

Date

Distance

Date

Distance

1 May

10k

16 Oct

13.1 miles

Join the world’s favourite run greatrun.org

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INTERVIEW bqlive.co.uk

Birmingham Airport has just celebrated its most successful year. Now Paul Kehoe, its chief executive, is calling on the government to help it do more. Steve Dyson reports A wry smile appears on Paul Kehoe’s face when I ask how frustrated he feels at the government’s delay over whether or not to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport.

“I’m entirely relaxed,” says the chief executive of Birmingham Airport. And from the way he says it, I’m almost convinced. But surely he must feel some irritation?

After all, not only was Birmingham’s plan for its own second runway expansion snubbed by the Airports Commission, but now the government is prevaricating – until this summer at the minimum – over the proposed Heathrow solution.

“I’m entirely calm,” Kehoe reiterates, before he then launches into a scathing appraisal of how the government – in his opinion – handled the future of UK aviation with bias.

“We said it was going to be like this and guess what? It is. George Osborne and David Cameron, back in 2010, were saying: ‘No ifs, no buts, there can be no runway three at Heathrow.’

“But they were hit by lobbyists like the Chamber of Commerce – nationally, not locally – the CBI and others, and so they brought in the commission, chaired by the eminent Sir Howard Davies. And my cynical view is that he was told: ‘The answer is Heathrow; now go away and make sure it’s Heathrow.’

“But when you look at what manufacturers are doing, it’s not the right answer. Everyone was told we can’t serve industry without ‘Heathrow three’. Well, we’re serving it now, and even if the government goes ahead with Heathrow, it’s still 15 years away.

“And so it’s a living lie, because if the UK faces the same problem for 15 years we have to use existing capacity. Heathrow and Gatwick are full, Stansted is nearly full, and with an overall requirement for an extra 20 million passengers, where are flights going? Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham and other regional airports.”

The government, says Kehoe, is in a sticky situation over Heathrow: “Boris [Johnson,

Our take-off plan needs government action current London Mayor] is anti-runway three, Zac Goldsmith [Conservative candidate for London Mayor] is anti-runway three, and so is Labour, and the Lib-Dems, so the whole London mayoral process is anti-runway three. So the government has pushed it back – causing more delay.

“We can do so much in that time. Fifteen years ago, Birmingham had no Emirates’ flights and no Airbus A380s landing, and look at us now [Emirates flies from Birmingham to Dubai three times a day, and the A380 starts in March]. In 15 years’ time, Emirates could be flying six times a day, and we’ll have a pretty good infrastructure for more airlines.”

It’s this short and medium-term future that Kehoe concentrates on, as he reveals what sounds like Birmingham Airport’s new marketing strapline: “A world class airport for a world class city.”

He says this with emphasis, and I fear my deadpan face might be disappointing him. Like

many in the West Midlands media, I still cringe at memories of Mike Whitby, Birmingham’s former Conservative leader, constantly harping on about ‘a global city with a local heart’, and how we’d bet on how many times he’d utter that hackneyed phrase in his speeches.

I retell this anecdote to Kehoe because I desperately don’t want him and the airport – so crucial to the regional economy – to fall into the trap of meaningless soundbites. But Kehoe – a former RAF air traffic controller – bounces back to defend his ‘world class’ maxim: “What does it mean? It means delivering what that city wants.

And that’s a city and airport that will soon have HS2 [high-speed trains]. Passengers are sticky. If we can get them into a habit, then behavioural economics means there are opportunities. We can reinforce the short-haul market, take up more long-haul opportunities, and make more of the low-cost operators.

To passengers, we become a good option.

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“The question is, how do we remodel Birmingham Airport to bring it up to world class status? Our old terminal 2, built in 1991, is now looking tatty outside. But we’ll soon have a brand new HS2 rail station.”

At this, Kehoe points to the airport’s site viewed from his 5th floor office window at Diamond House, and shows me where the HS2 line could snake in, giving the airport a great chance to use the construction work as a trigger to smarten up its terminal.

The airport, he explains, has just started a ‘master plan’, proposing and consulting on what it could look like in the next ten to 15 years.

“It might be that we end up with a modest plan, or perhaps we’ll be ambitious,” he says.

“Personally, I want to be ambitious.”

Kehoe proudly reminds me of the contribution the airport’s operations currently make: for the UK, an estimated £1.7bn in GVA (gross value added), supporting 40,000 jobs, with £1.1bn GVA of this and 25,000 jobs in the West Midlands.

“If we can double that, think what we could do,” he says. “Back in 1991, Manchester said they would double passengers by 2001, and they did.”

Such growth levels sound ambitious, but Kehoe’s optimism is backed up by Birmingham Airport celebrating its most successful in 2015, when it handled 10.2 million passengers, 5% up on 2014.

“2015 was an outstanding year,” he says, “better than our expectations. That’s because

“It m ig we’ll ht be tha tw be am bitiou e end up w s. Per sona ith a mod lly, I want est plan, or to be ambi perhaps tious ”

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of brilliant marketing, of course, but also because the Midlands economy is – despite the recent caution – making quite significant progress.

“That’s seeing our business passengers and our leisure breaks grow, helping us across a number of markets. Long haul is up 25% to 30%, the European schedules are growing again, and there’s a little bit of a resurgence in the low-cost sector, taking advantage of the oil market. All came together to deliver 2015.”

The airport, which directly employs around 700 people, with another 7,300 employed by partners in and around the site, saw full year revenues to March 2015 reach £125m. After costs, it recorded around £54m in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation). This was up from revenues of around £112m and EBITDA of £48m in 2014.

But even Kehoe sounds a note of caution for 2016: “Cheap oil is great for fuel costs but a problem for economies and confidence. We were looking at growth of 10% to 15% in 2016, and this might be down to 7% or 8%, or if George Osborne’s pessimism is right, more or less flat.

“That’s because the China downturn, US migration issues, and security issues in Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt will all impact on some parts of the flying public. But I’m an eternal optimist, and I still think we can deliver 7% to 8% growth.”

But what capacity is Birmingham Airport already operating at? And how much growth can it cope with, given that its second runway plans were rejected?

Kehoe says: “We’re 75% to 80% full in early morning slots, and we’re planning extra lanes of security to help, and other minor remodelling, like a new fast track. But we have loads of space for the rest of the day. There are peaks at lunchtime and early evening, when we’re at 50% capacity, but in between we’re empty.

Our opportunity is how we maximise that down time. We need to provide incentives for nonbased airlines to fly into our gaps.”

And so even without a second runway, and before HS2, Kehoe believes Birmingham can increase passengers by 50% to 15 million by 2025, with only “minor remodelling”. And then he says HS2 will add around another one million passengers, putting Birmingham’s growth at

“We’ll get the tourists on our summer flights again, and eventually where tourists go, business follows” 60% to 16 million passengers a year from 2026.

Kehoe says: “That means another six-tenths of £1.7bn GVA for the UK, and six-tenths of £1.1bn GVA for the metro area – or probably more, as GVA is higher with long haul flying.

But if our shareholders said: ‘We’re seeking to make sure we are HS2 ready,’ then they might ask for a major reinvestment before 2026, which means we could grow faster.

“I’ve not had that discussion yet with John Clancy [the new leader of Birmingham’s Labour council, one of the airport’s majority shareholders]. If he wants a great city, and a great region, the master plan could change. And government policy will shape it too.”

At this, Kehoe’s back to what he sees as the government’s limited choice to cope with the UK’s growing aviation demands, before any Heathrow expansion.

He says: “There will be growth, and there’s competition for that growth, but Heathrow’s full. Are our passengers going to go to Gatwick instead? Some will, but it’s a horrible journey.

Luton? Perhaps for some short haul. Stansted?

Probably not. But Birmingham can rise to the challenge in the next 10 to 15 years.”

Away from London, Birmingham Airport’s main competitor is Manchester, a battle that’s seen spoils going both ways in the last year. Kehoe’s proud that Birmingham landed direct Air India flights, but admits Manchester has more recently “stolen China from under our noses” with its Hainan Airlines direct scheduled flights to Beijing starting in June.

He’s not giving up on China, though, with Birmingham set to run a summer charter service for the third consecutive year: “We’ll get the tourists on our summer flights again, and eventually where tourists go, business follows.

The Chinese told us: ‘Manchester is good for football’, but they also said: ‘Birmingham is good for retail, history – Shakespeare – and London.’

“And that’s our advantage, for once – we’re closer to London. It’s a four-hour drive from Manchester, versus two hours from Birmingham.

Or an hour and ten minutes by train. So Manchester won a battle, but not the war.

We’re still in China discussing options, and can demonstrate how our summer flights work. We look after Chinese visitors in Birmingham with a very slick operation, and the Chinese like it, whereas they’ll only get the same level of service as anyone else in Manchester.”

As I leave, I ask Kehoe what he’d say if he could tell the UK government one thing. The man who calls himself the ‘chief plate spinner’ is swift and direct with his answer: “Use Birmingham Airport now. Forget the hub [a reference to Birmingham’s second runway plan], that’s been rejected – fine. But use Birmingham now to maximise the opportunity for this city and the Midlands engine for the UK’s economy.

“Come on government: Birmingham’s one of the UK’s key gateways. We don’t need money to support routes like Scotland and Wales (although that would be nice). But we do need tourism organisations aligned, and for the government to call Birmingham a national gateway for international traffic, because that will encourage people in.

“Support Birmingham with a strategy of integrated transport. That’s already happening with HS2 – no-one else is getting that in the next 20 years. Help us maximise and shout about that great opportunity.” n

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

The genesis of Spearhead Compliance Training came from terrible risks taken in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. Its founders are likely to become millionaires next year, but at a high personal cost. Maureen Messent reports.

A business born from the carnage of war

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

Think of a mate’s blood smeared over your wrists as you beg him to lie still in the dust, legless from the waist down, his left arm in a bush behind you.

Imagine being so haunted by this scenario that it follows you home to the West Midlands and you wake screaming with fear between sweatdrenched sheets.

How would you cope if, once you’d sought help, you started to sob, tears you never knew you had thickening your voice, snot dripping into your mouth? You, who’d prided yourself on being a macho sort of bloke who’d been bloodied at Birmingham Irish Amateur Boxing Club, then won silver in the Junior Olympics between 2002-2003, ending up ranked third in the amateur world’s light-heavyweight ranks.

“There’s been sickening times,” says John Loveday, aged almost 29, a verbal mixture of laid-back mirth and black coffee-strong intensity, as he looks from his rent-free office over St Philip’s Cathedral in Birmingham city centre.

“But the trick is to recall everything you’ve experienced. You milk all you have imbibed until it’s ingrained in you how to react. Jack Otter, that man who didn’t die in my arms, thank the God in whom I don’t believe, still walks beside me. So does Jonathan Horne, one of five killed in a huge blast.”

There was plenty he learned as a rifleman in the Royal Green Jackets in 2009 in Afghanistan, the worst period in military terms, recording 14 dead, 33 amputees, 230 woundings.

“Perhaps I’d been a bit spoiled. My Kosova stint was little more than a slightly hairy peacekeeping, Iraq had its terrors from snipers, but Afghanistan...” and his eyes swivel back to St Philip’s. “I didn’t know what waited for me there.

“Dad and me, we were a one-parent unit.

The Old Man taught me to cook, iron, hang my clothes up, never to leave home without polishing my shoes. All what I thought was boring and unnecessary until I enlisted at 16 and saw the mothers’ young treasures being bawled

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at because they’d never made a bed.”

By 2009, as he watched the shattered Jack Otter airlifted to what turned out as recovery, Loveday tussled with the notion that he’d reached that most dangerous of combat mindsets. “I’d started to believe I was invincible, invisible to snipers, Teflon-coated. “When Jack fell I’d been knocked off my feet, temporarily deafened, had had a brain-bleed. I felt my luck was running out. Time to leave. When I spoke to dad, he never gave a hint of his relief. Just the usual: ‘Whatever you think best, son.’”

Back home, unpacking in Hampton-in-Arden, came the first hint of trouble. His dad’s recollections of his own days in the Coldstream Guards before he became a Birmingham bus driver no longer enthralled Loveday, consumed as he was with unexpected flash-backs of death and mayhem. It got to the point where his dad would walk into his bedroom in the small hours to wake him up with the words: ‘You’ve been screaming again, son.’

There was the social isolation of civilian life, too.

Years of living in close contact with other men had forged trust and friendship. Now he was alone, out of touch with his peers from Smith Wood’s School. Deeply depressed. Ill-tempered to the point of snapping at his father.

This was the point when, taking himself to his doctor, he owned up about his mental turmoil, and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress.

This led to what Loveday calls ‘magic brainwashing’, where he’d sit in front of rows of LED bulbs and tell an Army psychiatrist what combat thoughts passed through his mind.

This was an EMDR (eye movement desensitivation reprocessing) gadget. Put simply, it rinsed away the images that crept up on him round the clock, and it took just three hourly sessions to lay his ghosts to rest.

“The weirdest aspect of this was its uncovering of a fear so deep when I lay beside Jack that I’d never faced up to it: I was convinced his grenade, by then under his body, would explode, taking me with it.”

“When Jack fell I’d been knocked off my feet, temporarily deafened, had had a brain-bleed. I felt my luck was running out. Time to leave”

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All would be well, he thought, as he left after his final magic rinsing session. It wasn’t.

Chelmsley Wood Job Centre couldn’t help.

Loveday was told that, despite all his Armytaught skills, he wasn’t qualified to practice them in civilian ambiences. But they knew people who could, right next door, too, at the government-backed Pertemps People Development Group. He was soon working again, but still on the first rung of civilian life, rushed off for first aid training, security work, hotel safety work and private investigation procedures. Everything he’d done in the Army under different guises, in fact. His certificates started to mount up.

“I was feeling better all the time,” Loveday says, “but I wasn’t happy until I was sent to take photographs showing a couple of disability claimants were lying when they said both could hardly move. I trailed them from their home, which they’d loaded with tables and a roulette wheel – they were the entertainment laid on for a birthday party and were acting as croupiers.

“Entrance was by invitation only, so I kissed the girl on the door, told her to pass it on to the birthday girl, and slipped inside. Wearing the posh suit I carried in my van, of course. I got all the pictures. I hadn’t lost my edge. For the first time since leaving the Army I felt happy again.Motivated.”

Next came the ‘Boy’s Own’ job he landed himself – wait for this – chasing Somalian pirates away from shipping off the East African coast.

“Big money,” Loveday says. “But the only pirate vessel we came across was a leaky tub whose mariners looked as if they needed rescuing rather than chasing.”

By now, he’d met up with Paul Hood, just a couple of years older, who’d had near misses similar to his own during his stint in the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, and they put their heads together, seeking work on a laptop at Hood’s home, their only ammunition this time a pack of business cards (£4 for 100).

They wanted work, yes, but then came a Virgin Mary and Angel Gabriel moment. “John, we’re being a couple of plonkers,” Hood told Loveday across the cramped room. “There’s firms out there with one-third our experience and training who get £2,500 per trainee per course they provide.”

Hood, by the way, is now Loveday’s fellowpartner in Spearhead Compliance Training, a back-room power who says he prefers to leave

“Big money. But the only pirate vessel we came across was a leaky tub whose mariners looked as if they needed rescuing rather than chasing”

front-of-house to Loveday. Also by the way, that Spearhead name comes from the military-speak ‘Spearhead Lead Element’, which signals a moment’s notice to move.

And move they did. After training a handful of staff for the Principal Hayley hotel chain, its human resource manager told them they were the first truly professional outfit he’d come across. Their reputation spread by word of mouth – “needn’t have spent that four quid on business cards,” says Hood. But they were still £6,000 in the red by the end of their first year, still needed to eat.

Then NatWest bank not only used them as personnel trainers under their Entrepreneurial Spark project, but made them part of an accelerated support scheme under the aegis of NatWest, RBS and KPMG. That’s how Spearhead Compliance Training’s offices come to be above the RBS in St Philip’s Place, free for the moment while the company took off.

That disheartening £6,000 in the red soon changed to £30,000 in the black as they signedup 125 qualified trainers. In truth, it was 124 trainers: the only chap Loveday had omitted to interview face-to-face turned up and effed and jeffed at his trainees.

“I got my one and only complaint” says Loveday. “Took a chance and landed myself in the wotsit. Lesson learned.”

Next to come calling was the Ministry of Defence, who used their courses to train exArmy personnel in civilian work. Spearhead Compliance Training has recently completed their 1,000th contract. And the cash generated?

Not so much satisfactory as a reassuring tsunami – but they say that as tyros, they’re a bit chary of talking figures. Would I mind terribly, they ask, if they just said their training empire includes the staff of 300 care homes, clubs, retail giants and the leisure industry (the Birmingham Rep theatre is one client). I don’t mind, although I do wheedle some figures out of them.

Their big break was still to come. Steve Smith, who sold his Poundland business for £50m, came calling. He invited them to his

Kidderminster home, liked the cuts of their jibs, then did the unimaginable by opening his list of contacts, telling them to help themselves. “It’ll save you hours in getting past HR people and secretaries,” he told them.

Smith introduced them to luminaries of the West Midlands Safari Park, David Lloyd Leisure, Poundworld and The Range, the massive retailer with 107 stores throughout Britain employing 8,500 staff. “Get them and you’ll do well,” said Smith. Not half they haven’t. Spearhead Compliance Training has just landed a contract worth between £3.5m and £5m to train those 8,500 staff over the next five years. Around £1.9m is signed up for the next 12 months alone, but again there’s a slight reticence because, Loveday and Hood say, “we don’t want to come across all smug and brash”. n

With the success has come the awards Birmingham Business of the Year and Fastest-Growing Business of the Year – not to mention Loveday’s award in the Sixty Second Pitch, a minute to talk up your business. On the horizon is a link-up in Dubai, too, and as he helps me on with my coat, Loveday wonders if I’d be interested in hearing that their mentor Steve Smith has now bought a one-third share of Spearhead. “So you’ll be millionaires this current year, then?” I ask. “Not this year”, he says, “That’s laid on for 2017.”

They were only paying themselves £1,000 a month each while they were in the red.

So do they have any immediate plans to splash the cash on goodies? A house and a Mercedes Benz are mentioned… but then Loveday changes his mind again because “it might sound boastful”.

Well, if anyone deserves success, I say these ex-Army boys do.

ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

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COMMERCIAL PROPERTY Fresh Mint move Commercial property consultant Siddall Jones has moved to new offices at Birmingham Mint after a strong year of property deals in 2015. The Jewellery Quarter-based firm is moving from its current offices at The Big Peg building on Vyse Street to new premises in the Grade II-listed former coining facility on Icknield Street. Company director Edward Siddall-Jones said: “We’re delighted to have moved to our new home at Birmingham Mint. We’re a growing company, but we’re rooted in Birmingham and in particular the Jewellery Quarter, so this location is ideal for us. Last year was another very successful year and it was therefore important that our new home reflected this, giving us the room to grow in the future.”

£335m council cashfall Birmingham City Council has earned itself £335m of much-needed cash by selling the Grand Central shopping centre to property investment firm Hammerson. London-based Hammerson, which also co-owns the nearby Bullring shopping centre, is said to be in advanced discussions with an existing joint venture partner about a 50:50 joint venture for

the future ownership of Grand Central, built as part of the £750m redevelopment of New Street station. It co-owns Bullring with Henderson Shopping Centre Fund and CCPIB (formerly Canada Pension Plan Investment Board).

As part of the transaction, Hammerson also gets Ladywood House, a 95,000 sq ft vacant office building adjoining Grand Central with a value of £10m. Grand Central, developed by Network Rail and Birmingham City Council, has 435,000 sq ft of retail space, with the main name of John Lewis in a 250,000 sq ft department store.

It’s 96% fully let with annual net rental income of £13.9m and has attracted average footfall of 62,000 per day in its first three months of trading. Hammerson has acquired a 150-year lease from freeholder Network Rail.

Brindleyplace first for Friska Independent fast food chain Friska has opened its first outlet in Birmingham. The company’s latest eatery is in a 1,700 sq ft unit spread

From left: Tony Adams, Ryan Lynch and Edward Siddall Jones

across the ground floor and mezzanine of the 13-storey Eleven Brindleyplace, initially employing a team of six including a kitchen manager and store manager. The company, which was founded in 2009, is the brainchild of Griff Holland and Ed Brown, and operates at six sites across Bristol, with plans to expand nationwide. Griff Holland, founder of Friska, said: “We’re really excited to be opening our first store outside Bristol and Birmingham was the obvious destination. Brindleyplace is a thriving business location, with a vibrant social scene around its central square.” Friska offers a range of breakfast and lunch options from bacon toasties and wraps, to Vietnamese noodles, and specialty coffee and cakes.

“Brindleyplace is a thriving business location, with a vibrant social scene around its central square”

£20m office sale Hortons’ Estate has sold Innovation Square, Birmingham, for £20.5m. The mixed use development, on the corner of Edmund Street and Church Street in the city centre, has been acquired by DTZ Investors on behalf of the National Grid UK Pension Scheme. The development comprises 45,000 sq ft of offices, with tenants including Savills and Mace, and five retail units, let to bar-restaurant Utopia, Urban Coffee, Benjamin Ryan Hair, Clements & Church and Home. There are six apartments.

Residential property tax changes come under the spotlight Robert King, partner at the Birmingham office of Smith & Williamson, the accountancy, investment management and tax group highlights the implications of recent tax changes to residential properties.

Tax reliefs on finance costs to be limited Landlords will no longer be able to claim the same reliefs on their finance costs as they do now. Instead, reliefs will be limited to a tax credit at the basic rate of income tax. This will not apply to companies so those with larger property portfolios may want to consider incorporation. The restrictions are being phased in from 2017/18.

The restrictions may have other consequences. As the finance costs will no longer be deducted from the rental income total taxable income will be increased.

This could mean exposure to higher tax bands, higher levels of dividend tax, trigger a high income child benefit charge or even the loss of personal allowances, potentially turning a money-generating business into a cash-absorbing liability.

New rules for replacement expenditure and wear and tear Currently landlords are allowed to deduct 10% of the rents to cover wear and tear irrespective of what they spend. From April wear and tear allowance will be abolished; instead relief can be claimed on the actual cost of replacing items. Most landlords will be worse off from this.

For further information please contact Robert King.

Robert King t: 0121 710 5262 e: robert.king@smith.williamson.co.uk w: smith.williamson.co.uk

Buy-to-let landlords and second home owners face further squeezes From 1 April 2016, the Chancellor intends to introduce higher rates of stamp duty land tax (SDLT) on the purchases of additional residential properties that cost more than £40,000. Rates will rise by 3 percentage points above current rates, increasing the SDLT on a £250,000 property from £2,500 to potentially £10,000.

This will also affect those buying second homes as well as companies and institutions which have previously been shielded from many of the changes.

By necessity, this briefing can only provide a short overview and it is essential to seek professional advice before applying the contents of this article. No responsibility can be taken for any loss arising from action taken or refrained from on the basis of this publication. Details correct at time of writing. The tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future. Smith & Williamson LLP Regulated by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales for a range of investment business activities. A member of Nexia International Smith & Williamson Financial Services Limited Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The Financial Conduct Authority does not regulate all of the products and services referred to here.

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A full Temple The last unit at Hortons’ Estate’s 5 Lower Temple Street, Birmingham, has been let.

Studio Figura has taken 935 sq ft for a weight loss and body-shaping studio. The company has a six-year lease on the second floor premises, at an annual rent of £12,600.

Hortons’ has also hung the ‘fully let’ sign at its 21 Bennetts Hill and 7 Whitehouse, New Street, office developments.

Nina Meeks of Hortons’ said: “We have three properties clustered around New Street. In the last six months we have filled all the void space as confidence in the economy has returned and the infrastructure investments around Grand Central have taken shape.”

Giant reptile ahoy!

AlloyGator, the designer and manufacturer of the alloy wheel protection system ‘AlloyGator’, has expanded into new premises in Worcestershire.

The business has moved from Studley to a 6,796 sq ft warehouse and office space unit at Heming Road, Redditch, with the help of property agents John Truslove.

And it’s currently looking to add to its 15-strong workforce by recruiting local talent. Sales have doubled year-on-year with a key recent deal worth an additional £10m over the next five years for supply to the US market. The product is stocked in around 400 outlets across the UK with distributors in more than 25 countries.

AlloyGator has taken the new Redditch premises on a seven-year lease.

“Sales have doubled yearon-year with a key recent deal worth an additional £10m over the next five years for supply to the US market” K2 summit reached Black Country property agents Bond Wolfe has let the remaining space at the K2 complex in Worcester. A 1,074 sq ft suite on the second floor of the modern office building at The

Ian Parker and Liza Carrington of Slimstock

Slim expansion The supply chain specialist Slimstock, with headquarters in the Netherlands, is expanding its UK operation with new offices in Redditch. Slimstock, which works in various sectors including retail, wholesale, manufacturing, automotive, building materials and healthcare, has taken 2,650 sq ft of space at Grosvenor House with the help of property agents John Truslove.

Richard Evans, Slimstock’s UK director, said the Redditch development followed annual growth of 25% to 30% a year in the UK. He added: “We will be increasing numbers and this location offers us an ideal base in which to operate from.”

Tything, the main road leading from the north into the city centre, has been taken by agents and valuers Humberstones.

They have signed a ten year lease at the premises where redevelopment saw retention of the impressive Victorian façade.

Bond Wolfe managing partner James Mattin said: “After another record year for our agency team, we are delighted to kick off 2016 with this letting to such an established entity within the property industry.”

Bouncing into fifth base A national rubber roofing supplier based in Coventry has celebrated dramatic growth by moving into its fifth new building since the business began in 2010.

Rubber4Roofs sells coverings and accessories for rubber roofs used on commercial and residential

buildings with flat roofs. The business’s latest move into a 12,500 sq ft unit on Swallowgate Business Park was assisted by commercial property company D&P Holt. Its previous home was a 6,600 sq ft unit on the same estate.

Managing director Tom Cullingford said Rubber4Roofs, which now has 14 staff, was currently enjoying year-on-year growth of more than 70%.

Mazars 20% growth Accountancy firm Mazars has taken more space at its 45 Church Street offices in Birmingham to cope with the firm’s growth in the Midlands.

The past year has seen Mazars’ Birmingham head count grow 20% from 113 to 135, out-growing the tenth floor which it currently occupies, and it’s now taken extra space on the eighth floor.

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY bqlive.co.uk

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Out-of-town hotspot The out-of-town office market in the M42 corridor around Solihull has become a commercial property hotspot, latest figures have revealed.

Property adviser Bilfinger GVA say total activity in Solihull town centre and throughout the area’s business parks reached 489,687 sq ft across 2015, placing it well ahead of 2014’s total of 419,951 sq ft. The figures were boosted by a number of stand-out deals including the sale and leaseback of Interserve’s 113,657 sq ft International House, near Birmingham Airport; the 24,843 sq ft letting to Changan Automotive; the 19,625 sq ft letting to BT at Birmingham Business Park; and National Grid’s 46,000 sq ft letting in Solihull town centre.

The figures also show an increasing number of deals completed in excess of 10,000 sq ft, which Bilfinger GVA said demonstrated a sharp uplift in demand from occupiers for larger office spaces.

The figures were boosted by a number of stand-out deals including the sale and leaseback of Interserve’s 113,657 sq ft International House, near Birmingham Airport Multi-million rural refurb Stoneleigh Park is to receive £1.8m of further investment as it aims to become a leading centre for rural sciences, innovation and business. LaSalle Investment Management has already invested £4.36m into refurbishing old buildings at the Warwickshire estate to help it become a centre of agricultural excellence. The latest additional funding will refurbish three more buildings for high-quality office space aimed at attracting companies. Colin Hooper, estates director at Stoneleigh Park, said: “This investment is part of LaSalle Investment Management’s pledge to spend £50m to turn it into a science park dedicated to rural and agricultural innovation over 15 years.

In Harmony An events and conference specialist has moved to the West Midlands from the south

No Hassall to recruit Midlands law firm Wright Hassall has strengthened its real estate team by recruiting 10 extra lawyers. The Leamington-based firm now has one of the largest real estate teams in the region outside of Birmingham. New partner Terry Dickson joined from Birmingham practice Emms Gilmore Liberson, while James Richards and Andrew Beresford, both formerly of Gowling WLG, and Andrew Jones, from HCB, have all become senior associates.

Development solicitor Fiona Martin joins from London-based Charles Russell Speechlys as an associate and Natalie Owen, formerly of Shoosmiths, as an associate for social housing.

Planning solicitor Ben Arrowsmith has been recruited from Pinsent Masons, while Lauren Perkins, Daniel Macleod and Harinder Kundhi have been appointed solicitors. Paralegal Raminder Kaur completes the new arrivals.

coast. Harmony Audio Visual has relocated from Andover, Hampshire, to premises at The Pensnett Estate, Kingswinford, owned and managed by London & Cambridge Properties (LCP). Chris Irwin, managing director of Harmony, who has agreed a five-year lease for the 1,638 sq ft unit, said: “Business is really starting to pick up and I’m hoping that this year will be a good one for Harmony Audio Visual now that we have moved to our new premises.”

Auction house swallowed CPBigwood, the Birmingham-based property and auctions business, has been taken over by Shepherd Direct Limited (SDL), one of the UK’s fastest growing independent property groups.

SDL, which has interests in surveying, valuations,

lettings, mortgages and estate agency, paid an undisclosed sum for CPBigwood, which is an established top ten UK auction house.

Rory Daly, senior partner at CPBigwood, is to remain with the business as chief executive officer. He said: “This marks the next step in the evolution of CPBigwood and will provide a significant boost, allowing us to accelerate our growth plans.”

Design and Custard The world’s largest global architect, design and planning practice, Gensler, has launched a new office in Birmingham – its first UK office outside of London. The new office at the Custard Factory, Digbeth, will be the headquarters for Gensler’s regional activity.

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“There’s a traditional view that if you’re in a senior role then working has to mean five days a week”

A part-time boss – seven days a week Judith Armstrong has landed her first chief executive position on what she calls a part-time contract – although she seems to be available every day of the week. BQ editor Steve Dyson reports There are two crucial aspects to Judith Armstrong’s life. Firstly, she’s the proud mum of two young children, and wants to spend quality time with them as they grow up.

Secondly, she’s the new chief executive of Millennium Point, the huge, 500,000 sq ft building that overlooks the east of Birmingham city centre, a stone’s throw from where Curzon Street, the new high-speed (HS2) rail station, will be based from 2027.

Armstrong not only leads Millennium Point Property Limited, effectively a landlord with high-profile tenants and a turnover of £5m-a-year. She also heads the charitable Millennium Point Trust, which after running and maintenance costs spends the rest of its £900,000-plus surplus on educational, business and creative activities.

How does Armstrong square such busy roles

across a part-time week, as well as being mum to four-year old Evie and two-year-old James?

To start with, she says, she answers to a board who understand that her hours are technically Monday to Thursday.

“Their understanding that it’s those four days is important because my first role is as a mum, and I want the flexibility to do things like taking the kids to school, watching the odd school play, and going see their teachers. But flexibility is the key word.

“Tomorrow’s Friday and there’s a meeting that can’t be held any other time and so this week – from choice – I’ll be there. And of course, I’m always available to take important calls from people like my chairman, although on Fridays he understands the children might be in the background.”

That sounds like a part-time role creeping into

a full working week, but for Armstrong the flexibility works. And for Millennium Point, it means her wage bill is lower than if she was full-time.

“Part-time roles are few and far between at this level,” the 38-year-old says. “There’s a traditional view that if you’re in a senior role then working has to mean five days a week.

But why shouldn’t companies look at the huge pool of people with all the skills, knowledge and willingness to work hard in senior positions, and who come a lot cheaper because they want to be part-time?”

Armstrong started life as Judith Rees in Sutton Coldfield, the youngest of three children to a mum who worked as a deputy head teacher and a dad who owned an engineering business.

When she was 11, her parents became “fed up with the rat race” and they all moved to the

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Loire Valley in France, buying a large property to run as property lets. This meant a young Judith grew up bi-lingual, returning to England aged 18 to begin a Languages degree at Coventry University. But her unconventional background soon gave her the confidence to make her own decisions in life.

“I didn’t want to stay in languages,” she says, “because I didn’t want to be a teacher or translator, so after my first year I left university and went and found myself a job.”

This may have disappointed her parents to start with, but it was the beginning of a career. She became a finance assistant in TNT’s newspaper delivery division, then a logistics analyst. She studied at night school for a HND in Business and Finance and moved into operations to help improve projects and cost processes.

“This was hard work and very demanding,” Armstrong recalls.

“But I probably learned the most I’ve learned in my career, including how to manage and lead people” Then she took a job as a reporting manager for logistics giant DHL, who sponsored her to become a Chartered Management Accountant.

She worked in the foreign contracts and logistics division, and led a change management programme to relocate the finance office from Ipswich to Birmingham, taking the team down from nine to four.

Next came a job on DHL’s capital investment programmes – buying trucks and warehouse equipment – and from there she became finance manager of the company’s £50m Same

Day division. This fast-track development saw Armstrong – then still the single Rees and aged just 29 – appointed as Same Day’s finance director, working directly for DHL’s UK chief executive.

“This was hard work and very demanding,” Armstrong recalls. “But I probably learned the most I’ve learned in my career, including how to manage and lead people.”

By now, she was married to Francis Armstrong, a regional sales manager at DHL, and after maternity leave decided she wanted something

BUSINESS LUNCH bqlive.co.uk

more local and part-time. She joined Millennium Point as financial director in September 2012, starting at two days a week, then three days a week, and finally four when she became chief operating officer – deputy to the then chief executive Philip Singleton.

Armstrong’s senior role has helped improve Millennium Point’s financial performance every year since, and so she was the obvious choice to succeed Singleton when he left last October.

Her appointment is ‘interim’ for the first year, but she hopes this will be confirmed “six months down the line” once she’s “proved my contribution to the organisation”.

Armstrong’s plan is to separate the Millennium Point property company and trust, which until now have been run jointly. “They’re very different,” she explains. “The property company is there to make money. The Trust is there for the good we can do for Birmingham and the community. That means setting different objectives.

“With the property, we need to improve the building to make more money, reinvesting so that we’re ready when HS2 arrives. We’re right in the middle of what will be the city’s new gateway, so we’ve got to make as much money as possible to invest in buildings and reap that prime opportunity.

“We’ve had success in the past, but there’s more to be done to make us a real landmark in Birmingham. We’d like to be better known as the place to experience the future. But we need to maximise assets.”

When Armstrong joined Millennium Point, it was still operating the IMAX cinema, with a giant 3D screen that had become “old era technology”, making large losses. This was closed, and the space sublet as an auditorium for Birmingham City University, making money.

The building’s current space is 99% let, but Armstrong is determined to plan that final slice of rental carefully, and to consider changes to drive more events.

She says: “There are different pockets where we could maximise space, converting some

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Millennium Point Millennium Point opened in 2001 after a partnership development by Birmingham City Council, Birmingham City University and Birmingham Chamber of Commerce.

It cost £114m to build, which included £50m of lottery funding, £25m of European money, £7m of government funding and £8m from the project partners, with more coming from private corporate sponsors.

The building aims to help visitors to explore ideas, science, education, technology and the arts, and has triggered the regeneration of the surrounding brownfield site over the last 15 years – creating the Knowledge Quarter.

Millennium Point’s major tenants are Thinktank (Birmingham’s science museum), the Birmingham School of Acting, the Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment, and the Fashion and Graphics Labs.

One of its charitable activities is the Young Innovator Prize, which sponsors a Year 13 student from the West Midlands through an undergraduate degree at Birmingham City University.

Entries are now open for the 2016 Prize, worth £27,000, with the final taking place in March 2016. There’s more information at www.millenniumpoint.org.uk/yip.

Millennium Point also holds large public events, with recent examples including: Anne Frank and You, an exhibition telling the story of Holocaust victim and diarist Anne Frank; the Birmingham Independent Food Fair; and Birmingham Made Me – a showcase of local design and manufacturing.

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areas for events. And we’ll keep a very tight rein on our large facilities contracts, making sure we maximise things like energy efficiency.

Millennium Point is one of most successful millennium projects outside London. We’re independent. We generate our own funds to run and distribute. Our budget this year will see another increase in the bottom line, but will be by quite a lot more.

“By doing that we can make more money for our charity enterprises. We’d like to expand our Young Innovator Prize programme. We’re going to run a number of exhibitions, including hosting the Big Art Project. And we plan a social media campaign to invite people to share their favourite art in Birmingham.

“We can also consider other applications, because the more money we make, the more we can do for the public. That’s the real beauty of this job and why my eye’s on the bottom line. Rather than making loads of money for shareholders, we’re making money for a much better and a local purpose.”

Back to women in senior roles having children, Armstrong adds: “I’ve got a great job and am very lucky. It’s so demanding to be a mum – it’s almost easier to go out to work!

Juggling motherhood and a job isn’t easy, but with the right, supportive employer, you can do both.” n Vivaanta is at 22 Water Front Walk, Birmingham B1 1SN. Tel 0121 665 6568, www.vivaanta.co.uk

“Rather than making loads of money for shareholders, we’re making money for a much better and a local purpose”

Vivaanta Indian restaurant and cocktail lounge This smart new Indian restaurant sits alongside a canal, just across a pedestrian bridge in Birmingham’s lively Mailbox quarter.

Once you’re inside, it almost feels like you are on a giant canal barge, with the main bar and cocktail lounge at one end of the long building, its dining tables and dining booths stretching to the other. We’re there for lunch, and because we’re busy talking we trust Vivaanta to prepare us a selection of its best dishes.

We began with a ‘celebration mixed platter’, which included fish pakora, onion bhaji, samosas, chicken tikka, paneer tikka and lamb chops. This is usually only served in the evening, and costs £9.95 a head. My favourite is the juicy fish pakora, while Armstrong says hers is the “beautifully light and crispy” bhaji.

For mains, we share a lamb rogan josh (£8.50 at lunchtimes), a jeera methi chicken (£8) and a chana saag paneer side dish (£4.95). We also have mushroom rice and naan – one free with each dish at lunchtimes.

I spot different fresh spices in all three curried dishes – cardamom, sliced chillies, cumin and coriander seeds – and these and other ingredients make my mouth fizz with every fork full.

Armstrong’s favourites are the chicken and paneer dishes, and she’s particularly happy with the portion sizes: “Not too much, not too little.”

We share a jug of iced tap water, and I have a glass of dry white wine (from £5.50), and we both sip double espresso after eating (around £3 each). Armstrong’s overall conclusion: “Fantastic cooking in a lovely setting overlooking the canal. I’ll definitely be coming here again.” I couldn’t agree more.

There are perhaps too many menus to choose from – lunch, set, all day and a la carte – but I reckon two could comfortably have lunch for £30 and dinner for £50, plus drinks.

LEGAL AND FINANCE QUARTER IN PARTNERSHIP WITH:

SPECIAL FEATURE

Dr David Ward new UK managing partner of patent attorneys Marks & Clerk looks to the future

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH:

INSIDE FOCUS: ‘ WES T MIDL ANDS: A MANUFACTURING ECONOMY’

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PROFILE Marks&Clerk

Protecting your bright ideas Dr David Ward is the new UK managing partner of patent and trade mark attorneys Marks & Clerk, based in the firm’s Birmingham office. He shares his vision for the practice with BQ Marks & Clerk has a global reputation for protecting and enhancing the value of bright ideas and scientific advances, so it’s no surprise that its founders worked in the hothouse of invention that was Victorian Birmingham.

George Marks was a famed engineer, Dugald Clerk invented the two-stroke gas engine, and the entrepreneurs joined forces to create a general engineering and technical practice in 1887, although it soon focused on intellectual property (IP) rights across an array of business sectors.

Today, the Marks & Clerk client list features many of the world’s largest corporates, leading academic institutions, major science parks and other sources of innovation, and its UK arm is the country’s largest firm of attorneys specialising in patent and trade mark protection.

Dr Ward points out that the Birmingham office has remained true to its origins by advising and guiding numerous SMEs, often in manufacturing and engineering, on how to benefit from both their new ideas and their existing patent portfolio.

He completed a PhD in organic chemistry at Birmingham University, and carried out postdoctoral research in Germany, before taking a

Looking ahead, Dr Ward is confident in the prospects for both Marks & Clerk’s UK-wide operations and its Birmingham office, despite the evident economic uncertainties.

“I’m sure we’ll maintain recruitment of high-quality graduates and invest in our people and I’d expect to see steady growth as we continue to support clients across a wide range of sectors. It is possible to innovate your way out of trouble, and I’m confident that wellrun companies with forward-thinking management teams will continue to do well.”

‘IP plays a crucial role in enabling companies to grow. Without patents, there would be little incentive to innovate’ Masters degree in IP and joining Marks & Clerk in 1996. Dr Ward, who took up his role from the firm’s Alpha Tower-based office in January, represents many types of clients, from household brands and universities, to start-ups, SMEs and individual entrepreneurs.

However, regardless of their sector, size or ambition, he considers his key role as helping them build IP strategies which dovetail with their commercial goals.

“It’s interesting to see how companies fine-tune their IP strategies according to changes in the wider economic environment,” says Dr Ward. “You’ll see them go through growth phases, when they really focus on developing innovative products and processes by investing heavily in R&D and acquiring IP rights to protect those products.

“Then there’s a downturn. They spend less on acquiring IP rights, and also cut back on their research budget, but spend more on enforcement as competitors encroach on their rights. They aggressively protect what they have, so there tends to be more litigation carried out on their behalf because they are looking to maximise revenue from their existing assets.

“At the moment, margins are tight and companies in many sectors are under increasing pressure because of uncertainties affecting economies around the globe: the collapse in oil prices, China’s slowdown, the resultant fall in commodity prices and other issues.

“Currently uncertainty is the watch word. Macroeconomic indicators are mixed but some form of downturn is widely anticipated. This time though, we’re seeing manufacturers starting to squeeze their costs in a controlled way, hunkering down before

the storm. Some sectors are still buoyant though.

Pharma is pretty much recession-proof, and of course it is massively dependent on the success of patents for new drugs and treatments.”

Dr Ward sees pharma as a classic example of how a considered IP strategy can drive revenue for innovative companies.

“Patents eventually expire and when they do, the technology they disclose is open to exploitation by third parties. For example Boots’ patent for Ibuprofen expired in 1985. Anyone can therefore make and sell the basic drug Ibuprofen. But that is not the end of the story, as different formulations of a drug (eg fast acting, sustained release, admixture with other drugs) or even different uses of the drug can also be patented. These new developments are heavily marketed and a new, albeit reduced, monopoly is established. In this way useful protection can be extended long beyond the life of a single patent”, he says.

“There is a perception in some quarters that patents and the monopolies they create are a bad thing as they stifle innovation. I strongly disagree. Firstly patent applications are published and this creates a large body of technical information. Secondly companies invest a lot of time and effort researching ways to avoid infringing a patent, and that is often the catalyst for innovation, so IP plays a crucial role in enabling companies to grow. Without patents there would be little incentive to innovate. It would be much easier to copy the other guy.”

The technical expertise and sector knowledge required by patent attorneys means that once an initial client relationship has been established, it often evolves into a genuine and lasting partnership.

‘Patent applications are an investment. Their cost should be weighed against the potential return of a 20-year monopoly’

PROFILE Marks&Clerk

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Dr David Ward He is particularly proud of the productive 13-year relationship with Foseco, which began when the Birmingham-based business was sold by BP and sought to appoint external counsel for handling their IP portfolio. Foseco is now the foundry technologies division of Vesuvius Group plc, a global London-headquartered business which creates services and solutions relating to ‘metal flow engineering’ and David and his team continue to handle the Foseco portfolio, despite Vesuvius having their own internal team of patent attorneys.

“When we first sat down with them, one of their competitors had introduced a patented product that was starting take their customers, and the initial aim was simply to develop a feeder system giving comparable benefits for making metal castings but which did not infringe the competitor’s patent,” recalls Dr Ward.

“However, as their R&D work progressed, Foseco developed a radical new design of feeder core worthy of patent protection itself. Put simply, it’s a pressedmetal component which reduces waste, is easier to use than previous cores, provides other technical advantages and is ideally suited for high-pressure automated production lines.”

The first patent secured by Dr Ward gave Foseco very broad protection in its primary markets. Eight further ‘families’ of patents have followed protecting

new aspects of the technology as technical development has continued.

“The commercial success has been so spectacular that Feedex K is now a £10m+ product line, and its development has had a ‘halo’ effect on the company,” he says.

“They now have an entire IP portfolio of patents related to this one product. Foseco have rigorously defended their rights against infringers in several countries, but we’ve never needed to go to trial because the other side has always backed down.

Competitors see that the patents are so strong and that Foseco will challenge any infringers that infringements are now rare.

“There are two basic approaches to consider when you have such an innovative product: to exploit the IP yourself and to maximise the revenue, or to licence it and take royalties (or a combination of the two). Foseco chose to exploit the IP itself and retain exclusivity in the market. This approach enabled it to maintain margins and increase market share in a highly competitive and cost sensitive market.”

Inevitably, the cost of obtaining patent protection varies dramatically. The complexity of the product and the number of jurisdictions in which protection is sought are both influential factors.

“As a very rough guide, a professionally drafted ‘first’ filing would probably cost between £3,000

and £10,000. Different companies have different filing strategies. Some adopt a scattergun approach and file lots of speculative applications at the lower cost end; others might only do two or three a year for major innovations at the higher end of the cost scale. It tends to be sector-dependent. In the electronics sector, for example, it is often a numbers game, where quantity takes precedence over outright quality.

The Foseco Feedex K patent application took a year to finalise as the technology developed so was quite expensive, and a wide global filing programme further added to the costs. This has been more than compensated by the value created for the business.

Patent applications are an investment and their cost should be weighed against the potential return of a twenty year monopoly.” says Dr Ward.

For more information on how Marks and Clerk can help grow and protect your business please contact Dr David Ward on 0121 643 5881 or email him on dward@marks-clerk.com www.marks-clerk.com

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PROFILE ART Business Loans

Lending with purpose There are many reasons why a viable business will fail to meet the banks’ lending critieria and that’s where established local lender ART Business Loans comes in

IF THE BANKS CAN’T HELP, TRY ART BUSINESS LOANS Be Inspired ART Business Loans’ website includes many examples of the diverse businesses which have borrowed from ART, some even coming back several times over the years for different reasons. Other borrowers have taken advantage of the opportunity to repay early with no penalty.

HNS SIGNS HNS Signs used an ART loan to buy new equipment, which enabled them to take on more work.

“ART was really easy to deal with, which was

The ART Business Loans lending team (left to right) Andy King, Graham Donaldson, Roz Haque, Martin Edmonds

MARC KIRSTEN

Colin Potter cutting glass at RAD Windows

Michelle Henry at HNS Signs

MARC KIRSTEN

FINANCIAL SUPPORT AND ADVICE ART’s lending team, based at Innovation Birmingham Campus, understands business and keeps up to date with the variety of finance options available. They will signpost, if appropriate, to other lenders and support.

ART offers loans between £10,000 and £150,000, sometimes as part of a larger package of finance and often alongside the banks. “Our average loan size is £30,000,” says Steve. “We lend for any business purpose – providing it’s legal! – and to any business sector. Our borrowers have ranged from hi-tech specialist manufacturers to gyms, restaurateurs to training companies.”

MARC KIRSTEN

Designed to fill that gap in the market left by the banks, ART is on a mission to boost the local economy. “Our primary concern is helping businesses to grow, diversify or ride out the cashflow challenges of the unexpected,” says Steve Walker, Chief Executive of ART. We make a personal assessment of applications and like to get to know our borrowers so that we are in a position to advise about the best finance option for their needs.

We will signpost applicants, where appropriate, to other providers and sources of support. We know that some businesses unable to access finance from the banks will turn to personal credit cards, pawn brokers, or other lenders with very high interest rates. That kind of money may come with few questions asked, but businesses are not only paying a higher price than necessary, they are also losing out on the opportunity to gain expert advice.”

unexpected when it seems to be so hard to even get an overdraft from a bank!” Michelle Henry, HNS Signs. www.hnssigns.co.uk RAD WINDOWS A loan from ART helped RAD Windows to support cashflow following the unexpected loss of a major customer due to a change in its procurement policy.

“ART is prepared to take a higher risk than the banks in backing businesses to support and create jobs.”

Keith Ascough, RAD Signs. www.radwindows.co.uk

To find out more about ART, or apply for a loan, see www.artbusinessloans.co.uk or call 0121 359 2444.

FOREWORD bqlive.co.uk

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West Midlands: a manufacturing economy Challenges persist for companies in attracting, retaining and supporting the right staff, says Sue Parr, Business Development Director at WMG, University of Warwick Attracting the right staff is vital from the outset, yet employers are reporting recruitment difficulties, with hard-to fill vanancies in manufacturing, production, construction, utilities, as well as finance and retail. These industries face the challenge of attracting the right people, with the right skills, at the rate which they and the economy need in order to grow. But it’s not just about recruitment; an organisation needs to make sure that they can retain that person.

Individuals tend to favour and remain loyal to those organisations that show a commitment to their ongoing development. Although an ever-increasing tendency to consider moving jobs after their first three to five years has been noted among younger employees, providing ongoing learning and development can help retain them and develop future senior leaders.

It can even mean that if employees do leave they may return later at a more senior level.

Individuals and their employers need to be sure that, throughout their time at the company, they will have the necessary skills to support the business however that may change as the

market and the company develops. Two-thirds of the 520 organisations surveyed by CIPD last year for their Planning and Resourcing report stated that the skills needed for jobs in their organisation were changing. In another recent CIPD report (HR Outlook), talent management, innovation, and increased agility/flexibility were

“Many companies are now developing their own internal academies to address the question of developing people across the organisation throughout their careers� seen to be in the top five of the key priorities for HR and staff development.

Organisations can address this in different ways.

For example, in this age of university tuition fees and student loans, high calibre school leavers may be attracted instead to a company that offers them not only a job, but the potential

to gain training and possibly a degree via an apprenticeship. Not only will the company get first pick of the new generation at this earlier stage, they will be able to train them with exactly the skills they need in their business, and encourage their loyalty to the company.

Graduates have always tended to favour organisations that offer them career development support via well-structured graduate programmes, but increasingly they also want there to be clearly defined ongoing development opportunities after that initial induction period. Many companies are now developing their own internal academies to address the question of developing people across the organisation throughout their careers.

The launch of the Jaguar Land Rover Academy is a great example of how this can work well for the employee as well as the company.

In this changing landscape of learning and skills, Higher Education providers are well placed to support these initiatives. They are also increasingly able to offer customised programmes for employees throughout their careers. n Sue Parr is Business Development Director at WMG, University of Warwick. For more information on WMG and how it is working to support skills in industry, see www.warwick.ac.uk/wmgptmasters

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INSIGHT bqlive.co.uk

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How JLR is driving the UK’s manufacturing Professor Lord Bhattacharyya, chairman of WMG, the industrial research and education group based at the University of Warwick, analyses the West Midlands manufacturing and automotive sector

It’s proved a challenging start to 2016 for the West Midlands’ four leading businesses – Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls-Royce Aerospace, GKN and JCB. Indeed, the manufacturing industry has been facing a number of difficulties – the crisis in the commodities sector, falling oil prices, a decline in the previous rapid growth in the Chinese market and fallout from the West’s troubled relationship with Russia.

But investment levels and improved efficiency should go towards another year of progress.

After all, the West Midlands’ export surplus with China was £2.76bn in 2014. It was the only region running such a surplus, sending out £5.3bn worth of goods, up 32%, and importing just £2.5bn. And UK car sales rose 6.3% during 2015 to reach an all-time high of 2.63 million units, with JLR registering 100,787 vehicles, up from 82,845 a year earlier. JLR global vehicle sales were up 5% to 487,065.

Quite a success story.

For the Big Four, though, it’s been a mixed picture. Rolls-Royce Aerospace has been conducting a review of its business which it said was likely to involve job losses among its 2,000

senior managers. It had previously announced 3,600 job cuts across the group.

The company said it had been badly affected by a decline in its main aircraft engine business, with profits from supplying spare parts and servicing having fallen significantly. In addition, sales of engines for corporate jets had declined sharply. And the low price of oil had taken a heavy toll on the marine engine business, largely because of falling demand from offshore energy companies.

Even so, Rolls-Royce is an icon and it will again be highly profitable and a world class company.

Demand for JCB equipment has been tumbling in China, Brazil, Russia and parts of Europe. Even strong growth in the UK and North America softened towards the end of 2015 due to a fall in market confidence that pushed oil prices and commodity prices to post-crash lows. Only union agreement on short-time working was sufficient to stave off compulsory job losses.

GKN maintained progress, reporting 2% organic growth, “in spite of the tougher economic environment”. Military aerospace and agricultural equipment were in decline, though

other markets remained robust.

Jaguar Land Rover is on the front foot bolstered by heavy investment and new models, despite sales issues in China.

The company, with its main West Midlands sites in Solihull and Castle Bromwich, and others in Whitley, Gaydon and Halewood in Liverpool, employs 35,000 people globally, and supports more than 210,000 UK jobs through the supply chain, dealer network and wider economy.

JLR is investing more than ever before in new technologies and facilities. In the financial year to the end of March 2016 the business will have spent over £3.5bn on research and development and product design, launching 12 major new products. The company’s strategy will see 50 new and current model upgrades over the next five years.

At WMG, we are a significant technology partner of JLR and its commitment to advanced research, technology and innovation will continue to pay dividends.

Up to 28,000 jobs are expected to be created in the supply chain over the next five years, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders – for every new job in a vehicle plant, on average between three and five are created in the wider economy. The SMMT estimates British car production is set to reach a record two million vehicles annually by 2020 – a 33% increase on the current 1.5 million. Automotive Council figures also reveal that 41% of the average UK-built vehicle is now locally-sourced – up from 36% in 2011.

And it’s reckoned that up to 80% of the components that go into any car being built

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in the UK could be produced here, meaning the potential for supply chain growth could be as high as £4bn.

We are already seeing major examples of components companies moving forward, such as Brose, Sertec and Hadley Group to name just three. The new £35m Brose factory in Coventry will double UK production capacity. Over 300 people have been recruited to work in the new centre, which will produce more than half a million lightweight rear seat systems for JLR every year. This latest recruitment drive means the mechatronic systems and electric motors specialist now employs 900 people locally.

The site in Colliery Lane, Exhall will be home to the entire seating systems operation with the window regulator side of the business housed at its existing site in Courtaulds Way, near Coventry centre.

This puts the German family-owned company in an ideal position to complete existing contracts with JLR, Nissan and Toyota, whilst also looking to secure work on new model platforms.

Coleshill-headquartered Sertec continues to grow having created more than 300 jobs in 2015, increasing turnover beyond £200m for the first time in its history.

Sertec specialises in a range of steel and aluminium manipulation and assembly processes including transfer and progression presswork, tube manipulation, wire forming, deep drawing, welded and self-piercing riveted components.

The 1,200-strong business, which has five manufacturing sites in the Midlands, plus a tooling operation in China, says it’s experienced significant demand from clients, the largest of which is JLR. The company, established in 1962, has developed a particular expertise in aluminium weld technology and has invested heavily in robotic plant and equipment for the lightweight platforms for customers’ vehicles.

Smethwick’s Hadley Group, the UK’s largest cold roll formed sections manufacturer, has pushed on, recently acquiring Holland’s Overeem to strengthen its global reach and support growth in the automotive sector.

Overeem, which was founded 85 years ago, has more than 60 employees and a turnover of £11.2m. Hadley Group itself employs around 550 people worldwide, with premises in Dubai, Germany, Thailand and a small office in France.

It has revenues of more than £100m and

“The XE is arguably the group’s most important model ever and has seen the creation of 1,700 jobs, while the F-PACE will add another 1,300” reported profits of £6.5m in the financial year to April 30, 2015.

But back to JLR on which so much of this supply chain advance depends. In 2015, JLR announced plans to double the size of its engine plant in Wolverhampton as part of a £450m expansion.

Total investment there has now topped £1bn, with the latest injection expected to create “several hundred” jobs, extending the site by 2.1 million sq ft.

The facility makes JLR’s low emission Ingenium engine, initially launched in the Jaguar XE in April 2015 and also used in the Discovery Sport model. JLR plans a £1bn manufacturing facility in the city of Nitra, western Slovakia. The factory will have an initial capacity of 150,000 vehicles and construction will commence this year. It will eventually employ around 2,800 people and make a range of all-new aluminium vehicles.

The first cars are expected to roll off the production line in late 2018.

JLR has also agreed a manufacturing partnership with Magna Steyr, an operating unit of Magna International, which will see it produce vehicles

at a plant in Graz, Austria.

And it is to build a new facility on a former RAF airfield in Warwickshire. JLR bought the 200-acre Honiley Airfield in Fen End, Wroxall, in 2014 where it currently runs heritage driving experiences. It’s planning to construct a 191,600 sq ft vehicle operations building on the land, housing workshops, paint booths and offices.

JLR also unveiled plans to double its advanced engineering and design centre at Whitley. And in March last year the group also completed the acquisition of an additional 62 acres, adding the equivalent of 30 football pitches to the facility.

It’s now holding consultations with Coventry City Council on proposals which could result in a new campus development. JLR is expected to occupy half of the site, while the remaining space will be filled by tier one suppliers.

Meanwhile, a new £150m National Automotive Innovation Centre (NAIC) will open at the University of Warwick in spring 2017.

The aim of all this is for JLR to produce one million cars by the end of the decade.

In terms of models, 2016 will see JLR’s first 4x4, a sports utility vehicle crossover, to be built at the Land Rover factory in Solihull. Named the F-PACE, it’s designed to appeal to both dads and mums on the school run, and will go up against the Porsche Macan and the BMW X4.

The most notable model in 2015 was definitely the new baby Jag, the XE. It marked the Jaguar brand’s return to the compact executive car segment, probably the most competitive sector worldwide, where the likes of the BMW 3 Series, Audi A4 and Mercedes C-Class traditionally hold sway.

It was launched as a result of around £1.5bn worth of investment in a new factory within Land Rover’s Solihull plant. The XE is arguably the group’s most important model ever and has seen the creation of 1,700 jobs, while the F-PACE will add another 1,300.

For the year to 31 March, 2015, JLR sold 462,209 vehicles around the world, generating revenue of £21.8bn, £2.4bn up on the previous year. Pre-tax profit rose to £2.6bn, up £113m.

And across the whole of 2015, JLR produced more than 500,000 cars and commercial vehicles at its three UK car factories.

In the past five years, Jaguar Land Rover has tripled its turnover and doubled its workforce, which is all great news for a sector transformed for the better. n

PROFILE WMG

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Shaping the future of automotive manufacturing WMG pushes the boundaries of science and technology. Working at the forefront of emerging technologies, it has made a real impact on the automotive sector which has resulted in cars, and companies, that are increasingly smarter, lighter and greener As Europe’s largest investor in R&D, the automotive sector is continuing to grow, developing sustainable and affordable transport for the 21st century. Now hybrid and fully electric vehicles are finding a place in the new vehicle market. In order for a car to compete it needs to meet not only the changing technological requirements, but also the social needs and demands of the consumer. This creates challenges from fundamental science, such as battery chemistry, through to manufacturing and business processes, and requires an understanding of human behaviour and responses to new technology. WMG, at the University of Warwick, is at the forefront of innovations developing technologies that help the design and manufacture of the next generation of lightweighting solutions. With a 10 year track record in delivering such solutions to industry through a series of government, European, and industry funded collaborative R&D projects, and over 30 years working with the automotive industry, WMG collaborates on multi-partner projects to make cars, and companies, increasingly smarter, lighter and greener. The primary application is addressing the UK Automotive Council Lightweight Structures and Powertrain R&D priority, however WMG works with rail and aerospace/defence partners to identify and exploit cross-sector opportunities. Key investments supporting this activity are: ENERGY INNOVATION CENTRE The largest battery test facility in the UK, with facilities to scale up battery chemistries from gram scale coin cells to full scale battery packs for prototype vehicles, and to test cells/modules under extreme abuse conditions such as crush, pierce and vibration, as well as the ability to characterise them in normal operation. Powertrain test facilities allow experimentation on complete hybrid vehicle powertrains, including the ability to test the component elements of the system on separate but synchronised dynamometers. A new battery pack manufacturing pilot line is being developed which will create a battery supply chain with massproduction standards of robustness that is high quality, low cost and fast to market.

University. The Centre is due to open Spring 2016.

International Institute for Nanocoposites Manufacturing - A first of its kind, the Institute exploits polymer processing techniques to enable industry to innovate their manufacturing technologies to produce polymer nanocomposites.

Through synthesising and functionalising nanoparticles, and incorporating such particles into polymers using innovative manufacturing techniques, industry will be able to scale up and commercialise products with added functionality.

“Academic excellence with industrial relevance is at the heart of what we do…it’s what makes WMG unique” AUTOMOTIVE COMPOSITES RESEARCH CENTRE Focusing on lightweight vehicle technologies and manufacturing capability for polymeric composites it provides industry with hands-on technical expertise and equipment to develop lightweight structures.

Facilities include forming presses, computer controlled cutting, resin mixing/ injection, plasma treatment and joining machines.

ADVANCED STEEL RESEARCH CENTRE This state-of-the-art research facility will focus on research aimed at transforming the manufacturing of steel. It will include advanced characterisation and laboratory-scale steel making facilities, which will provide a unique national resource, complimenting Tata Steel’s long term investment with WMG and the

THE NATIONAL AUTOMOTIVE INNOVATION CENTRE A collaborative £150m project with Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Motors, it is the largest automotive R&D facility in Europe and will enhance the UK’s capacity and capability in key areas of automotive research. This includes smart and connected technologies, where research has already started with the help of the world’s first immersive, simulated environment for smart and connected vehicles, a Drive-in, Driver-in-the-loop, multi-axis driving simulator (3xD). Until the Centre opens in late 2017, the simulator is being housed in the International Manufacturing Centre. The Centre will also address the shortage of skilled R&D staff across the automotive supply chain, developing the talent required for the demands of emerging technologies and engaging future generations of engineers. The UK automotive sector is spearheading progress in advanced propulsion systems, led by the Automotive Council and the new Advanced Propulsion Centre UK (APC). The University is delighted to be at the heart of this through hosting the APC Hub on campus from 2014.

If you are interested in collaborating with WMG contact our Business Development Team on 024 765 75935 or email wmgbusiness@warwick.ac.uk.

Visit go.warwick.ac.uk/wmg

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WHO’S WHO bqlive.co.uk

Shaping the future of manufacturing with Professor Robert Harrison

Professor Richard Dashwood

Professor of Automation Systems

Professor of Engineering Materials (Metals)

WMG, RESEARCH AND EDUCATION GROUP, UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

WMG, RESEARCH AND EDUCATION GROUP, UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

024 761 50825 Robert.Harrison@warwick.ac.uk www.warwick.ac.uk/wmg/people

024 765 73094 R.Dashwood@warwick.ac.uk www.warwick.ac.uk/wmg/people

WMG,International Manufacturing Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL

WMG, International Digital Laboratory, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL

Professor Paul Jennings

Professor Janet Godsell

Professor (Connected and Autonomous Vehicles) WMG, RESEARCH AND EDUCATION GROUP, UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Strategy WMG, RESEARCH AND EDUCATION GROUP, UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

024 765 73094 Paul.Jennings@warwick.ac.uk www.warwick.ac.uk/wmg/people

024 765 28038 J.Godsell@warwick.ac.uk www.warwick.ac.uk/wmg/people

WMG, International Institute for Product and Service Innovation, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL

WMG, International Institute for Product and Service Innovation, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL

Professor Richard McMahon

Professor Dave Greenwood

Professor of Power Electronics

Professor of Advanced Propulsion Systems

WMG, RESEARCH AND EDUCATION GROUP, UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

WMG, RESEARCH AND EDUCATION GROUP, UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

024 765 28647 R.McMahon.1@warwick.ac.uk www.warwick.ac.uk/wmg/people

024 765 28647 D.Greenwood@warwick.ac.uk www.warwick.ac.uk/wmg/people

WMG, International Automotive Research Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL

WMG, International Automotive Research Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL

Professor Mark Williams

Professor Ken Kendall

WMG, RESEARCH AND EDUCATION GROUP, UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

WMG, RESEARCH AND EDUCATION GROUP, UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

024 765 75361 M.A.Williams.1@warwick.ac.uk www.warwick.ac.uk/wmg/people

024 765 73094 K.N.Kendall@warwick.ac.uk www.warwick.ac.uk/wmg/people

WMG, International Manufacturing Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL

WMG, International Manufacturing Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL

Professor Sridhar Seetharaman

Professor Carsten Maple

Head of Product Evaluation Technologies and Metrology Group

RAEng/ Tata Steel Research Chair in Low Carbon Material Technologies

WMG, RESEARCH AND EDUCATION GROUP, UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

Professorial Fellow in Structural Composites

Professor of Cyber Systems Engineering WMG, RESEARCH AND EDUCATION GROUP, UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK

024 765 73309 S.Seetharaman@warwick.ac.uk www.warwick.ac.uk/wmg/people

024 765 24348 CM@warwick.ac.uk www.warwick.ac.uk/wmg/people

WMG, International Digital Laboratory, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL

WMG, International Manufacturing Centre, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL

PROFILE Crowe Clark Whitehill

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Powering manufacturing in 2016 Johnathan Dudley, National Head of Manufacturing of national audit, tax and advisory firm Crowe Clark Whitehill looks at the opportunities for growth

Johnathan Dudley Manufacturing in the Midlands is clearly on the up. Despite global issues such as oil prices and China’s perceived slowdown, this is a time of massive opportunity.

Making the most of that opportunity is what will be the deciding factor between winners and losers in coming years.

Crowe Clark Whitehill has been working for many years with Midlands manufacturers to ensure they not only understand the potential sources of finance but also appreciate the processes required to secure the funds they need.

We have worked on detailed funding proposals for a whole host of different companies for a whole host of different reasons.

Whether the requirement has been for working capital funding, acquisition finance, capital investment or development capital, we have the skills and expertise to ensure your application ticks

‘Across the region there are also many government incentives available and it is important to understand how you can tap into them to best advantage.

all the boxes. We have also been involved in raising funding for debt finance for acquisitions from local PLCs of non-core businesses.

The facilities we have assisted our clients in accessing include invoice finance, plant finance and stock finance, which has provided them with initial acquisition finance and substantial working capital lines. A good example of the kind of assistance we have been able to provide is the case where we helped a client broaden its supply chain via acquisition and also helped to fund raise for a well known Midland precision engineering business that was looking to grow capacity.

Across the region there are also many government incentives available and it is important to understand how you can tap into them to best advantage. We have benefited from seeing the process from both sides, with Crowe Clark Whitehill involved in Regional Growth Fund round 3 and 4, acting for the administrative body.

We have recently been engaging with Business Secretary Sajid Javid and the British Business Bank on what will be in the next round of financial assistance and incentives, and we will continue to lobby directly and alongside the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAEW), on behalf of manufacturing businesses and through the Local

Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and Chamber.

We suggested to the LEP that a simple “flowchart” of funds available would help businesses work through the web of agencies and funds and that led to the creation of the funding fact sheet on the Black Country LEP website.

This initiative has proved extremely successful and helped substantial funds to be put to good use in businesses, particularly manufacturers, seeking help to buy the latest machinery.

So successful, in fact, that it was copied by other LEPs around the country. The Funding Factsheet continues - for those seeking an insight into what is available, see http://www.blackcountrylep.co.uk/ business/access-to-finance Of course, we have ourselves been very successful in securing grants and financial assistance for clients in the last few years, and we are now frequently engaged to carry out the verification process as part of the grant application procedure.

It is clear from the results in Q4 of the Black Country Chamber’s Quarterly Economic Survey that many manufacturers are finding that the availability of cash is tailing off and credit is becoming stretched.

Crowe Clark Whitehill hosts the Manufacturing Business Network where some of the region’s leading business owners air their views, address issues and discuss growth and support opportunities.

In anticipation of a continued stretch on credit in 2016, our next Manufacturing Business Network will be specifically focused on maximising your working capital. Please call 0121 543 1900 if you’d like to attend.

0121 543 1900 johnathan.dudley@crowecw.co.uk Crowe Clark Whitehill LLP, Black Country House, Rounds Green Road,

Oldbury, West Midlands, B69 2DG www.croweclarkwhitehill.co.uk

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WINE bqlive.co.uk

Off the wagon James Spreckley, partner and head of agriculture and landed estates at Lodders Solicitors, enjoys his first tipple of 2016 Like many others, my wife and I had a ‘dry’ January ‘on the wagon’ and so on 1 February we sat down to taste these two wines by way of our first tipple of 2016. We didn’t feel we could do justice to the wines on our own, so we invited our neighbours, Katie and Christopher, to join us.

So, with the fire lit, a few nibbles in bowls and glasses at the ready, we began our tasting evening with the Araucano Sauvignon Blanc.

Taking our responsibilities very seriously we swirled, inhaled the aroma and considered the colour of the wine before tasting it. Both the colour and ‘nose’ brought a glimpse of summer to our fireside evening.

This is a Chilean wine from a vineyard owned by a fifth generation French wine grower from Bordeaux, Francois Lurton, who owns other vineyards in Spain, Argentina and France, attributed with saying that if he were a vine he would want to be planted in Chile. This multicultural mix seemed to be reflected in the wine which, as a group, we all felt had a refreshing fruitiness but in no way sweet and without the syrupy textures of many New World wines. So much so that Christopher had initially guessed it not to be a New World wine at all but something with a more Northern European origin. My wife Martina is not generally a white wine drinker but even she said this was a wine she could enjoy drinking on its own and the general consensus was that it would also go well with food, especially something a bit spicy such as a Thai meal.

Having made short work of the white, we turned our attention to the red, a wine from the North Eastern corner of Spain in a village called Capcanes in Catalonia. This is a wine produced by a cooperative of wine producers, Celler de

Capcanes, and from a blend of grapes, Carigan, Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache, Syrah and Merlot.

Despite sounding like a complicated mix this was a delicious and smooth red wine, having a full bodied flavour but without the heaviness that sometimes comes with it. This may be down to the fact that the wine spends nine months in oak which, my research has revealed, serves to soften the tannins whilst adding to the spiciness of the rich plum and blackberry flavours. I thought this a super wine which I would be glad to make a regular at our table, especially during the winter months. Our accompaniments were limited to some cheese and olives but this would go well with steak, sausages or game in my opinion.

What we all liked about both these wines was that you could enjoy them equally on their own or with food; and since our neighbours’ enthusiasm for them matched our own, it is clear you don’t have to have a month of abstinence to do so. n Lodders Solicitors LLP is a law firm based in Stratford upon Avon, Cheltenham and Henley in Arden. The private client law firm offers specialist advice to both private individuals and privately owned businesses, including the agricultural and real estate sectors. For more information go to www.lodders.co.uk The Araucano Sauvignon Blanc is priced £10.99 a bottle, £9.89 as part of a mixed case of 12. The Mas Collet is £12.95 a bottle, or £11.66 as part of a mixed case of 12.

Available from Connelly’s Wine Merchants Ltd, 0121 236 3837. www.connollyswine.co.uk

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‘I thought this was a super wine which I would be glad to make a regular at our table, especially during the winter months.’

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MOTORING bqlive.co.uk

John Hodgson, managing partner at the Birmingham office of Smith & Williamson, the accountancy, investment management and tax group, had an exhilarating drive of the Aston Martin V12 Vantage S

MOTORING bqlive.co.uk

One word: phenomenal. Three words: poetry in motion. Seven words: smooth, reassuringly responsive, stable and extraordinarily fast.

If you need a daily dose of excitement in your life, then the Aston Martin V12 Vantage S is for you. Aston Martin’s most extreme sports car, the new V12 Vantage S, has been confirmed as the brand’s fastest-accelerating production car to date – with the exception of the limited edition, and sold-out, One-77 hypercar.

At first glance you can tell the Vantage S is British precision engineering at its very best, and I was instantly impressed. Despite the greedy looking grille, restyled to reflect its position as the flagship of the new Vantage range, it catches the eye as a stunning piece of metal. Even the adventurous colour Zanzibar orange doesn’t detract from the understated style and elegance of the car’s smooth and sleek flowing lines.

Inside, as out, the new car has been styled to reflect its powerful nature. You slide comfortably into the new style seating – extra yoga lessons are not required.

And the interior is exactly what you’d expect: refined contemporary leather upholstery with distinctive, prominent, coordinated stitching, an uncluttered dashboard with instruments intuitively where you’d want them to be, and operating as you’d expect them to.

With minimal instruction, I found everything I needed and more as I began the simply superb driving experience.

The automatic gearbox allows you to just

point and go, which of course makes the drive incredibly effortless – and relaxing, if it wasn’t quite so exciting!

The new Sportshift gearbox is a major development, the paddle gear changes meaning you can drive the automatic harder and faster so that you get a sense of involvement rather than being carried along on a dream.

Whether chicaning down country lanes or powering down a motorway you are comforted by the ease at which you can go up and down the accelerator at all speeds. Sadly though, I didn’t get to trouble the top half of the dial which runs up to 220mph…

As you’re cruising along you begin to feel you have got to grips with this glorious machine

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and you really do relax into it. That is, until you spot the button marked ‘S’ for sport mode. And suddenly, you’re no longer relaxed…

The tiger’s been let out of the cage. The steering’s harder, the accelerator more responsive and you’re shifting along even faster.

Now the car has really got your attention, and if you’re not fully engaged then you’ll easily end up where you shouldn’t. Brilliant! Whew!

Pure power, beautifully presented. n BQ West Midlands would like to thank Aston Martin for the use of the Aston Martin V12 Vantage S. The on-the-road price of the car driven by John Hodgson is £161,760. For more information, please visit www.astonmartin.com

“As you’re cruising along you begin to feel you have got to grips with this glorious machine and you really do relax into it. That is, until you spot the button marked ‘S’ for sport mode.

And suddenly, you’re no longer relaxed…

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EXECUTIVE TRAVEL bqlive.co.uk

From a luxurious golfing and spa venue in the North East to smart, new chain hotels in central London, Steve Dyson finds three places where you can stay for less than £100 Ramside Hall Hotel and Golf Club, near Durham The last time I’d stayed at Ramside was in 2003, and so I was keen to experience what I’d been told was a £10m-plus extension, with a new luxury spa.

The results of this investment are impressive, and if you’re ever in the North East and want to relax I would highly recommend this 4-star hotel.

I stayed in a ‘Premier’ room in the new wing which was huge, really comfortable and smartly furnished, with French windows leading onto the patio that overlooked the golf course. I just loved the large bathroom with its separate walk-in shower and pedestal bath, and the modern airconditioning was perfect for a good night’s rest in a gigantic, luxurious bed.

I toured the spa and was knocked back at the new facilities: 14 treatment rooms, a 25m swimming pool, gym and exercise studios, a herbal sauna and a Himalayan salt steam room.

My stay was too rushed to experience all that was on offer, but I spoke to several guests who looked as though and confirmed that they were enjoying themselves. And I did manage to wave goodbye to tight, stressed shoulders with a quick but soothing back massage.

I then dined with a colleague at the new Fusion restaurant, with its healthy Thai-style cuisine, which felt and tasted good.

Ramside’s family owners, management and staff should feel proud at what’s clearly been a successful stage one in its modernisation programme. I look forward to visiting again after the rest of the hotel has been refurbished.

Ramside Hall is at Carrville, Durham DH1 1TD, where the starting rate for two with breakfast is £99. To book, call 0191 386 5282, email info@ramsidehallhotel.co.uk or visit www.ramsidehallhotel.co.uk

London Holborn Premier Inn I liked the location of this Premier Inn. Not only was it a short walk from Covent Garden, with all the theatres, bars and restaurants that offers, it was also situated in the quieter Red Lion Street, with decent real ale bars and a selection of good bistros.

The nearest Tube station is Holborn, a brisk walk away with a short-cut across Red Lion Square Gardens, one of those tiny but interesting patches of green that central London hides from most crowds.

Because it was only a year or so old, the hotel itself had everything that a Premier Inn always offers, but was nearly brand new: a comfortable, king-size ‘Hypnos’ bed, a 40-inch flat screen TV, a fresh bathroom with a large shower head and free WiFi. I held my business meeting next door in The Enterprise, a beautiful Victorian pub, and met a friend to eat a few doors away at the expensive but sumptuous Bacco, an Italian fine-dining venue.

Back at the hotel, in addition to the cleanliness, modern feel and low price, the staff were young, bright and friendly, making you feel that they really wanted you to enjoy your stay.

This was especially the case in the restaurant at breakfast, where they couldn’t have been more welcoming and helpful, happily bringing freshlycooked eggs to my table.

London Holborn Premier Inn is at 27-29 Red Lion Street, Holborn, London WC1R 4PS, where the average rate is £86, and breakfasts start from £8.75 per person. The best rates are available via www.premierinn.com where you should select the ‘Saver Rates’ option.

EXECUTIVE TRAVEL bqlive.co.uk

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Novotel Paddington, London I expected my stay at this Paddington venue to feel busy, noisy and crowded. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Arriving by Tube, I exited at Paddington onto the surprisingly tranquil canalside known as Little Venice, where the Grand Union and Regent’s Canals meet, home to waterside cafes, pubs and restaurants.

Then it’s just a short but pleasant walk along the canal before you turn into Sheldon Square, a huge pedestrianised enclave from where you can hear but not see any traffic.

Novotel Paddington is at the top of Kingdom Street, a safe, taxi-only road which runs off Sheldon Square, where the hotel’s bright signage and lights felt very welcoming.

This is a modern, four-star venue, with a relaxing pool and sauna, and smart restaurant and bar. But it you wanted a walk out, there’s plenty of dining choices back at Sheldon Square or along the canal.

All rooms have queen-sized beds, huge 55-inch TV screens, fridges and free WiFi, and the ‘Executive’ room I stayed in also had a coffee machine, i-Pod docking station and complimentary water.

There was a great choice of foods for breakfast which could be taken on tables with their own TV screens and headphones, which I thought was a novel idea.

Novotel Paddington is at 3 Kingdom Street, Sheldon Square, Paddington, London W2 6BD, where the starting rate for a double room is £99, with breakfast at £16.45 per person. To book call 0207 660 0679, email h6455@accor.com or visit www.novotel.com

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EQUIPMENT bqlive.co.uk

Its practicality may be a matter for debate but there’s no question that the McLaren 570S is fun to drive, as Josh Simms reports

Supermac’s everyday car McLaren Automotive wants you to know that its latest sports car, the 570S, the first of its new Sports series, comes with a vanity mirror. There’s a glove box too - a first for the company that launched just six years ago, later wowing car nuts with its £875,000 P1. There are two cup holders, 150 litres of luggage space - enough for a couple of holdalls - and even the swingup doors, a McLaren signature, have been redesigned to make the car easier to get into and, more problematically after a certain age, get out of.

In other words, McLaren is pitching the 570S the first of which should be on the road by the end of the year - as its first ‘practical’, ‘everyday’ and, at around £140,000, ‘affordable’ car. This is, note, the same car that, with its Formula

1-inspired carbon fibre mono-cell frame and aluminium panels, will propel you from 0 to 60mph in 3.2 seconds - helpful for when the weekly shop really must be done and the supermarket is about to close.

“Well, for McLaren it’s an everyday car, just providing you don’t need to get two people in the back,” jokes Robert Melville, the company’s 38-year-old head of design, ex of Land Rover and General Motors’ prestigious Advances Design Studio. “We know there’s a growth market for this kind of car. Porsche of course does it so well but this is a new proposition, because the 570S comes with that Formula 1 technology - its a sports car with super-car design. People have lives and need to be able to get in and out easily, throw some bags in

the back. But they still want the drama and excitement of the kind of cars we have normally made. Above all this is a fun car to drive.”

Certainly McLaren is serious about the proposition and with good reason: the 570S’s practicality may be debatable (the company insists it will never launch an SUV) but it still marks a step change for the British supercar company. It is ploughing some £120m in research and development - a staggering 30% of current turnover - with the ambition to be making a steady 4,000 cars a year from 2017.

By the end of this year it will have launched four new cars - as many as it has in its history to date - with the second quarter of next year seeing the 540C, an even more affordable version of the 570C. That idea of affordability

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But Melville also concedes that it is, perhaps, an odd time to be pitching the idea of an everyday super-car when the future of very high performance cars on the road is, according to some, in serious doubt - their status value diminished after a global economic crisis, their environmental credentials highly questionable and, yes, as premium SUV sales indicate, their utility in a world finding increasing appeal in getting about as easily as possible rather than as fast as possible looking to make them look like four-wheeled dinosaurs. Yet he still sees a place for them.

“These are complex issues - a lot of tech that makes mainstream cars more efficient filters down from the super-car world, and there will in time be a fully electric super-car no doubt,” may be relative, but the shift in gears certainly means that McLaren is set to become a more high-profile name on the roads rather than just the race track. The company, which in 2015 saw its second year of profitability, says some 1,000 orders for the 570S have been placed to date, mostly to customers new to the marque.

“Part of the intention with the 570S is to make McLaren much more visible and in doing so lay a foundation for the future of what is still a young company,” explains Melville. “McLaren already has wide appeal as a name. This guy serving in a shop in New York told me the other day that he loved driving the P1, which left me confused for a moment. But he meant in a video game.

It was his favourite car. So the brand is already reaching different people in different ways.”

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getting greener, more practical, and will show that their impact can be positive.”

Certainly the 570S makes its impact felt in the driving, right down - thanks to a re-engineered exhaust manifold - to the cleaner, more Formula 1 engine note. If, despite the car’s light weight just 1,313kg dry - it feels solid and assured in its normal driving mode (good for that supermarket run then) it is an altogether different animal in its ‘active’ mode: nimble, responsive, nippy but rooted too - never so super that the everyday driver feels out of control in this supposedly everyday car. That is in large part too due its aerodynamics, with the 570S’s front diffuser chanelling air both above, below and to the side of the car, where the door shape allows for a smaller side air intake and thus better

Part of the intention with the 570S is to make McLaren much more visible and in doing so lay a foundation for the future argues Melville. “Sustainability aside there is this other key issue of the connected and autonomous car too - which we’re looking at too. But part of me thinks a move away from sports and super-cars would be sad too - many people love cars because they’re fun, because they feel they can engage with them, because they make you feel something. They’re not just boxes you get in to get you somewhere. That fun element does have a future. I think the era of the American muscle car - with your V10, 8 litre engine - is over. But cars like ours will keep

aerodynamics still. All this just happens to look good too. But that, Melville might have you believe, is just a happy accident.

“For me the design aesthetic is about beautiful products that show their design. But it’s the problems we face in design, and their solutions, that create the car’s aesthetic,” he says.

“Of course, there are ways of interpreting that, and some features are about balance, or catching the light in a certain way, but really the way it looks is the way it has to look.

And that’s pretty good.” n

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Ninder Johal is such a successful entrepreneur that he’s currently also president of the Black Country Chamber of Commerce – and much more besides. Ian Halstead reports

From accountant to bhangra pop star

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ENTREPRENEUR bqlive.co.uk

It’s often said that auditors chose their career after finding accountancy too exciting, which neatly indicates the public perception of both professions.

However, it’s a safe bet that no-one’s ever met the gregarious and entrepreneurial Ninder Johal and realised he was once a dedicated student of accountancy and finance.

His passion is always allied to purpose though; and both are required in abundance given the array of positions on his portfolio.

Johal is a board governor at Wolverhampton University, and vice-chairman of the board at Sandwell College, currently president of the Black Country Chamber, a board member of the Black Country LEP and a driving force of the National Asian Business Association.

its artists.

“I still run Nachural, but my wife Narinda is heavily involved, and there’s a staff of six. My role nowadays is largely about getting the brand out there and doing the deals,” says Johal.

“Like most industries, music has been transformed by digital technology. In the old days, we needed several warehouses just to store all the CDs, but now music is much more accessible. Music is a small percentage of everything we do in terms of turnover now, but still very important because we love bhangra.

My son’s studying management and economics at Aston University, and I’m hoping he can take the label on in a couple of years.”

Johal’s other business interests include an events and video production division – whose

those fears.”

Remarkably, Johal, an accomplished tabla player, even finds time to tour with his band, Achanak, who have been playing concerts worldwide, and have issued twelve albums since forming in 1989.

“The band was the catalyst for the move into events. As we toured, I acquired a lot of knowledge about lights, sound and production, and it seemed sensible to set up a specialist business. I had to change the way I worked though after setting up the new division.

When we were playing and selling songs, our customers were mainly British Asians and foreigners. For production and events, I needed to meet different people.

“When I joined the Black Country Chamber,

His grand passion is music though, especially bhangra, reflecting the Punjabi origins of his parents. It’s some 25 years since Johal founded Nachural Records, which took the dance music of Northern India into the mainstream charts with its crossover hit by Panjabi MC – ‘Mundian to Bach Ke’ (Beware of the Boys) – hitting number one in nine countries and making the UK top ten.

“It was the first time a song in a foreign language, and played on foreign instruments, had achieved so much chart success, and it was a great feeling, especially as it took several years to break through,” admits Johal.

The song, which sampled the bass line of the theme tune to the 1980s TV show Knight Rider, was also later remixed by Jay-Z, and used on the soundtrack to the Sasha Baron Cohen movie, The Dictator, which meant another round of worldwide exposure for Nachural Records and

clients include the CBI, the NHS, HSBC and Mercedes-Benz – and Wednesbury-based HRA Loudspeakers, supplying sound systems for events and conferences.

A new brand is about to blossom offering hi-fi speakers for the audiophiles, following the HRA model of designing and manufacturing all its products in the UK. “Hi-fi still has a very ‘cottage industry’ feel, and even the established brands are only niche players, so I see a real opportunity here,” says Johal. “We’re working on the products, and will then test the market, before launching here and overseas. A lot of small business owners are reluctant to try export, but international trade doesn’t frighten me. ”However, I do understand people having a fear of the unknown, so it’s vital that the LEPs, the chambers and the other support services really engage with the business community to remove

it was only to learn about networking. As I discovered more about the movement, and the challenges which small businesses faced, I became more active, and then joined the Black Country LEP to help guide other entrepreneurs and company owners.”

His schedule would be demanding for anyone, but it’s immediately clear that Johal’s contagious enthusiasm is underpinned by a solid streak of determination.

“I was born in Sandwell in a traditional BritishAsian family, so while my parents didn’t try to push me in any particular direction, they believed in the importance of a good education.

The first generation to come here typically had very tough jobs, often in foundries and the like, so they wanted to ensure that the next generation didn’t have to survive through hard labour, and I went to Leeds to study accountancy and finance”.

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It seemed a logical route to secure, well-paid work in professional services, but after Johal’s graduation, his chosen career path became a cul-de-sac.

“I wanted to work in accountancy, but after I’d had sixteen interviews and been rejected sixteen times, I realised that accountancy didn’t want me, and it was obviously time to consider other options. I felt that if my first degree hadn’t been enough to secure me a job that I needed to add to my qualifications, so I took out a loan from Midland Bank to fund an MBA at Aston University, specialising in marketing.”

Second time round was easier, as Johal was offered several jobs, before deciding to become a management trainee with industrial giants GEC. Based in Liverpool, he found himself touring the group’s sites across the country, and although the travel became too much after a couple of demanding years, the experience was an invaluable exposure to the world of marketing and sales.

He then joined another of the country’s bestknown manufacturing brands, Lucas Industries, where the range of opportunities was much more to his liking.

“Typically, it was going into a business, analysing its balance sheet, seeing how to resolve its cashflow issues and then devising a turn-around plan,” recalls Johal. “Some of these companies were inside Lucas supply chains, some were inside Lucas itself.

“At the same time, I set up Achanak. Bhangra music was really taking off, and we had quite a big hit in the Asian market, ‘Lak Noo Halade’.

That meant we were in demand for gigs, so for a period I found myself working until the early hours, snatching some sleep and then heading off to Lucas.

“Eventually, I acquired the experience and the confidence to decide I could make a living from music, so I set up Nachural Records, signed several bhangra artists and decided to leave Lucas.”

However, persuading the wider music industry, record shops and non-Asian customers to share his love of the quirky Punjabi dance music wasn’t easy.

“I was convinced it could cross-over, but noone believed me. Eventually, I spent ten years promoting bhangra before the breakthrough. I went to Cannes and Nice, to the film festivals, trying to persuade people to listen to the music,

and over the years, it cost me a fortune.

“I used to walk into record shops in the UK, time after time, and I knew what the staff were thinking: ‘Here comes that man again trying to sell us music that nobody wants to buy.”

Johal’s dream finally became reality, but by a very unlikely route: “We’d released Panjabi MC’s songs, including ‘Mundian to Bach Ke’, in 1998, but they did nothing outside our core markets.

A good three years later, an Italian label asked if they could use it on a dance compilation, and then a Turkish label asked to use the song, so we re-released it at the end of 2002.

“Two months later, it suddenly took off in the dance charts, and in the summer of 2003, someone rang from Germany to ask if they could use the song for worldwide distribution.”

agenda, the metro mayor concept and the immediate future for the region’s economy.

“The decision to abolish the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) really was a bolt from the blue, and quite brutal too, how it was announced in an email,” says Johal. “If the Chancellor genuinely intends to ‘rebalance’ the economy, as he says, it made no sense to abolish this service.

“Everything I’ve heard about the regional MAS advisers was good, they were clearly appreciated by the companies they helped, and such a service will be missed. The amount they were spending wasn’t that great, so it won’t make much difference to Whitehall’s budgets.

“I did expect more protests from local MPs, but Labour does seem to be more focused

The call came from Warner Bros, and was followed by Sony and Universal. Copyright lawyers were also soon in touch, proposing action against record pirates pushing out counterfeit versions in the US. Johal declined, judging that their efforts would simply promote the song to even wider audiences. It proved an astute decision as the Nachural Records track became the best-selling global dance song of 2003. Jay-Z then rang to ask if he could add his voice to the song, which sent bhangra into the billboard charts for the first time.

Johal’s devotion to the cause certainly taught him the merit of perseverance, while also highlighting the narrow margins which separate success from failure. As an entrepreneur and committed believer in the Black County, it’s intriguing to get his take on the devolution

on internal issues at the moment, rather than taking the government to task.

“The wider regional picture still looks strong.

We hear regular good news from JLR, UK car sales have just hit a record high, aerospace is buoyant and the levels of foreign direct investment coming into Greater Birmingham is very impressive.

“I appreciate that China’s GDP growth isn’t as high as it was, and the collapse in oil prices has been dramatic, but we do seem to have an unfortunate fascination with bad news.

Devolution has to be good news, as long as we get sufficient finance to make a difference, and as long as the metro mayor isn’t a career politician, I’ll be happy.”

As will Panjabi MC, whose new CD is out shortly on Nachural Records. And Jay-Z? Johal still has him on speed-dial, just in case. n

PROFILE EY

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Entrepreneurial success: The rise of the middle market To mark the launch of EY’s Entrepreneur Of The Year 2016 programme, EY’s Andrew Spence shares insight on the future of the Midlands economy and the impact on entrepreneurial businesses.

MIDDLE MARKET IS THE BACKBONE OF REGIONAL GROWTH We continue to see investment across the Midlands (including foreign direct investment) alongside political developments to create a combined authority. As a consequence, we see growth opportunities for companies looking to expand and grow. The middle market in particular is having a significant impact on growth in the Midlands, with the region constantly being highlighted as having a vibrant and thriving entrepreneurial culture. Most recently, West Midlands was listed as one of the highest regional exporters in the UK and Birmingham was named a hotspot for start-up companies. Often considered to be the backbone of the Midlands economy, middle market firms are providing the jobs, innovation and sustainable growth to spur the region into a sustained period of economic recovery and prosperity. EY has strong links with entrepreneurial businesses in the Midlands through our Entrepreneur Of The Year awards programme, which last year brought in entrants; Poundland, Quotient Clinical, Inspired Thinking Group (ITG) and Mercia Group Technologies. The 33 finalists had combined revenues of over £2.4bn and employed more than 24,000 people across the region.

MIDLANDS FUTURE ECONOMIC GROWTH One of the contributing factors helping the region to nurture a thriving entrepreneurial culture is the performance of the region’s economy. New research from EY’s region and city economic forecast revealed the Midlands economy is set to grow at a steady rate of 1.7% GVA over the next three years. Birmingham’s economy is set to grow 2.1% - benefiting from the £1bn creation of Grand Central, together with planned office-led developments and ‘North Shoring’ of financial service functions to the city.

The forecast also estimated the region will have

‘The middle market in particular is having a significant impact on growth in the Midlands, with the region constantly being highlighted as having a vibrant and thriving entrepreneurial culture.’

Andrew Spence, EY Entrepreneur Of The Year leader and Partner in Entrepreneurial Services growth of 0.7% in total employment. Birmingham’s employment is expected to continue growing at a rate of 1.5% for the next three years. Jobs growth in the city has been driven by professional and support services, while HSBC’s arrival will support financial sector jobs over the coming years.

These figures prove that the region continues to attract and retain entrepreneurial talent, and certainly shows no sign of slowing down in 2016.

There’s optimism in the air amongst Midlands entrepreneurs who are continuing to invest in their businesses and have their sights set firmly on future growth.

WHAT LEGACY WILL YOU CREATE? For 30 years globally and 17 years in the UK, Entrepreneur Of The Year has been celebrating the spirit and contribution of those exceptional entrepreneurs who can see the future, and through

their entrepreneurial businesses, are reshaping it.

As we begin our search for the Midlands most innovative entrepreneurs to be named among the next generation of legacy builders, we encourage you to enter our 2016 programme, or to nominate another business leader who inspire you.

Joining this network offers the opportunity to connect with fellow entrepreneurs at a regional, national and global level, to raise the profile of your business and team with investors, prospective clients and mentors and to benefit from EYs insight into ways to help you accelerate your business growth, developed over years of working with some of the world’s most inspirational entrepreneurs.

If you would like details on how to enter EY’s Entrepreneur Of The Year programme, contact Andrew Spence on 0121 535 2887 or aspence1@uk.ey.com or visit www.ey.co.uk.

BIT OF A CHAT

Bill Borde’s examining the news behind the headlines From dunce to doctor

Famous cousins You know what they say: everyone’s related to someone famous. And the same goes for BQ’s fledgling entrepreneurs.

Charlotte Rogers, founder of Castle Valebased Aquatiser, is the second cousin of Aston Villa and England defender Joleon Lescott.

Rogers’s dad, Cynrick Lescott, was born in St Kitts and Nevis, where his sibling gave birth to the Premiership star. Many of the family now live in Birmingham where they regularly get together.

Read the full feature on Charlotte Rogers on pages 20 to 25.

The Birmingham man who heads budget brand Poundland has revealed how his headteacher told him he’d ‘never make anything of his life’.

Jim McCarthy, who grew up in Birmingham, told the story as he picked up an Honorary Doctorate from Birmingham City University for his outstanding achievements in business.

McCarthy said: “I decided to leave St Phillip’s (Birmingham) at the age of 17, part way through my A-levels with the words of the headmaster ringing in my ears: ‘McCarthy, you’ll never make anything of your life.’

“I can’t say that this drove me on to perform any better. But I certainly never forgot it!” McCarthy became chief executive at Poundland in 2006 and recently oversaw their acquisition of 250 outlets from 99p Stores.

You’re pulling my chain Some press releases just make me laugh – and tempt me to try out all sorts of word-plays.

One that plopped (you’ll get it in a minute) into my inbox last month was too good not to share: ‘Flushed with success’ was the PR’s own headline on a story about a local toilet-cleaning company scooping a trio of awards.

We Clean Ltd, based in Rubery, wiped the competition (sorry about that) to win the ‘Loo of the Year’ Award at the national Loo of the Year Awards held in Solihull.

The company also splashed (do you see?) the award for England, and staff member Baba Sechan won Individual Attendant of the Year Award for top brushing as head housekeeper at Brindleyplace.

We Clean – formed in 2003 by directors David Harker and Paul Concannon – scours posh bogs at Birmingham Hippodrome, Symphony Hall, Birmingham Town Hall, the Assay Office, Solihull School and many other blue chip venues.

As the old saying goes, even the Queen has to …. (Editor: that’s enough loo jokes!)

Balti chardonnay I love news about counter-intuitive business success. A great recent example was UK-based Indian wine maker Soul Tree Wine winning a bronze award at the International Wine Challenge 2016 in London.

Based in Birmingham it was the only Indian vintage to scoop an award, and initially had me frowning in disbelief.

But then I discovered that the brand is stocked at 800 restaurants, hotels, bars and pubs across the UK. Soul Tree’s winemaker Dr Rajesh Rasal told me: “The Indian wine industry is very young, and a lot’s gone into it, including borrowing from international best practices and applying them to the unique soils, climate and conditions in India.”

Tim’s lady Blues Giant sign entrepreneur Tim Andrews has proved what a ladies’ man he is – by becoming chief executive of Birmingham City Ladies Football Club.

Andrews’ new role for the Blues – currently in the FA Women’s Super League – puts him in charge of all off-field activities to try to meet the team’s financial demands.

Andrews, who also heads the Hollywood Monster signs company, said: “I’ve supported Blues from a young age and this is a dream come true.”

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EVENTS

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BQ’s business diary helps you forward plan

FEBRUARY 29

IoD, Black Country Mastermind group, 9am-12pm, Higgs & Sons, Brierley Hill. Details: sue.hurrell@Institute of Directors.com

29

IoD: Mastermind group, Weston Hall, Stafford 6-9pm at Weston Hall, Stafford. Details: sue.hurrell@Institute of Directors.com

MARCH

18

GBCC, Solihull AGM & Networking Lunch, 11am-2.30pm, Village Urban Resort, Dog Kennel Lane, Shirley, Solihull, B90 4GW. Members £25, non-members £35. Details: 0121 678 7488 or solevents@solihull-chamber.com

22

GBCC, Business Breakfast with John Clancy, Leader of Birmingham City Council, 7.30-10am, city centre venue tbc. Members £15, non-members £22.50. Details: 0121 607 1772 or events@birmingham-chamber.com.

22

GBCC, Customer Service Essentials, 9.30am-12.30pm, 75 Harborne Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 3DH. Members £95, non-members £120.

Details: 0121 607 1891 or j.crosbie@birmingham-chamber.com

22

GBCC, Solihull Chamber – Speed Networking, 4pm-6pm, Solihull College, Blossomfield Road , Solihull, B91 1SB. Members £10, non-members £15.

Details: 0121 678 7488 or solevents@solihull-chamber.com

03

GBCC, Future Faces - Teamwork; Understanding your role, contribution and impact, 5.30-8.30pm, KPMG, One Snowhill, Snow Hill Queensway, Birmingham, B4 6GH. Members / non-members £15.

Details: 0121 607 1836 or k.evans@birmingham-chamber.com

04

GBCC, Lichfield & Tamworth Professional Networking Lunch, 12.15-2pm, Drayton Manor Hotel, Drayton Manor Theme Park, Tamworth B78 3TW. Members £18, non-members £25.

Details: 08450 710 191 or c.plant@chase-chamber.com

24

08

GBCC, Burton Chamber Business Breakfast, 7.30-9am, Branston Golf & Country Club, Branston, Burton-on-Trent, DE14 3DP. Members £15, non-members £20. Details: 01283 535640 or c.plant@chase-chamber.com

IoD, Women’s International Day in association with Enterprise Nation and KPMG, 6-8.30pm, KPMG, Birmingham.

Details: sue.hurrell@Institute of Directors.com

30-01

IoD, The Director’s Role in Strategy and Marketing course, Library of Birmingham. Details: sue.hurrell@Institute of Directors.com

IoD, Finance for Non-Financial Directors course, Library of Birmingham.

Details: sue.hurrell@Institute of Directors.com

APRIL

10

IoD, Winning Business series: In the Mind of the Professional Buyer, 7.30-9am, New University of Wolverhampton Business School.

Details: sue.hurrell@Institute of Directors.com

13

GBCC, Documentary Letters of Credit, 9.15am-4.30pm, 75 Harborne Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 3DH. Members £210, non-members £230.

Details: 0121 607 1772 or events@birmingham-chamber.com.

10

GBCC, Burton Chamber – Women in Business, 11.30am-2pm, Hoar Cross Hall, Makers Lane, Hoar Cross, Burton On Trent, DE13 8GS. Members / non-members £15. Details: 01283 535640 or c.plant@chase-chamber.com

14

14

GBCC, Women in Business Annual Conference, 9.30am-3.30pm, DeVere Venues, 5th Floor, Colmore Gate, Birmingham, B3 2DX. Members £24, non-members £36. Details: 0121 607 1772 or events@birmingham-chamber.com.

GBCC, Business Breakfast with Paul Kehoe, Chief Executive, Birmingham Airport 7.30-10am, city centre venue tbc. Members £15, non-members £22.50. Details: 0121 607 1772 or events@birmingham-chamber.com.

21

IoD, Visit to In-Comm Training Shropshire and Salop Design & Engineering/Powder Coating, 7.30-9.45am.

Details: sue.hurrell@Institute of Directors.com

15

GBCC, Effective Networking, 9.30am-4.30pm, 75 Harborne Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 3DH. Members £215, non-members £240.

Details: 0121 607 1891 or j.crosbie@birmingham-chamber.com

26

IoD, World IP Day - Intellectual Property Impacts Every Business, 6pm, Birmingham Airport. Details: sue.hurrell@Institute of Directors.com

15

IoD, Role of the Non-Executive Director course, Library of Birmingham.

Details: sue.hurrell@Institute of Directors.com

28

IoD, Member Dinner, St Pauls Club, Birmingham 7pm. Details: sue. hurrell@Institute of Directors.com

16

GBCC, Quiz Night with Solihull Chamber for Age UK Solihull, 6-9pm, Solihull College, Blossomfield Road , Solihull, B91 1SB. Members / nonmembers £15. Details: 0121 678 7488 or solevents@solihull-chamber.com

28

GBCC, Annual Dinner & Awards 2016, 6pm to midnight, International Convention Centre (ICC), Broad Street, Birmingham, B1 2EA. Members / non-members £130. Details: 0121 607 1772 or events@birmingham-chamber.com.

07-09

BQ’s business events diary gives you lots of time to forward plan. To add your event, email details to steve.dysonmedia@gmail.com, with ‘BQ events page’ as the email subject heading.

Please check with contacts beforehand that arrangements have not changed. Events organisers are also asked to notify us at the above email address of any changes or cancellations as soon as they are known.

KEY: BBBC, Birmingham Business Breakfast Club. GBCC, Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce. IoD, Institute of Directors. UBBC, University of Birmingham Business Club.

The diary is updated daily online at bqlive.co.uk