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ISSUE TEN: WINTER 2012
making the cut The rapid risers of Scotland’s tech scene final straight Finish line in sight for sporting leader channel changer Switching on to a televised revolution good with money The reluctant millionaire with charity in mind
speaking up
How an entrepreneurial champion became a powerful voice in the fight to defend Scottish business interests ISSUE TEN: WINTER 2012: SCOTLAND EDITION
BUSINESS NEWS: COMMERCE: FASHION: INTERVIEWS: MOTORS: EVENTS
SCOTLAND EDITION
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WELCOME
BUSINESS QUARTER: WINTER 12: issue ten Welcome to Business Quarter. This is our tenth edition in Scotland. We’ve been heartened by the support and good wishes we received since we began in 2010 when we had Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne of Genius Foods on the cover. Her continuing entrepreneurial success was exactly the right tone for our new magazine. In this edition we make no apology for focusing on Glasgow. A city that can be a brilliant place: a vibrant, cosmopolitan metropolis and the real merchant city of Scotland. It is the essential driver for our future. Yet this great Scottish city has a list of unpleasant legacies. It tops the UK tables in terms of levels of poverty, long-term unemployment, crime and illness. The Guardian recently asked why is Glasgow such a sick city? It couldn’t give a definitive answer, but it suggested that there was a lack of hope among too many of its citizens. This is exactly what Sir Willie Haughey, Glasgow’s most successful business figure, talks about in his Business Lunch, at the splendid Rogano’s. While his favourite football team sing of walking on with ‘hope in your heart’, he gives hope for the young people by giving them a proper start in the workplace. With Glasgow 2014 only 18 months away we thought it would be great to talk to Lord Smith of Kelvin, the chair of the Games. He epitomises the can-do spirit of the global Glaswegian. And he’s there to ensure that the Games are an unqualified success and leave a sense of hope for the city. He’s also one of the busiest business people in the UK, so we were delighted to catch him. We’ve interviewed Nosheena Mobarik, not only the chairman of CBI Scotland, but a Glaswegian business figure who represents another strength of the city – a home to a large community of Asian-Scots who have settled and prospered in the city. While Stuart Patrick, the chief executive of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, talks about a real sense of co-operation in the city with the politicians, business leaders, the universities and the public sector working more closely for the city’s economic welfare and development.
BQ talked to Rob Woodward, the head of Scottish Television, a company enjoying a hardwon revival in its fortunes which highlights the importance of a strong commercial creative media sector in the city. While Susan McCann, made redundant for a bank job, represents that resilient bounce-back character of the Glasgow person. She set up her own food business and the spicy SIMPLYaddCHILLI brand, now delighting customers in Waitrose in Byres Road and Newton Mearns, among other places. We’ve also got an added BQ2 on Advanced Engineering in Scotland, which features some of the brightest businesses in Scotland, including another great Glasgow company, winners of the Deloitte Fast 50, M Squared, a laser and opto-electronic business based in the West of Scotland Science Park. So as we head into 2013, it’s important for us all to understand that the rest of Scotland needs Glasgow to be working harder than ever and working together to overcome its challenges. We hope you enjoy BQ Scotland and find it a good use of your time. We’d like to take the opportunity of wishing you all a prosperous New Year. With a real sense of hope, 2013 could be the year that leads us out of recession. Kenny Kemp Editor, BQ Scotland
CONTACTS room501 ltd Christopher March Managing Director e: chris@room501.co.uk Bryan Hoare Director e: bryan@room501.co.uk George Cheung e: george@room501.co.uk Euan Underwood e: euan@room501.co.uk EditorIAL Kenny Kemp Editor e: editor@bq-scotland.co.uk Andrew Mernin Sub-editor e: andrewm@room501.co.uk Valerie Daroch Editorial Karen Peattie Editorial Design & production room501 e: studio@room501.co.uk Photography KG Photography e: info@kgphotography.co.uk advertising For advertising call 0191 537 5720 or email sales@bq-magazine.co.uk
room501 Publishing Ltd, 16 Pickersgill Court, Quay West Business Park, Sunderland SR5 2AQ www.room501.co.uk room501 was formed from a partnership of directors who, combined, have many years of experience in contract publishing, print, marketing, sales and advertising and distribution. We are a passionate, dedicated company that strives to help you to meet your overall business needs and requirements. All contents copyright © 2012 room501 Ltd. All rights reserved. While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, no responsibility can be accepted for inaccuracies, howsoever caused. No liability can be accepted for illustrations, photographs, artwork or advertising materials while in transmission or with the publisher or their agents. All information is correct at time of going to print, December 2012. room501 publishing Ltd is part of Business & Enterprise Group, the UK’s market leading business improvement specialist. www.business-enterprise.net
THE LIFE AND SOUL OF BUSINESS
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SCOTLAND EDITION BQ Magazine is published quarterly by room501 Ltd.
BUSINESS QUARTER |WINTER 12
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MINIMALISM Official fuel economy figures for the MINI Cooper D Hatch: Urban 67.3mpg (4.2l/100km). Extra Urban: 80.7mpg (3.5l/100km). Combined 74.3mpg (3.8l/100km). CO2 emissions 99g/km.
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Douglas Park BMW continues to grow
Douglas Park BMW’s brand new state-ofthe-art Aftersales complex and M Centre specialising in the sale of M Products was recently launched in Glasgow. With TV personality Jim White, hosting the evening and BMW Managing Director, Tim Abbott in attendance Douglas Park BMW pulled out all of the stops to make the night both enjoyable and memorable. BMW Managing Director, Tim Abbott; compared the new facility among the best he had ever seen…not only in the UK but in the world. This was followed by the site being officially opened by Tim and the presentation of a commemorative plaque to Chairman Douglas Park. Aftersales Manager Jim McGregor leads the established team of highly qualified technical experts who have literally hundreds of years of BMW experience between them and are all trained to BMW’s meticulous standards. Customers have lots to gain from this impressive 24 bay workshop, including a drive-through drop off and collection point, service while-u-wait, health checks, car displays and a 24 hour booking facility - all designed to make the experience more convenient and hassle free for customers. We also have an expert team of Parts Advisors who will be more than happy to assist and advise on both BMW and MINI products. The hi-tech development has taken over all of the aftersales work from the existing site on Kyle Street which is currently undergoing a major redevelopment itself and will remain as a dedicated retail branch. The new super-site is due to be completed next summer and will ensure that we are able to offer the very best service to our customers in a modern and comfortable environment.
The launch of the new complex compliments our existing Douglas Park aftersales outlets on Bothwell Road, Hamilton and Hillington Road, Hillington which is also home to a dedicated bodyshop. The atmosphere throughout the building is one of enthusiasm for the product and commitment to the customer. Whether you’re already a BMW owner or perhaps would just like to see what all the fuss is about, you’ll get a warm welcome at Douglas Park BMW, Pinkston Road, Glasgow. Pinkston Road Aftersales Centre features include: • A covered drive-through drop off and collection facility • Service while-u-wait • Business Centre • Collection and delivery • 24 bay workshop, wheel alignment and MOT facilities • Luxurious customer welfare and relaxation area • Customer drop off service • Dedicated Motability / disabled parking • Trade and retail spare parts hub • Extensive display of BMW & MINI accessories and lifestyle collections • Experienced BMW and MINI on-site technical team • BMW vehicle display • Ideally located with access to the city centre and M8 • Extensive customer parking • Tyre supply and fitting • Valeting options, full valet available • Saturday morning opening • FREE standard car wash • FREE Wi-Fi • Shuttle service • 24 hour booking facility • FREE customer parking
BMW Managing Director, Tim Abbott
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WINTER 12
COMPANY VIEWPOINT
Pursuing the Angel’s Share of Life Sciences funding In light of recent signs that angels may prefer less risky vehicles, what can life sciences companies do to make themselves more attractive to investors? Scotland’s business angel set-up is one of the most mature in Europe, and the envy of many other countries. This is in large part due to the enthusiasm of Scots angels for taking a risk on new ideas. To grasp new thoughts and technology. To venture into the unclear – if not the unknown. Life sciences can get complicated, but the angels have had the courage to invest, bringing time, expertise, experience and money into a relatively new sector. The angels may now, however, be shifting their direction of flight. The angel network in Scotland has always been a positive driver of the life sciences sector. However, angels have not been immune to economic turmoil, and as a result, some are finding more traction within traditional sectors – with a renewed appetite for investing in companies that produce something they instantly understand. Less thrilling perhaps, but also less risky, and a strategy which lends itself to the growth of the small business sector, particularly in Scotland where 30,000 new businesses have started up in the past year, according to the latest Scottish Government figures. So where does this leave life sciences? Definitely not out in the cold, but some simple new ideas could better sustain the growth of this sector. Scotland has a long history of discovery and innovation, and so far, an excellent handle on modern day life sciences with the research parks, the capability, the talent base, the incubators and the appetite for growth that the sector demands. Indeed, BioCity Scotland, which opened this year in Lanarkshire, underlines the strength of opportunity here, which extends not only to pure life sciences companies, but also to the support tech and supply services that go along with a burgeoning sector. Harnessing specialist investment is the next step. Creation of a dedicated fund for the Scottish Life
Mike Harkness, Director, Scott-Moncrieff
Scotland has a long history of discovery and innovation, and so far, an excellent handle on modern day life sciences Sciences market would allow different investors to group together in their exposure to the ‘regional’ life sciences sector, providing seed level equity investment into early stage bioscience, pharmaceutical, medical technology and healthcare businesses. This model could allow angels that want to retain their core interest in life sciences do just that, thereby creating a more stable structure for life sciences investment – something Scotland should be thinking about if we are serious about the long term viability of the sector here. There’s also an argument that says the sector itself needs to respond to this change in the angels’
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approach to risk. Life sciences have always been defined by differences with regards traditional investment. But those differences could now be deemed slightly less palatable. If angels want to keep things simple, then the life sciences sector needs to find a way to simplify things too, and present investment opportunities in an accessible way that make investment in the sector marketable. The key barriers to investment in life sciences tend to be the numbers (too big), the timescales (too long) and the risks (too high). To encourage more investment, the life sciences sector needs to think about how to turn this around. A tranched approach to investment, which capitalises on milestones within the development of new technologies, could be the answer. Breaking down a project into bite size pieces would allow investors to lessen the risk of their investment, see results (albeit in terms of milestones rather than completed projects) and generally provide greater comfort around the process. Business angels are active, but their support isn’t guaranteed. The life sciences sector may need to do some R&D of its own to create long term investment. One thing we can be confident of though, as one of the most innovative sectors, if there are ideas to be generated, the life sciences sector surely won’t come up short.
Mike Harness is a Director at Scott-Moncrieff specialising in innovative solutions for accounts and compliance and has particular experience in advising fast growing technology and life sciences companies. For more information contact michael.harkness@scott-moncrieff.com
BUSINESS QUARTER |WINTER 12
CONTE BUSINESS QUARTER: WINTER 12 final straight
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Features
mum likes it hot
28 speaking up Meet Nosheena Mobarik, an articulate voice for business in Scotland
34 final straight Lord Smith of Kelvin on the countdown to Glasgow 2014
40 mum likes it hot The home-grown business success with more than a little kick
BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 12
50 channel changer Inside the televised revolution taking place in Glasgow’s Pacific Quay
76 boy done good The Yorkshireman who turned his wealth into a force for good in Scotland
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TENTS SCOTLAND EDITION
46 commercial property
The deals and developments shaping Scotland’s skyline
the channel changer
56 business lunch A cool knight in Glasgow takes time off the campaign trail to talk to BQ
Regulars
60 wine Glasgow Chamber of Commerce’s Stuart Patrick enjoys a tipple
62 motors On the road to paradise in a stylish BMW 4X4
10 on the record Focus on Scotland’s fastest firms and the forces that drive them
14 news Who’s doing what, when, where and why, here in Scotland
26 as i see it Time to raise a glass to the philanthropists among us
66 fashion
50 cool knight in glasgow
A trip to the land of luxury with an age-old Italian brand
70 equipment What happens when super-cars cross the path of practical SUVs
80 bit of chat Gripping gossip from our backroom boy
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56 BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 12
ON THE RECORD
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>> On the guest list to global exposure Five stars of Scottish business are relishing the many benefits that come with their acceptance into a prestigious club
Gareth Williams, CEO, Skyscanner
Paul Copland, Deloitte
Skyscanner has just moved into one of the funkiest offices this side of the Atlantic. It is on two-floors of Quartermile One in Edinburgh on Lauriston Place, and it should be the template for all great working spaces. Professor Timothy O’Shea, principal of University of Edinburgh, dressed in dinner suit and bow-tie, looked oddly out of place among the casually-garbed computer geeks and marketing shirts at the opening of Scotland’s second fastest growing technology company. But the professor spoke about a ‘corridor of excellence’, from Edinburgh College of Art, taking in the National Museums, to the School of Informatics, the largest in the UK, with Skyscanner offering first-class job opportunities on the door-step for computer graduates. Gareth Williams, the Skyscanner chief executive, is clear that growing a world-class business in Edinburgh, which is employing dozens of nationalities, requires a relationship with a top flight university, such as Edinburgh. This is how things can work best and why Skyscanner is one of this year’s Deloitte Fast Tech 50. The five companies, M
Squared Engineering (1,603%), Touch Bionics (1,242%), both featured in our BQ2 report on advanced engineering, Skyscanner (805%), Pinnacle Technology Group (740%) and Reactec (558%). Paul Copland, director of the TMT team for Deloitte in Scotland, has watched the companies very closely. “It’s been an excellent year and we could see this coming through from last year’s figures. What is encouraging it that the five Scottish companies all have very different technologies, which can only be a good thing. There is a whole load of highly technical skills that these companies are exploiting” he says. The Deloitte awards have been running since 1998, when regional awards were held, now it is across the UK. So five out of 50 – at 10% of the total - is a good ratio for Scotland. “Companies have come through some very challenging years,” says Copland. “There’s no reason why the five can’t be in the list next year.” Skyscanner have been in four out of the last five years, which represents a real level of
BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 12
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growth. The company, which is also opening up an office in Singapore, is recruiting another 100 in Edinburgh in the next 12 months. The internal Chinese travel market alone is set to boost sales. So could they do it again next year? “When you are looking at pure revenue growth on an annual basis, it is a fair feat to meet this level consistently to appear in the Fast Tech 50,” says Paul. ”It also depends on the growth strategy of a business because, with the way the calculation works, it can be organic or through acquisition.” What are the benefits of being in the Deloitte list? Mike McGregor of Deloitte, says: “One thing that business leaders do say is that because it is an international award across various jurisdictions, when they are having business discussions or meetings they are not walking into the reception cold. The Fast 50 award is a common point of engagement.” For Paul, it is the up-to-the-minute research that is crucial too. “The biggest thing for us is that we get an understanding of what is going on underneath the bonnet of many of these companies. From the standpoint of the hot markets and where people need to see their growth and development. In Scotland there are some very, very smart people coming out of the universities with some fantastic ideas. Seeing where these guys look to get these ideas commercialised and developed is paramount. Clearly the Scottish and UK market on its own is not sufficient for emerging technology companies and the exposure that they need.” It is about seeing the international opportunities and being able to respond properly. “The positives for the Scottish and UK market is that you are seeing emerging technology funds and backers coming back into these areas. The Business Growth Fund is particularly active which will allow these companies to grow to a scale and help them get larger,
WINTER 12
rather than seeing trade sales as the only option. There are a variety of options for business at the moment which haven’t been available for the last couple of years. Hopefully, this will change things and seed the growth and success that we need in Scotland.” One of the biggest challenges is finding the right sales people to sell products that are often very complex, and working out whether it is a case of selling the product or the software services and licences. For example, do Scottish companies have the necessary sales forces to deliver? Jim O’Hagan, the managing director of Reactec, who joined in February 2010, has helped take an innovative meter which measures vibration to guard against whitefinger (the top occupational health diseases in Britain) and pitch it into the target market. He first came across Reactec during a
ON THE RECORD
round of fundraising in 2009 with chairman Jim McNair. “I thought WOW this is such a fantastic product, they have some brilliant customers and the health and safety legislation for power-tool operation is driving this. It was literally untapped and what they needed to do was sell, sell, sell. Everything was in place, the problem was they weren’t selling across the UK in particular.” He says being in the Deloitte Fast 50 two years in a row has been fantastic news – and he is aiming for it again next year. While construction has been an area of growth, the tool hire companies are now sending out the HAVmeter with power drills and other vibrating tools. Four out of the top five are using the HAVmeter to programme the tools. “Utilities, such as the water companies, and rails have been very good for us too. We have huge potential because not every tool has a meter on them yet,” he says. Reactec
is also helping companies save money on proper tool utilisation and managing the costs of hire. Pinnacle Technology Group, the only listed Scottish company of the five, has been growing as a telephone network, ISP and VoIP platform, through a series of consolidations and targeted acquistions. “We underwent a fundamental restructuring in 2007 and it took us two years to start producing concrete results. But we now have recurring revenue streams and we’re enjoying a period of growth,” says Alan Bonner, the founder and chief executive officer. He is a veteran of the UK’s telecoms industry, and joined by another experienced hand, former Thus boss, Bill Allan, who is chairman while John Anderson, of the Entrepreneurial Exchange, is a non-executive director. All agree that the Deloitte exposure is worth its weight in orders. n Read more on the Tech 50 firms in BQ2
Where inspiration strikes www.deloitte.co.uk/fast50 © 2012 Deloitte LLP. All rights reserved.
23502A lb InspirationAD.indd 1
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BUSINESS QUARTER |WINTER 12
ON THE RECORD
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>> Volume of chamber voices set to rise Times may have changed since a chamber of commerce first emerged in Glasgow, but its role is as key as ever, writes Kenny Kemp
Glasgow Chamber of Commerce has always been in the thick of the city’s commercial action. In January 2013, it will celebrate its 230th year of activity, which is an outstanding feat. It is the oldest chamber in the Englishspeaking world with continuous records, having been set up on 1 January 1783. “It has always been established as a mechanism for business folk in the city, originally for the merchants to gather together to tackle the major challenges that Glasgow faced,” says Stuart Patrick, the chamber’s chief executive. While today’s business figures might think life is tough, the original merchants were banding together to deal with the American War of Independence, which disrupted their tobacco and cotton trade from the plantations. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 ended the war, but meant Britain had lost the 13 colonies of the United States. “That was the original challenge when the
BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 12
chamber was set up – and there have been quite a few in the years since then. The concern then was about finding new markets. Now we have a financial crisis of unreasonably large scale and we’ve got to find an increase in our export market again.” Glasgow has an astonishingly rich mercantilist heritage featuring statesmen such as Kirkman Finlay - the most prodigious chamber president, former rector of Glasgow University, director of the Royal Bank of Scotland, an MP - and James Finlay, the chief of the tea trading
company. His success included breaking the monopoly of the East India Company and the outrunning the Napoleonic blockade of Britain. “The chamber is now back at the forefront of the co-ordination of the leadership of the city, not just to open up new markets but to re-establish Glasgow’s positioning and understanding of the role it plays in crucial 21st century industries,” says Stuart, who is steeped in Glasgow’s economic development and spent nearly 20 years with Scottish Enterprise Glasgow and the Govan Initiative,
The chamber is now back at the forefront of the co-ordination of the leadership of the city
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although he also been involved with the city’s licensed trade. On Glasgow 2014, he is confident Lord Smith and his team will do a great job of running the Games. But there is a unique opportunity in the next 18 months. “What we have to do is decide what does Glasgow want to say to the world; what is its story? What is it that now defines Glasgow and what is the basis for our future prosperity? The chamber has been very active in the establishment of the Glasgow Economic Commission and the Glasgow Economic Leadership Forum, chaired by Strathclyde University principal Sir Jim McDonald, and the City Centre Action Plan, including the upgrading of George Square. “Right at the heart is a re-appreciation of what Glasgow has got going for itself. There doesn’t need to be any angst about our engineering
ON THE RECORD
heritage. We should be rediscovering and re-celebrating it. Glasgow: a world centre of excellence for Engineering. That’s got to be one of the cards that Glasgow plays.” But he says there are three or four more that Glasgow can add, including low-carbon industries, life sciences, financial services, education, business and leisure tourism, with the Commonwealth Games a catalyst to tell that story about Glasgow.” He says the chamber is a vehicle for communication and an opportunity for businesses to speak to each other and build up the story of what they want to say. It is also a channel for the public sector to work with the private sector. “We’re part of the team in Glasgow because that’s our mission,” he says. Membership is 1,800 and it is growing. “We’re beginning to see some of those who have lapsed their membership over the years
now coming back because we are at the heart of what is going on in the city.” Perhaps the chambers in Scotland need to press for even more representation as they look enviously at their European counterparts. In the UK, joining a chamber of commerce is voluntary. By contrast, in Germany, all trading companies have to join their local Industrie und Handelskammer (IHK), which is responsible for vocational training in trade and industry. And the Munich and Upper Bavaria Chamber, the largest in Germany, has a very powerful voice with over 367,000 companies. While compulsion in joining organisations is not really a Scottish characteristic, increasing the levels of involvement and participation by business people will enhance Glasgow and Scotland’s commercial community. n On p60: Chamber boss turns wine reviewer
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BUSINESS QUARTER |WINTER 12
NEWS
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Cupcake move breaks the mould, angels on the rise, top of the pops join forces, contact firm called in, Malcolm gets a banking boost, trade trips revealed, and green plan gets going We could not operate effectively in the market at our size and so we took the decision to exit the market and focus on our profitable and growing core businesses Homes and Timber Systems”.
The performance is testament to the strength of our business, our experience and our quality >> Hunter heads home >> Cupcake move breaks the mould Bradford’s Bakers, one of Glasgow’s best known family firms, has launched the UK’s first bakery ATM in Glasgow’s St.Enoch Centre, offering a selection of cupcakes. Claire Bradford of Bradford’s Bakers said: “We might be a fourth generation family firm, but launching the first Bakery ATM in the UK in Glasgow shows that we’ve never stopped looking for fresh ways to service our customers. “Our Bakery ATM will be restocked each morning with a choice of seven cupcake flavours and cakes dispensed will be baked at our local bakery that morning.”
>> Strong foundations Stewart Milne Group, one of the UK’s leading house builders and a major contractor for the 2014 Commonwealth Games athletes’ village, has announced a strong trading performance with operating profit up 21% on the previous year. The core business achieved an operating profit of £19m and a net profit of £7.4m. The group incurred non-recurring costs of £8.29m attributed to the closure of their construction business (£6.9m) and other group restructure costs (£1.3m), resulting in an overall group operating profit of £12.1m and net profit of £0.5m. Turnover for the last year to June 2012 rose from £229.1m to £268.1m.
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Chairman and Chief Executive, Stewart Milne said: “Our overall performance of our core business was positive and we’ve delivered improved operational profit and marginally improved net profit, despite the cost of exiting the construction market and restructuring. The performance is testament to the strength of our business, the experience of the management team, and the consistent quality of our products and service.” The group sold its construction arm to Kier Construction. Managing Director, Glenn Allison explained: “We took a view that in the current market, to be successful in the construction sector it was critical to either be a larger player or a niche market provider.
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Livingston James, a new name in Scotland’s executive search industry, has moved to its new Glasgow headquarters, at 218 St Vincent Street in Glasgow, with a significant investment boost and continuing increases in staff. The company has just secured investment from UK Steel Enterprise, the job and wealth creation subsidiary of Tata Steel. It also has offices at Randolph Place in Edinburgh.
>> Angels on the rise Scottish early-stage companies received over £15.6m through angel investment during the first nine months of this year, compared with £12.4m during the same period in 2011, a 26% uplift from Scottish angel syndicates, report LINC Scotland, the national business angel association. Over £10m was attributed to LINC members, which is up 36% from the £7.4m invested between January and September 2011. LINC represents 19 angel groups across Scotland and this year they have completed 59 investments, compared to 54 during the same period last year. Public sector investment >>
Open and ready for business
Advertising feature
There’s a common misconception that banks aren’t lending. Bank of Scotland most certainly is.
Local knowledge, local support
As part of Lloyds Banking Group, we lent £12.5bn last year to small and medium sized enterprises and we’re on track to exceed this in 2012*. This is in contrast to a decline in net lending growth across the industry of four per cent.
Perhaps our biggest commitment is to local knowledge. This supports our undertaking to meet every reasonable request from viable businesses for competitive, commercially priced finance. Our Senior Managers and Relationship Managers across Scotland have personal authority to sanction lending applications, which means quick decisions can be made by managers who understand the customer’s business and its ambitions, as well as the wider economy.
Rebuilding confidence Although we’re open for business and lending, many businesses are telling us that due to the economic conditions they lack the confidence to borrow and invest in their business. However, we’re dedicated to boosting confidence and its gradual rise since May is helping us support those businesses that see opportunities. How do we support this commitment? We’re encouraging enterprise by assisting businesses in their start-up and expansion plans and one way we are doing this is through the Bank of Scotland Funding for Lending Scheme, which utilises the Government’s Funding for Lending Scheme, to allow Scottish businesses to benefit from reduced funding costs. This means we can offer a one per cent reduction in the interest rate for new business loans and hire purchase.
Business support Alongside their local or specialist roles, many of our staff are volunteer enterprise mentors. They act as sounding boards for entrepreneurs when they develop their business plans and access appropriate funding options to support businesses’ needs.
Access to finance Every sector is different and so is every customer. That’s why our Relationship Managers work
Ian Collins, Area Director, Scotland South, Bank of Scotland
closely with alternative providers of finance from across the wider Lloyds Banking Group. Loans and overdrafts may not always be the most appropriate solution, but asset based funding solutions or Invoice Finance might be. As big advocates of the Government’s specialist lending schemes, we’re also helping local businesses access cheaper borrowing. To find out how Bank of Scotland can work with your business, please contact me on 07764 287 926 or email Ian.Collins@lloydstsb.co.uk www.bankofscotlandbusiness.co.uk
Any property given as security which may include your home, may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage or other debts secured on it.
All lending is subject to a satisfactory credit assessment Bank of Scotland plc Registered Office: The Mound, Edinburgh EH1 1YZ. Registered in Scotland no. SC327000. Licensed under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 under registration number 0593292. We subscribe to The Lending Code; copies of the Code can be obtained from www.lendingstandardsboard.org.uk * Figures for Lloyds Banking Group as of August 2012.
NEWS
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has also increased from £6.12m to £6.17m. The amount of investment raised between both the private and public sectors has increased overall by 18% from £18.49m to £21.79m. During the year, 49 companies have received funds from Scottish angels; of these 15 are new companies, which is nearly 40% increase on the previous year with the remaining 34 already existing across the angel portfolios. David Grahame, CEO of LINC Scotland, said: “It would appear that the economic backdrop and challenges faced by companies failing to secure funding from traditional routes, such as the banks is creating an opportunity for the angel groups to support up and coming Scottish talent. The results are extremely encouraging; especially the number of new companies that have received angel investment during 2012.”
The economic backdrop is creating an opportunity for angel groups >> Wind deal signed Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond has signed a memo of understanding with French company, the AREVA group and Scottish Enterprise on industrial site development for the manufacture of wind turbines in Scotland. The deal has potential to create 750 direct jobs in the manufacture of wind turbines and blades. The MoU is a step towards establishing an AREVA factory in Scotland that will manufacture its 5 MWe turbines for offshore projects, complementing AREVA’s Le Havre facilities that will supply France, Belgium and more southerly UK projects. It is part of the group’s strategy to establish a manufacturing base that will cover the European market from three main industrial hubs in Germany
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(Bremerhaven), France (Le Havre) and the UK (East of Scotland). The group is one of the leading offshore wind suppliers in Europe where the installed base for offshore is expected to exceed 40,000 MWe by 2030. Luc Oursel, chief executive officer of AREVA, said: “This demonstrates the group’s commitment to contribute to the development of an ambitious offshore wind industry in the UK. The Scottish site will complete our industrial plan to supply European offshore wind projects and will strongly position us to grasp opportunities in the extensive UK market.” Lindsay Leask, senior policy manager for Scottish Renewables, said: “This commitment is yet another example of how we are quickly becoming an attractive destination for global investment in our emerging offshore wind industry. We have the potential to rejuvenate our heavy industries and manufacturing sector by continuing to support offshore wind which in turn will create much needed jobs in the east coast - it’s hard to see another industry in Scotland with the potential to generate hundreds of new highly paid and highly skilled jobs and opportunities and millions of pounds of investment?
are currently operating at peak productivity. The result, according to CEB, is that employers who fail to look closely at working structures and the skills they are teaching employees are unlikely to realise their growth expectations. Conrad Schmidt, global research officer of CEB said: “Post-recession risk aversion means most employers remain reluctant to invest significantly in increasing the size of their workforces to bring about growth. The focus is therefore squarely on building greater efficiency in the workforce, but there’s a growing risk that companies’ perceptions of their employees’ spare capacity are disconnected from the true position. With growth now firmly on the corporate agenda, it’s critical companies understand precisely how they can foster greater efficiency.”
The focus is squarely on building greater efficiency in the workforce
>> Productivity problem
>> Contact firm called in
Employers are facing a gap between their productivity expectations for employees and the ability of workforces to deliver. 55% of workers questioned by the business advisory firm CEB stated they can’t handle the stress of their jobs for much longer. The increasing strain on workers is a result of headcount reductions which have forced remaining employees to take on additional responsibilities, dealing with larger networks of people around the world and depending on more complex IT. Despite the increasing strain, employers are looking to boost growth through further efficiency gains among their workforces rather than through growing headcount. On average, executives are demanding 20% output increases from their workforces and believe only one in three of their employees
Response, a contact management centre based in Glasgow, has secured a multi-million pound, three-year contract extension with insurance provider, esure. The extension will see Response’s continued provision of both inbound and outbound services, with the focus of the campaign being sales through service. Brian Bannatyne, managing director of Response, said: “This is great news for us, and reflects the performance of our people in delivering fantastic sales results and excellent customer service.” The company recently announced a contract with ScottishPower worth £20m over the coming three years - a deal which will create 300 new positions at its CityPoint location.
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>> Top of the pops join forces Soft drink rival IRN-Bru makers AG Barr and Britvic have agreed the terms of a recommended all-share merger. The new company will be called Barr Britvic Soft Drinks plc. The merger will create one of the leading soft drinks companies in Europe, based in Cumbernauld, with annual sales of over £1.5bn, a portfolio of strong brands including Rubicon, Strathmore, Tango, J2O, Fruit Shoots, and significant prospects for growth. The merger ratio will be 0.816 new AG Barr shares for every Britvic share held, resulting in Britvic shareholders holding approximately 63% and Barr shareholders holding approximately 37% of the issued share capital. “The combination has compelling commercial and industrial logic given the high level of complementarity between the two businesses in terms of brands, sales channel presence and geographic presence within the United Kingdom,” says Roger White, the AG Barr chief executive. The boards of AG Barr and Britvic believe that the new group will be able to achieve recurring annual cost synergies of approximately £35m through overhead savings, procurement savings and supply chain enhancements. The merger will provide an opportunity to achieve at least £5m from annual net revenue synergies through utilising the combined distribution channels, brand portfolios and geographic presence. The boards expect to build up synergies progressively of £40m in 2016.
unemployment figures. When a very small business expands its workforce by one or two, the character of the business changes in a way that a large organisation doesn’t and government support should reflect this. “Many of the job creation schemes which our members come across focus on helping find jobs for a particular segment of the unemployed. If we turn that focus round and ask those businesses with most recruitment potential what would get them hiring, we could see the creation of far more sustainable jobs. Not only that, we will see more small businesses expanding, helping develop a broader, stronger economic base.” Micro-businesses make up nearly 94% of all Scottish businesses and provide 27% of all private sector jobs. Two out of every five (40%) unemployed people who find work in the private sector go to work in a micro-business or become self-employed.
Unleashing their potential could make a serious dent in unemployment >> Local powers must act
>> Minnows need help Scotland’s 321,000 smallest firms could create more jobs and boost further local economies if they were provided with more tailored help, says a report from the Federation of Small Businesses. The study, called Micros Untapped, examines the experience of more than 650 of Scotland’s smallest employers and their interaction with government job schemes and agencies. It finds that there are distinct issues with recruitment in micro-businesses, which employ fewer than ten people, and that many of the current national job creation schemes do not work well for them. Rather, the FSB argues, local schemes designed to meet the smallest businesses’ needs should be rolled out.
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This new support should be based on more than wage subsidies, the report warns, arguing that specialists should guide businesses through recruitment and employment processes. Schemes similar to the support advocated in the study have been trialled successfully in Falkirk, the Highlands and Edinburgh. The research comes after new figures from the Scottish Government show that the number of small employers and self-employed individuals rose by close to 10% cent between 2011 and 2012. Andy Willox, the Federation of Small Businesses’ Scottish Policy Convener, said: “The potential and sheer number of micro businesses in Scotland means that better support to help them unleash their potential could make a serious dent in the
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Scotland’s planning minister, Derek Mackay MSP, says local authorities must fully use their powers of compulsory purchase of property and land to the drive towards Scotland’s economic recovery. Addressing an autumn 2012 planning conference, organised by solicitors Wright, Johnston & Mackenzie, the minister outlined steps the Scottish Government is taking to push the recovery forward and called on businesses and local authorities to be more ambitious. The conference heard of key cases which illustrate the use of the powers, including the extension to Glasgow’s Buchanan Galleries site, a case which was decided in the UK’s highest court.
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COMPANY PROFILE
Gaining a Strathclyde business masters in your own time Strathclyde Business School (SBS) is a pioneering, internationally renowned academic organisation that shapes and develop the business minds of tomorrow. We offer the highest quality business education and management development for both inexperienced graduates and senior managers. Strathclyde is a triple accredited business school: one of a small percentage worldwide to be triple accredited, holding accreditation from the international bodies, AMBA, AACSB and EQUIS. We have a reputation for research excellence and have nine international centres in Europe, Asia and the UAE. SBS offers a wide variety of programmes in all business disciplines – accounting and finance, economics, human resource management, management, management science, entrepreneurship, and marketing. In addition to full-time study, many programmes are available to study on a part-time basis. Part time study lets you improve your career prospects by gaining an excellent business qualification, which is flexible enough to fit around your working and family life. Our part time MSc programmes include Human Resource Management, Global Energy Management, Masters in Business Administration (MBA), Business Analysis and Consulting and Operational Research. The part-time Human Resource Management programme is CIPD-accredited, and can be studied at Diploma or Masters level over 24 or 36 months. A recent graduate of the HRM programme said, “I did the MSc in Human Resource Management part-time, over three years. During the first two years you do the diploma, learning about employment law, for instance, and that gives you your CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) membership. I then took a break from studying and came back to finish it off, and get my Masters, a few years later. “Doing this means you can tailor it to do it at the right point in your career. I concentrated on
The MBA has had a part-time study option since 1976 and has consistently proved a popular choice for those who wish to gain this prestigious qualification without sacrificing career and finance stability Culture Change which was very relevant to my employers, RBS, at that time, who supported and paid for me to do the MSc. All in all, the tuition was excellent, the support was really, really good, and I’d definitely recommend it.” The MSc in Global Energy Management (GEM) was launched this year and could initially only be studied full-time. However, due to market demands, the Masters programme can now be studied part-time. GEM is aimed at producing high flying energy professionals. Offered over two years, it is a highly flexible programme that allows
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students to take courses in different sequences over concentrated periods. Through their electives, students can also tailor their courses to suit their interests or job requirements. The programme also requires students to take an internship, which can be either in their current workplace or in another energy related organisation. The MBA (Masters in Business Administration) has had a part-time study option since 1976 and has consistently proved a popular choice for those who wish to gain this prestigious qualification without sacrificing career and finance stability. Many of those who have done the MBA this way have seen promotion as a direct result. The MSc in Business Analysis & Consulting aims to realise the potential of graduates, so that they immediately play an effective role in providing model-based support to managers to help them make better decisions at a strategic level while the MSc in Operational Research is designed to provide structured and analytical approaches to decision-making at an operational/technical level. Both of these programmes can be studied on a part time or flexible learning basis. Finally, launched last year, our Executive Masters in Hospitality and Tourism Leadership offers senior managers in the hospitality and tourism sector or from a service industry looking to move into this rapidly expanding market, an exceptional professional development opportunity. Twelve intensive modules are delivered over two years in Glasgow, Lausanne, and New York.
To find out more about our part time programmes, visit www.strath.ac.uk/business
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>> Logistics acquisition
>> Service champion
>> Banking boost
John Menzies, the newspaper wholesaling to aviation services group, has bought the Orbital Marketing Services Group in a £13.6 million deal. Orbital is 51% owned by BP Direct Mail Company and 49% by Rydlings Limited, whose shareholders comprise the existing management team who will remain with the business. Orbital has a portfolio of UK based logistics and marketing services businesses serving the travel, tourism, education, charity, publishing and healthcare sectors. The company was established in 1972 and it employs over 550 staff at nine locations across the UK. Orbital reported an operating profit of £2.2m and assets of £13.5m. It is a cash generative business and the acquisition will be earnings enhancing in the year to 31 December 2013.
Scottish Life, the pensions specialist arm of the Royal London Group, based in Edinburgh, has been voted Best for Service for the third consecutive year, in the life and pensions category of the 2012 Financial Adviser Service Awards. Scottish Life also received the 5 Star Award for the fourth year running. The awards were presented at the Natural History Museum in London. Ewan Smith, managing director of Scottish Life, said: “For Scottish Life to have achieved a 5 Star Award for four years running, and Best for Service for the last three years, is an outstanding achievement and one we’re very proud of.”
The Malcolm Group, the UK logistics, construction services & waste management business, has agreed a £50m refinancing of its funding requirements involving a club of three banks. The refinancing involves Barclays, HSBC and Santander providing a flexible fiveyear funding package to support the group’s growth across the medium term. Global legal firm DLA Piper acted for Malcolm Group. The Malcolm Group, which began as a family business in the 1920s, has grown significantly to form a high quality logistics group of UK scale together with a focused construction services and waste management division, operating as a main sub-contractor in the Scottish construction sector. Group assets include over 2,000 employees, 450 vehicles, 1,000 trailers and 120 items of heavy plant. Over four million square feet of warehousing and depot infrastructure are managed throughout the UK. Andrew Malcolm, chief executive officer of Malcolm Group said: “This refinancing package will allow us to continue to grow the business in line with our strategic plan and capitalise on new opportunities as they arise.” “DLA Piper’s support and expertise in navigating through the legal documentation to complete the deal has been invaluable.” The DLA Piper team was led by David Morton, assisted by Dianne McFall and colleagues in its corporate and property departments. David Morton, head of DLA Piper’s Finance & Projects team in Scotland, said: “This was a multi-faceted re-financing deal. “At a time when banks continue to come under fire for not lending to firms, this deal proves that companies with a strong and viable business can still secure significant funding,” he added.
>> Keep on trucking North East road transport firm Grampian Continental has launched an additional UK premises in northern England as a result of continuous business growth. The company, based in Kinellar, Aberdeenshire, recently launched new premises in Bedlington, near Newcastle, which becomes the firm’s third UK base. The expansion includes a £70,000 investment for the firm with the employment of four new members of staff and the premises will offer easier access to new trade lanes, complementing its European service from the UK. The awardwinning firm, named Scotland’s European Haulier of the Year 2012, has shown significant growth in the last year with an expansion to its premises in Aberdeen, the launch of the firm’s second European base in Verona, Italy, and an increase to its modern fleet. The new Bedlington premises boast a 205 square metre warehouse along with an acre of yard space. The opening of the office is part of a five-year investment for the company and will see the firm expanding into new trade lanes within the UK focussing mainly on London, Manchester and North East England.
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>> Toast to a tot The Glenmorangie Company was the toast of the International Wine & Spirit Competition after being named 2012 Distiller of the Year. Glenmorangie was first named UK Spirits Producer of the Year and then went head to head with some of the biggest global distillers for the biggest prize. Glenmorangie’s 25 Year Old was the winner of the title for Best Single Malt over 15 years Old.
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This allows us to continue to grow the business and capitalise on new opportunities
Edinburgh attraction raises a glass to expansion
Business case study All information correct as of November 2012.
An Edinburgh visitor attraction is looking forward to its 25th anniversary next year after significant investment with the support of Bank of Scotland. The Scotch Whisky Experience, located on the Royal Mile, was established in 1988 and offers an interactive tour experience, whisky shop, bar and restaurant, allowing visitors to learn about and purchase a wide range of Scotch whiskies. It welcomes around 300,000 visitors a year, with 80 per cent of these coming from overseas. The majority of these come from Europe and North America but an increasing (L-R) Ian Craig (Bank of Scotland) with number of tourists from China, Russia and South America Tony Dick (Scotch Whisky Experience) are visiting the attraction. Three years ago, the business invested £3m to upgrade the tour and add more interactivity providing the financial support we have needed and foreign language facilities. Earlier this year, to consolidate our position as one of Scotland’s “Since 1988 we have built a further £1m was spent refurbishing the shop leading five star visitor attractions.” to create a much improved retail experience. Ian Craig, Relationship Director at Bank of a relationship with Bank Financial support to help with both these Scotland, said: “The Scotch Whisky Experience of Scotland based on projects was provided by Bank of Scotland, has built up a strong reputation among visitors which has been the business’ bank since the from around the world. Its continued appeal transparency and trust, and Scotch Whisky Experience first opened. is testament to the hard work and dedication this has made the bank The company, which currently employs 60 of Tony, Susan Morrison, Director and General people, is constantly looking for new ways to Manager, and the business’ founder Alastair an important part of our grow and keep the business up to date and McIntosh, as well as the wider team. support network.” competitive. “At Bank of Scotland, we understand how Tony Dick, Finance Director at Scotch Whisky important both tourism and the food and drink Tony Dick, Finance Director at the Experience, said: “We operate within the very sectors are to the country’s economy, and we Scotch Whisky Experience competitive tourism sector so it is important work hard to ensure our customers in these that as a business, we constantly look to industries get the guidance, support and funding innovate and make the experience that we offer to visitors they need to support their growth.” as good as it can be. “This ethos has led to significant investment in the last To find out how Bank of Scotland can work with your few years, and Bank of Scotland has been instrumental in business, please visit www.bankofscotlandbusiness.co.uk
Any property given as security which may include your home, may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage or other debts secured on it.
All lending is subject to a satisfactory credit assessment Bank of Scotland plc Registered Office: The Mound, Edinburgh EH1 1YZ. Registered in Scotland no. SC327000. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority under number 169628. Licensed under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 under registration number 0593292. We subscribe to The Lending Code; copies of the Code can be obtained from www.lendingstandardsboard.org.uk
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>> All under one roof A one-stop-shop for Edinburgh-based businesses has been opened by Sir Tom Farmer and council leader Andrew Burns at the City of Edinburgh Council’s headquarters. Building standards and planning are now working alongside Business Gateway, the national advice programme, in a new Business Development Centre located in the city’s Waverley Court.
>> Trade trips revealed Scottish Development International and UK Trade & Investment has announced details of its trade mission programmes, which helps Scottish companies access both traditional and fast-growing markets across the world. Working in partnership with business support company BE Group, the programme helps companies enter new markets and provides support to help them grow their business overseas. A series of trade missions will be run to allow the companies to scope out opportunities. Anne McColl, Chief Executive of SDI, said: “Despite the challenges in the global economy, there has never been a better time for Scottish businesses to think about breaking into new markets. “The weaker pound means that our products are more competitive and new ways of communicating and doing businesses have stripped away many of the barriers to trading overseas.” Details from www.sdi.co.uk
There has never been a better time for Scottish businesses to think about breaking into new markets
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The UK’s business secretary Vince Cable, with Lord Smith of Kelvin, the chairman, and Shaun Kingsbury, the chief executive officer of the new bank.
>> Green plan gets going Business Secretary Vince Cable has declared the UK Green Investment Bank open for business and announced two new investments. The bank is a major boost for Edinburgh and Scotland. The new institution has been funded with £3bn of government money and will mobilise additional private capital from pension institutions and sovereign wealth funds to make a significant contribution to the development of a green economy. Speaking in Edinburgh, where the new bank is headquartered, Dr Cable said that UK GIB had made its first investment since becoming operational, committing £8m to a project in the North East of England that will generate energy from waste. This will attract a further £8m of matching private sector funding. The construction of an Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plant at Teesside is the first of six planned over the next five years, making it the largest single project in the UK. The investment, made through fund manager Greensphere Capital, is part of a £80m investment programme by UK GIB in small waste projects. “The Green Investment Bank - a key coalition pledge - is now a reality. It will place the green economy at the heart of our recovery and
position the UK in the forefront of the drive to develop clean energy. £3bn of government money will leverage private sector capital to fund projects in priority sectors from offshore wind to waste and non domestic energy efficiency, helping to deliver our commitment to create jobs and growth right across the UK. Having the headquarters in Edinburgh is a powerful vote of confidence in the Union, and a testimony to our commitment to helping Scotland lead the green revolution,” said Vince Cable. The Business Secretary also announced that UK GIB will invest £5m to retrofit Kingspan’s UK industrial facilities with systems and services that will reduce its energy consumption by as much as 15%. This investment, through Sustainable Development Capital, is UK GIB’s first project supported in its £100m non-domestic energy efficiency investment programme. Dr Cable made the investment announcements with the bank’s chairman Lord Smith of Kelvin and chief executive Shaun Kingsbury in Edinburgh to officially launch UK GIB. They were joined by Energy Secretary Edward Davey, Scotland Secretary Michael Moore and Energy Minister Greg Barker. The Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore said: “The UK Green Investment Bank is now ready to have a real and positive impact
ONLINE: For the latest breaking business news from Scotland and the wider UK visit BQ’s website www.bq-magazine.co.uk
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on investment in our green and renewables sectors that will take them into new areas and potentially new opportunities. “We have the best of both worlds: a headquarters in Edinburgh, at the centre of Scotland’s thriving businesses and asset management, coupled with a team based in London, the world’s leading financial centre.” Lord Smith said: “The Green Investment Bank has the potential to be a game-changing component of the UK’s low carbon economy, and a profitable centre of excellence in specialist and renewable investment. “Over the coming months and years, I am confident that our excellent team will put its many years of expertise to work on building
the foundations of that sustainable economy, and facilitating the important investments that will ensure its long-term good health.” He has said he hopes Scottish SMEs in the green energy sphere will apply for funding. The bank has been established as a public company, UK Green Investment Bank plc. Following state aid approval from the European Commission it is operational as an independent bank. In September 2012 Shaun Kingsbury was appointed as Chief Executive along with six non-executive directors - Professor Dame Julia King, Fred Maroudas, Tom Murley, David Nish, Professor Isobel Sharp CBE and Tessa Tennant. Priority sectors are offshore wind, waste
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treatment and recycling and energy from waste and non domestic energy efficiency, others include, biofuels for transport, biomass power, carbon capture and storage marine energy and renewable heat. Read a full interview wih Lord Smith on P34.
We have the best of both worlds with an HQ in Edinburgh and a team in London
>> BQ people on the move Tim Clarke, divisional managing director of Balfour Beatty Construction Scottish and Southern, has been appointed chairman of the new Construction Scotland Industry Leadership Group. Tim brings over 30 years of industry experience, and will play an instrumental role in establishing the new Industry Leadership Group to drive the industry’s ambition for growth forward. Mark Elliott has been made chief executive officer of McCarthy & Stone, the retirement home group. Mark led Arena Leisure, the UK’s largest operator of horse racing and hotel venues, and oversaw the redevelopment of Doncaster and Lingfield racecourses, and several contracts for the London 2012 Olympic venues. Prior to Arena Leisure, Mark spent 15 years at Wembley plc, latterly as CEO, where he was instrumental in disposing of the stadium. Innes Smith has been appointed managing director at Springfield Properties, one of Scotland’s largest privately owned house builders. The company operates from 20 sites across Scotland and expects to build in the region of 400 homes this year.
Steve McHardy and Jill MacDonald have been appointed joint managing directors of Craig International Supplies, a division of global shipping and energy services firm Craig Group, They have a combined experience of 29 years with the oilfield procurement company, with the likes of National Oilwell and Aker Kvaerner. DNV, the multinational provider of risk management and sustainability services, has appointed Peter Boyle as UK regional director based in Aberdeen, Scotland. Peter is also responsible for the business growth of DNV’s marine and offshore advisory services across the UK, through its 100 consultants based in London, Manchester, Glasgow and Aberdeen. Gillian Boston has been appointed senior financial services audit manager with mid-tier accountancy firm Scott Moncrieff. Gillian, a specialist in statutory and regulatory reporting within the financial services sector, will work from the firm’s Glasgow and Edinburgh offices. There has been a double promotion for Mark Ingram and Steven Greig at the offshore recruitment specialists, Orion Group, in Aberdeen. Mark Ingram becomes acting chief
operator responsible for a clients in the UK, Holland and the Caspian. Steven, promoted to divisional director, focuses primarily on Aberdeen, which contributes one third of Orion Group’s overall turnover. Morisons Solicitors has appointed Andrew Sloane, a senior figure with the Scottish Investment Bank (SIB), as a partner with the corporate team. Latterly head of transactions, Andrew was with bank for over five years before deciding to return to private practice. Property consultant CBRE has strengthened its Scottish retail division with the appointment of Euan McGonigle as a senior surveyor. Euan, who will be based in the Glasgow office, joined from property consultancy DM Hall. Benny Higgins, chief executive at Tesco Bank has been appointment as a non-executive director of the Buccleuch Group. The Duke of Buccleuch said he was delighted that Mr Higgins had agreed to join them. He becomes the second non-executive director from outwith the family, joining Joe Scott Plummer, former chairman of fund managers Martin Currie.
If you’d like to include someone on the move, please email editor@bq-scotland.co.uk
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POWERING THE HUB
Be part of somewhere Genuinely‌ Inspiring Our inventive spirit gave the world the lightbulb, steam engine and Lucozade! Get the energy your business needs to thrive. Talented
A skilled workforce ready for a challenge, and world-leading universities to nurture tomorrow’s talent.
Connected Three major ports, an international airport and offshore energy fields just off our stunning coastline. Networked Major businesses including Duco, Wellstream and Bridon, who reap the benefits of an established, collaborative supply chain.
Flexlife and Technip Offshore Wind have already seized the opportunity. Visit www.investNewcastleGateshead.com and see what they have to say.
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COMPANY VIEWPOINT
Finding the skills to sustain and grow the future of the offshore industry Newcastle and Gateshead’s Inward Investment Agency discuss the offshore skills issues currently limiting growth. The national skills shortage within the offshore sector is highly documented, with the need to get more young people seeing the value of a career within oil, gas and renewables. The rapid and ongoing expansion of the sector, coupled with the emerging needs of the renewable energy sector is presenting very real challenges to businesses; slowing down growth at a time when the UK should be a forerunner. Flexlife, a specialist subsea support provider recognises these challenges; responding by looking at where new talent can be found. Andy Lake, director of operations suggests: “Establishing successful remote operations to tap into a new pool of talented people offers a critical path to long-term sustainability. “Although the work we do as a sector is some of the most cutting edge, in many ways it is a very traditional business. Our company HQ is in Aberdeen however we knew we had to source new talent so we looked to other locations where we could acquire fresh ideas yet still offer employees a challenging role with a market leading company where the quality of life delivered direct benefits; and we found that in NewcastleGateshead. “The culture of our business is important to our success and initially concerns were expressed about ‘exporting’ this culture into the new team’s working style. Overcoming initial concerns over a lack of face-to-face engagement with Aberdeen was important. Clearly Newcastle and Gateshead’s transport connections with Aberdeen are invaluable.” Newcastle and Gateshead’s Inward Investment team regularly hear from companies about how vital the culture of a company is in delivering success. Low staff turnover provides continuity for long-term projects and reduces operating costs. There are many examples of companies increasing their graduate intake to develop individuals, embed the desired culture, train them for the needs of the business and encourage loyalty
Flexlife’s Andy Lake through ongoing professional development. Technip Offshore Wind has increased their graduate intake this year. James Russell, head of project services, confirms: “I see this extending as graduates allow us to recruit ambitious, project-driven individuals with the opportunity to train them for our future needs whilst allowing us also to develop the next generation of experienced engineers the industry needs.” Dr Rebecca Strachan, Associate Dean in the Faculty of Engineering and Environment at Northumbria University, concurs: “Both Northumbria and Newcastle universities offer a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes delivering a vibrant and skilled pool of graduates and postgraduates each year. Many of our undergraduate programmes include a work-based placement, enjoying an excellent reputation with employers such as Shell, Nissan and Siemens, providing them with high-quality students with the right combination of knowledge, skills and expertise.” Lake adds: “We’ve found being able to develop and integrate new people with new skills into the company provides a healthy balance alongside our more established professionals.”
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Ron Jamieson at Newcastle University echoes the importance of a skilled graduate pool. The CEO of the Regional Centre of Innovation and Design, said: “Recently we have hired good students under our ‘keeping the best’ scheme. This has allowed us to place them in companies for up to three months to work on new and innovative projects. They gain invaluable insight into how the business works enabling them to come to the business world with the relevant experience.” So although UK Government has ambitious targets; companies and universities also have to respond innovatively to ensure graduates have the necessary skills to add immediate value. Dr Strachan warns that commitment to ongoing training and skills throughout an individual’s career are critical: “Flexible learning and continuing professional development is vital to build skills and retain staff. Recently Northumbria University and Penspen collaborated to offer an online distance learning Postgraduate Certificate in Pipeline Integrity Management. Penspen Ltd had recognised that staff at their client companies increasingly wanted to learn at home, at their own pace, but also that there was a skills gap that needed addressing.” Incremental changes to the way in which a company addresses skills challenges can be fundamental to the growth of the company and its ability to win new business, build new partnerships and acquire the innovation needed from the next work-force generation.
NewcastleGateshead Initiative Inward Investment team Tel: +44 (0)191 4405764 www.investNewcastleGateshead.com Twitter: @tynetoinvest
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Raise A Glass Philanthropy today means far more than just money, says Laurence Brady, who predicts the concept of giving to play a vital role in business in 2013
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If they lead to more generosity in society and more partnerships across the public and private sector then we can all celebrate with a dram
There are plenty of reasons to be thankful for Scotch whisky this Christmas and New Year. But perhaps one of the most neglected is the significant contribution that the industry makes to Scotland’s charities and voluntary sector. Charitable trusts and foundations funded by Scotch whisky profits are among the most generous grant-givers. Sample these two. In 1961, three sisters – Elspeth, Agnes and Ethel Robertson – re-named their father’s and grandfather’s whisky businesses after a local farm. At the same time, they donated their shares in the business, now called The Edrington Group, for a new philanthropic initiative that they called The Robertson Trust. The sisters insisted that donations made a notable difference to the benefiting charities. In 50 years of grant-giving The Robertson Trust has distributed more than £100m. Last year alone it helped nearly 750 charities in Scotland. Like Robertson, The Gannochy Trust is a stalwart of the Scottish voluntary sector. The Gannochy Trust is the philanthropic legacy of A K Bell, the son of Arthur Bell who started his whisky business in Perth. The Trust that A K Bell created is 75 this year, and charities in Scotland celebrate receiving over £4m from it annually. Robertson and Gannochy are just two examples of mature, traditional approaches. Of course, it’s not only the whisky industry that has been generous. Other major grant-giving foundations in Scotland exist because of wealth generated through banks, buses, books, oil, and family businesses. Philanthropy practised by the larger grant-makers is still developing. Kenneth Ferguson, director of The Robertson Trust, emphasises the pro-active nature of the Trust’s approach today. “There is definitely a move away from just
funding projects. Now, it’s about giving more than the money. It is about sharing contacts and helping charities with capacity-building. It’s important that core costs are supported.” But many leading and aspiring philanthropists are not excited by the idea of giving their money away to an endowed trust or foundation that spends only a small percentage of its net worth each year. They want to see the impact of their philanthropy in their lifetime. One philanthropist who holds the ‘take action now’ point of view is the French hedge fund manager and co-founder of the international children’s charity Absolute Return For Kids, Arki Busson. For over ten years, Busson and his colleagues have successfully mobilised the financial services industry to raise between £15m and £25m each year from a single, star-studded gala dinner in London. When I interviewed him for Seven Pillars Of Philanthropy*, he was adamant about the need to address the needs of humanity today: “People are dying now. And so when you see these big, endowed organisations with billions, you wonder why they barely give the money out and what they are doing with it.” Pierre Omidyar, the co-founder of e-bay is another who questions the spend-it-gradually tactic. He has pledged to give away 99% of his wealth over the next twenty years, and is willing to spend in excess of US$100m a year to help solve today’s social problems. His approach is admired by Sir Richard Branson, Bill Clinton and Bill Gates who said
of Omidyar in a USA Today interview earlier this year, “Pierre approaches his philanthropy with an innovative and entrepreneurial spirit that we can all learn from.” Omidyar himself has observed, “Philanthropy is not just about giving money. Money matters, but impact matters more.” These are just some of the different ways of embracing and delivering philanthropy. There is no immediate prospect of models of social impact investing or hands-on venture philanthropy replacing the more traditional, stewardship models of charitable trusts and foundations like the Robertson and Gannochy. Each can be inspiring to other business sectors and would-be philanthropists. And if they lead to more generosity in society and more partnerships across the public and private sector for local and global needs, then we can all celebrate with a dram. In 2013, it would be inspiring for all of us to hear of more Scottish businesses and successful Scots embarking on innovative and dynamic giving that is strategic and with a long-term impact. Whatever their passion and formula for philanthropy, their generosity is needed in Scotland and around the world. Here’s to them. n *Seven Pillars of Philanthropy by Laurence Brady is available now as an e-book. Laurence Brady is a writer, adviser and blogger on inspirational philanthropy at www.sirthomasliptonfoundation.org
ONLINE: Read more news and views from Scottish business leaders. www.bq-magazine.co.uk
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BRIEFCASE in one hand, winter coat and umbrella in the other, Nosheena Mobarik OBE is “relieved” to be spending a day in Glasgow having been in London for the most of the week. Walking up the steps to the main entrance of the elegant building in the city’s St Vincent Street where her company M Computer Technologies is based, she is keen to talk about her business and her role as chairman of the lobbying organisation, CBI Scotland. Mobarik, whose endearing and fun personality can often mask the fact that she is an extremely able and tenacious business woman, has a brief discussion with Iqbal, her husband and business partner with whom she founded the software company back in 1997, before getting down to the business of the moment. Today’s interview is not so much about the well-documented success of M Computer Technologies but her CBI Scotland role. Seated and composed, she starts by talking enthusiastically about the CBI annual conference – one of her reasons for
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being in London – which saw Prime Minister David Cameron unveil a four-pronged strategy to “eliminate bureaucratic rubbish” and dismantle some of the procedures that have slowed down economic growth. In a wide-ranging keynote speech to business leaders, Cameron also pledged radical reforms to speed up the way the Government takes key decisions in order to help boost economic growth. “There’s no doubt that we must all make decisions more quickly,” says Mobarik. “Opportunities can be lost if we don’t and that stifles growth. Sometimes we’re all guilty of spending too much time talking about doing something when we should be out there doing it.” Pakistan-born Mobarik is into her second year as CBI chairman having been drafted in two years earlier than planned after Glenn Allison, managing director of house builder Stewart Milne, decided to postpone taking up the chairmanship due to work commitments. “I suppose it was a case of hitting the ground
running,” she says. “We’ve been members of the CBI for 10 years now and I’ve sat on various committees so I wasn’t daunted by the prospect of starting my stint sooner.” As the first Asian to chair the CBI in Scotland and only the second woman – Mobarik succeeded Linda Urquhart, the highly regarded chairman of law firm Morton Fraser – she is almost resigned to the inevitable questions about ethnicity and gender. “People are always going to want to focus on the fact that I’m a woman running a successful business and an Asian woman running a successful business,” she suggests. “But I think we have to move on from that debate. I am also the first chairman of CBI Scotland to come from a small business but none of these things are an issue for me – I always judge people on their abilities and their character, and I expect people to judge me in the same way. However, I do understand why it is a debate that interests people but I would rather >>
An articulate voice for business in Scotland Nosheena Mobarik is the first chairman of CBI Scotland to come from a small business. Her company, M Computer Technologies, has just 14 employees – so Nosheena’s rise to national prominence is a remarkable achievement. Karen Peattie caught up with her in Glasgow
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ENTREPRENEUR be sending out a signal that we have a very diverse business community in Scotland. The CBI is very representative of that diversity and, as a woman, I naturally want to see more women in senior positions. “But I don’t just mean boardroom positions. Yes, it would be great to see more female CEOs and managing directors but let’s not keeping focusing on that – let’s focus on
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because they are making up the numbers. The danger is that men who are better qualified may be passed over – that’s not good business practice and I can’t see any woman being comfortable in a job or position she doesn’t feel she’s earned on her own merits.” Articulate and measured in her comments, Mobarik points to the “strong and talented” women doing important work across all areas
Women want to be there because of their skills and ability, not because they are making up the numbers
getting a better gender balance and more equality by appointing the right people to the right jobs.” Mobarik describes the European Commission’s proposals for there to be at least 40% of women non-executive directors on the boards of big listed companies by 2020 as “not the way forward”, suggesting that quotas are “unhelpful”. She says: “Women want to be there because of their skills and ability, not
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of society. “Women are achieving amazing things in academia, for example, and sport. Business can learn from both of these in terms of the focus and commitment required to get results so we must be careful not to compartmentalise our world into public sector, private sector, welfare and so on. “We are not just business people – we are parents who are interested in education, we all have families for whom healthcare is
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important. We are interested in transport, justice and welfare and all of the things that dominate the political agenda. “Every business in the UK faces more challenges than we have time to discuss so we must work ever more closely with Government and find better ways to engage effectively with Government, both at Holyrood and Westminster. That’s why the CBI is so important to businesses across the UK.” Mobarik highlights transport and infrastructure as “vitally important” for Scotland. Independent or not, she says, the infrastructure must be in place to enable businesses to access key markets. “In my CBI role,” she says, “I have to look at every opportunity to boost Scotland’s economic prosperity and ensure that the decision-makers hear what we think – our opinions, our concerns, our suggestions and possible solutions. “We’re in a period of difficult growth and are navigating our way through this when we don’t know what lies ahead. Constitutional reform in Scotland will happen if the electorate wants it to happen and if it does, of course there will be challenges for businesses. CBI Scotland will continue to work with Government to ensure that any changes are implemented with as little disruption as possible but let’s not forget that there could be lots of opportunities, too. “The CBI values the UK’s single market and level playing field on laws, regulations and taxes that apply to business, and is far from convinced of the business and economic case for Scottish independence. And while we are all wondering what will or won’t happen in the referendum, there are other issues that we need to put our energies into.” Mobarik points to public procurement as one of them. Almost apologising for bringing it up – “it’s a favourite hobby horse” – she feels as strongly about the bureaucratic hurdles facing SMEs in their quest to secure work as she did back in 2005 when she addressed the highprofile Business in the Parliament Conference on the somewhat thorny subject. At one stage, her own company specialised in providing technology solutions to the public sector. Now, M Computer Technologies is known for its work with the private sector.
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ENTREPRENEUR “Public procurement is what gives smaller companies a step up in business,” she says. “It opens up opportunities for them but we have not yet got it right and we must get it right. “We can improve the situation by constantly putting pressure on Government and having a dialogue with them but it’s getting to the stage where there must a sense of urgency about it – I find it frustrating that we’re still talking about it.” Mobarik has sympathy for SMEs unable to move onto the next stage in their development due to financial restrictions. But while she condedes that many companies are struggling to expand because they cannot secure loans, she would like to see businesses adopt a more tenacious approach. “Businesses will always borrow, it’s the nature of the game,” she points out. “But I’m also saying that you really have to want to succeed. “You can have the best business plan or idea in the world but if you lack confidence and drive, you won’t be able to convince other people that you can be successful.” When she was setting up her own business, Mobarik points out, there was no funding support. “We did it on our own,” she says. “We didn’t seek support but at that time there wasn’t so much information available for start-ups. There would have been avenues for us to explore but we didn’t go down that path and that was our choice – there is no right or wrong way to start a business.” Mobarik’s own career has not taken quite the path that she expected. In her formative years she wanted to be an artist and although she never pursued this as a career, she still loves art, supports it and finds as much time as possible to indulge her lifelong passion. She then envisaged an academic career and started a course in business studies at Glasgow Caledonian University when she left school, but left to get married and have her family. The ensuing years were pretty tough as her husband was both studying and working for his family’s business. Two young children had also come along but Mobarik managed to find time to study at The Open University before going back to university – Strathclyde this time – to continue her studies. On graduating, she embarked on a >>
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ENTREPRENEUR part-time PhD but had already set up a small business specialising in printing barcode labels. “I found myself getting more interested in business generally and wanted to stretch myself,” she explains. “I’d been lecturing in social policy at a college in Glasgow and doing a lot of charity work so my people skills had really developed, and I felt Iqbal and I would make a good business team using our respective skills.” When M Computer Technologies was born, it heralded the start of yet another chapter in Mobarik’s busy life. The company has specialised in software for the management of retail and wholesale selling with its Maeko suite of software. More recently, it has turned its attention to data-sharing and online software solutions with Goblin, an automated business-to-business trading platform for print on demand goods, and another new product, Snappy Seller. As Mobarik points out: “A good business will adapt its products and services as its market changes.” Mobarik, who is responsible for strategic development and marketing, continues: “In our case the retail market is moving – and moving very quickly – towards online platforms so we have developed new products that interface into the likes of ebay and Amazon to make listing, ordering and delivering products more efficient and less time-consuming. “We have never had such a reaction to any other product before. Online sellers can instantly see the benefit to their business with Snappy Seller and we foresee a very busy year ahead with a large number of customers ready to implement as soon as the Christmas period is over – and this is just at the beginning of our launch. “Another exciting product we have developed is Goblin, which is a print on demand online engine. This has been developed with our partners in Chicago and their skills in fulfilment complement our technical skills. It’s working very well for us and I think more and more Scottish companies are becoming aware that this type of collaboration is the way forward.” Mobarik believes that companies need to adopt a more strategic approach to growth by thinking globally. At the recent CBI
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Scotland annual dinner, she said Scotland must increase its export performance, urging companies to look to overseas markets for growth opportunities. And referring to the CBI’s London conference, she says: “We heard about some these opportunities from business leaders like Aggreko chief executive Rupert Soames, whose company has grown to become a global company with more than half of its profits coming from overseas. “We need to take our blinkers off and look to these world-class companies as examples of what we are capable of achieving.” The link between business and politics, she
you have to have the courage to change paths. If something isn’t working for you or you’re unhappy, do something else. There are always opportunities
says, has never been more important and is one of the reasons she decided to join CBI Scotland. “I heard Iain McMillan, our director, speak at an event and was impressed with what he said on the subject. I could see that it would be a good platform for meeting likeminded people and my own experience has proved that it is good for people from a small business background to be exposed to those who run big businesses. “Small firms have to remember that they are always part of a wider business environment and it helps you speak to people who might be able to help you see things from a different perspective. It’s certainly helped us because SMEs have just as much right as the large corporate organisations to have their say and
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raise their concerns.” During her recent trip to London, Mobarik also spent time in her role as chairman of the Pakistan-Britain Trade and Investment Forum, a position she took up after being personally invited by Lord Green, the UK Minister for Trade and Investment. “There is real collaboration between the UK Trade & Investment and the Pakistan Government after an agreement was made between our two countries to increase bilateral trade and investment. “This is a huge responsibility for me and a great honour. The British Government has recognised that there is a big market which we need to tap into so I need to keep driving the message forward and encourage membership.” With Mobarik’s son, Haroun now working for the family business, she has reached the stage where she is comfortable spending a little less time in her own business. And having received the OBE for services to business in 2004, does she really have anything to prove? “Oh yes,” she says. “My desire to be more successful and more innovative in business is still there and because my role within CBI Scotland has opened new doors, I feel I have responsibility to pass on the benefit of my experience to others. I’m interested in encouraging young people to open their minds and understand that they don’t necessarily have to follow a structured career path. I know many people whose path has been quite random and when you sit down to speak to people, you uncover all sorts of twists and turns – it’s really quite fascinating and you can learn so much. “I think you also have to have the courage to change paths. If something isn’t working for you or you’re unhappy, then do something else. There are always opportunities.” Inspired by her father, the retired businessman Muhammed Tufail Shaheen, Mobarik devotes considerable time to voluntary and humanitarian work, which has seen her visit Bosnia. She also supports Edinburgh Direct Aid and Glasgow the Caring City. Is there any time for relaxation, then? Her infectious giggle resurfaces as she admits: “I did sneak some time to visit the National Gallery when I was in London at the CBI conference.” No-one is going to begrudge her that. n
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Lord Smith of Kelvin is steering the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games board. As a lad from Maryhill, it’s a job he is savouring with the opportunity of giving Scotland something special to celebrate. He talks to Kenny Kemp
Lord Smith is a difficult man to catch. You might even describe him as the golden heptathlete of the business world. Or the Jessica Ennis of the UK’s corporate board room - without the washboard stomach muscles of course. Robert Smith has an immense capacity for hard work and is in demand as one of the UK’s most prominent leaders. He is chairman of Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE), a FTSE100 company at the heart of the UK’s energy and renewables industry, with its green Scottish Hydro brand. Here the strategic challenge is getting the balance right between investment [the company has spent £1.6bn over the last year in the UK on infrastructure projects], shareholder return and consumer energy prices, a constant concern for a straitened nation. Lord Smith of Kelvin chairs the Weir Group, an iconic engineering company, worth £4bn, based in Cathcart in Glasgow, that has thrived on its journey of excellence and precision engineering; and he is chair of the newly-opened UK Green Investment Bank,
based in Edinburgh, which will become the spur for more green investment in the UK. He also fits in a role as non-executive of Standard Bank, one of Africa’s leading financial services institutions. He has charm, a grand sense of fun and the wry humour of a Glaswegian refined by travelling the world. He talks with knowledge about Africa, and his connections on the Standard Bank board are a rainbow microcosm of his international business network, with the likes of Cyril Ramaphosa, a major figure in the ANC movement and now a significant businessman. His regular visits to Jo-burg even encouraged him to buy a guest house in the Franschhoek Valley, and he proffers a bottle of 2008 Chanteclair cabernet sauvignon, which is remarkably fruity and brimming with flavour, from his own vineyard and made by winemaker Richard Duckitt. So Lord Smith has a global pedigree something that very few people in the Scotland, indeed the UK, can match. With such a full-on workload, the question is why
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did he take on the job of chairing the Glasgow Commonwealth Games? Sitting in the stylish Games headquarters in Albion Street, he leans forward and smiles. “Why did I take it on? I was offered £54,000 a year and I said, ‘I don’t want money’. I am Glasgow born and bred and the Games will never again come to the city in my lifetime. I was asked to put my name forward for a short list. Someone has to do this, and I just wanted to do it because it is my home city. “I felt if I could bring something to the party in terms of corporate governance, then that would be worthwhile.” Robert Smith loves sport but admits once being a rather average rugby player. “I was no good at sports at school.” At the interviews on the day of his appointment a reporter asked which sport he took part in. “I didn’t realise I was being asked to run. I was employed to run the Games,” he quipped. Chairing the Glasgow 2014 is a very different beast. “At the start there was just me, then two of us, and now there are 250 and up to a >>
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1,000 within the next year. Then it goes to nothing because there is an end product. You are not building for eternity. You are building towards an event and then there’s a bit of mopping up. Then that’s it,” he says. But for Glasgow and Scotland it means a great deal more. Firstly, the city is in the glow of the international sporting spotlight, where it shows off its reputation for friendliness and its capacity to do things with aplomb. The legacy of fantastic new sporting facilities across the city, especially the £113m Emirates Arena, in the East End, and the new Hydro, beside the SEC. Just as important is the economic legacy of increased business and jobs in Scottish firms and the social and cultural legacy. Robert Smith is a sleeves-rolled-up kind of business leader. He has immense experience of starting-up businesses with Morgan Grenfell Development Capital, Charterhouse, the private equity company, and in corporate finance at the Royal Bank of Scotland. He became chief executive of Deutsche Asset Management, which was a massive international operation. “You are growing them with the idea that they will mature. But I have never known quite
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such a steep curve of 2 to 200 to 1,000 and the fact that it is all going to stop. That’s only 20 months away. I have been on many boards and chaired many, many companies, including Stakis, which became Hilton, the National Museums of Scotland and I’m currently chairing Weir Group and SSE, All my skills have been applied to sustain businesses and help them grow. This is dramatically different and, in a way, very exciting. “Glasgow 2014 has a board with civil servants from the Scottish Government, others from the Commonwealth Games Scotland, and the local authority, the City of Glasgow Council, plus an athlete representative, and it is almost like a mini parliament, all representing their interest groups. This was a group of people
who might have found it difficult to take off the hats of their main job and remember they were directors of this company.” But he says his board work together famously – although he concedes there have been a few robust conversations about who funds what. “It’s a happy board. As you can imagine, there are odd little things to sort out, perhaps when it is local versus national government, but actually it has been working exceptionally well,” he says. Lord Smith admits he had concerns at the outset about political point-scoring from politicians of different hues, but they have obviously been watching the sweetness and light that glowed around London. It seems when it comes to the Glasgow Games,
At the start there was just me, then two of us, and now there are 200 and up to 1,000 within the next year - then nothing because there is an end product
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everyone is pulling together to ensure that the city and Scotland get the maximum benefit. Yet with such different viewpoints, there has been a remarkable degree of co-operation. “Everyone on board wants these Games to succeed. In Glasgow, Gordon Matheson, Glasgow’s council leader, and his teams couldn’t be more helpful. Alex Salmond [Scotland’s First Minister] has been really supportive. It has been really great and has made this job very enjoyable.” As a condition of his appointment, he wanted to appoint four people with commercial backgrounds. “Not many on the board had that experience. I wanted to be able to appoint them without let or hindrance,” he says. He asked Sir Bill Gammell, the former Scottish rugby player and the chairman of Cairn Energy, the Edinburgh-based oil exploration business, to join. Sir Bill, who has set up his not-for-profit sporting organisation, The Winning Scotland Foundation, is known for his massive enthusiasm and ability to generate team spirit while ensuring corporate governance. Lord Smith also brought in people he knew could deliver. Alan Mitchelson, who was the legal and commercial director of Weir Group, responsible for risk management. He was also company secretary and has now retired, so he is dealing with the myriad of contracts and chairs the audit committee; and Colin Hood, whom Lord Smith knows from SSE. “He has real operational experience on how to make thing works,” says Lord Smith; The fourth appointment was Eileen Gallagher, of Shed Productions, the successful television production company that made Footballer’ Wives and Waterloo Road, now filmed in Glasgow. “I didn’t know her but she was highly recommended by a number of people I respect. She is terrific. She is in charge of the opening and closing ceremonies and the Queen’s Commonwealth Games baton relay,” he says. The Queen’s Baton relay goes around all 71 territories taking almost a year. It then tours the UK, and over 40 days will go to many communities in Scotland, passing through every local authorities and every town. There is also an athlete representative committee, which is chaired by Rhona
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The prospect of an English house in Glasgow is certain to stoke up some friendly rivalries
Simpson, Scotland’s most capped hockey player and prolific goal scorer. “Rhona makes sure that we have an athlete’s perspective on everything that we are doing.” How has the massive success of London 2012 changed things? “It was so successful. However, had it not been successful it would have been very bad for us. Sure, it is a lot to live up to but it means that sponsors are much more interested. A lot of sponsors are much more interested because of the great experience of the Olympic Games in London. “Athletes want to run in the next British games, which happens to be here,” he says. Certainly Usain Bolt, who doesn’t have a Commonwealth Games gold in his trophy cabinet, looks certain to come and will be major box-office, in his battle with Yohan Blake, and the likes of Sir Chris Hoy, surely the swansong of his remarkable racing career. “To make it happen, all of the Commonwealth nations need to send their very best, that means the Australian swimmers and cyclists. The world champion hockey team, which was a remarkable part of the Olympics, and sevena-side rugby, only Argentina, France and Italy will be missing from this, and it becomes an Olympic sport in Rio.” Before our meeting, Lord Smith had just returned from Uganda where he met the national athletic officials. Their local hero is Stephen Kiprotich who won marathon gold at London 2012 and will be heading to Glasgow. Like, Bolt, he doesn’t have a Commonwealth Games gold in his collection yet. He also knows that England will be sending a very strong team across a range of sports – and they will all be made very welcome. “I have had some great chats with Sir Andrew Foster, head of Commonwealth Games England, and they will have a full and
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very strong team. They are going to make something of this,” he says with relish. The prospect of an England House in Glasgow is certain to stoke up some friendly rivalries only weeks before Scotland votes in its referendum on independence. A total of 179 medals were won by Commonwealth athletes at the London Games, so there will be no shortage of elite sportspeople to go and see. Plus the Commonwealth Games holds, what is in effect the lawn bowls world championship, which is always a major crowd-puller. One issue that has required lobbying has been the tax issue on athletes coming to the UK. The UK government was taxing visiting sports people on their annual incomes. Yet with no prize money at the Games, why would the big names want to come? This rule has now been changed. “But it was just the sort of thing that might have derailed the Games. We worked quietly to get this changed,” he says. Lord Smith says one of the lessons learned from the Olympics has been about ticketing and the ballot, where people became upset about the random-ness of what they were applying for. “People didn’t like that and we’re trying to learn from that to see how we go about this in a better manner,” he says. Then there were those gaps in the spectator seating when lots of corporate no-show angered the media and the paying punters. “Was it sponsors or the Olympic blazer brigade or officials? It looked terrible, so we are looking at the possibilities of having Wimbledon-style ticketing, where people queue for tickets. We’re looking at rover tickets where empty seats can be taken up if they are vacant after a certain time.” While the Games needs to raise £20m >>
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SUCCESS STORY from ticket sales, Lord Smith’s team is thinking creatively and looking at a pricing structure to ensure that it compares with a football match, cinema and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg for a family day out. Security remains a serious issue and here Lord Smith says the military played a sterling job in London. “The British Army guys were amazing: smart young men and women who were very efficient and good natured. These were pleasant and friendly people. Many had just returned from tours in Afghanistan and this was very humbling. “These are heroes in my book. I’ve never been under fire, yet they turned out and helped make the Games.” He doesn’t want an issue such as the G4S debacle which engulfed London’s preparations. “We have to be sure about the capacity of people searching bags and looking at scanners to manage this and perhaps it might be better to break it up into manageable chunks. We need to ensure there is not one point of failure that wrecks the whole thing,” he says. And these glorious volunteers were part of London’s finest hour. The Games Makers were a huge success story and this has created a spin-off for Glasgow. The Games needs 15,000, yet already 2,000 have been in touch wanting to help. Lord Smith is staggered by this massive interest from all over the UK and Scotland. “And we haven’t launched it yet!” “In terms of venues, we are in great shape. There is a real legacy and the Emirates complex, Chris Hoy Velodrome and the Commonwealth arena. They are fantastic and youngsters are already using it. Tollcross swimming centre re-opens in the spring. Michael Jamieson, who won a silver for GB in London, learned to swim in these baths. Imagine if he comes back and wins a Commonwealth gold in the pool where he learned to swim! That’s a great human story. A Commonwealth Games moment.” He talks with proudly about Scotstoun, Cathkin Braes, and rugby sevens at Ibrox, the opening ceremony at Celtic Park and the athletics and closing ceremony at Hampden. He’s obviously enjoying his banter with David Grevemberg, the chief executive who was director of sport and at the International Paralympic Committee, from 1999 until 2007.
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Imagine if he comes back and wins a Commonwealth gold in the pool where he learned to swim. That’s a great human story David is an American with a can-do attitude. “He is a great southern gentleman, steeped in the Paralympics ethos and learned to speak Mandarin while living in Beijing. He is a team leader with plenty of charisma,” says the chairman. When he arrived he said to Lord Smith: ‘I have a philosophy: respect everyone and fear no one’. The more cynical Glaswegian lord pulled his sleeve: ‘That’s rubbish. I’ve lived twice as long as you. Here’s the philosophy you should use: respect nobody and fear everybody. Cos they’re all out to get you.’
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He revealed this with a mischievous smile on his face. So what does the Commonwealth actually mean to Lord Smith? He is a globe-trotter, so he sees it as a fantastic sporting opportunity but also a future market that we can tap into. “Half the people of the Commonwealth are under the age of 25. With two billion people in the Commonwealth, including 1.1 billion in India. It’s a vibrant Commonwealth and we should be trading with them. India is rich with brains, engineering and science, Canada is rich in mineral resources as is Australia. People should be picking this up and using this legacy to go out and make the most of these Commonwealth Games connections to develop the Commonwealth. The bonds are still there but we’ve allowed them to weaken. So how did the boy from Maryhill, the son of a woodwork and metal work teacher, become such a well-heeled business figure? Born in 1944, he attended Allan Glen’s school on a scholarship. While it was a hothouse for the academically minded, Robert says he squeezed into Glasgow University to study English language and literature, which inspired a lifelong interest. Failing to complete the course, he left university at the end of the first year. He phoned up Robb Ferguson, a chartered accountancy firm in Ingram Street, and was surprised to be offered a five-year apprenticeship, indentured to become a CA. He undertook lots of accounting of small businesses in Glasgow, getting a feel for how things work – and how things didn’t. “I think I was quite good at that but in my last year I saw an advert in the Glasgow Herald for a job with the ICFC, the forerunner to 3i, which was promoting real venture capital to small and medium-sized UK companies.” The day he finished his five-year apprenticeship he was on the night train to London and the start of a glittering career, not without a few hiccoughs though. “Venture capital was my thing. Yes, I made a loss of £60,000 on one of my early investments called Trident Electronics, which was hard when I was earning only £1,600 a year. I wondered how I was going to pay it off. My boss told me where I went wrong and warned me not to become risk averse or
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I would never get back the money. It was a sound lesson.” One of his early successes was putting £30,000 for a 10% stake in Brake Brothers, then a small chicken processing company in Kent, who were moving into home freezers. The company ended up being worth a billion pounds. This redeemed his £60,000. In 1982, when he was 37, and an assistant general manager with ICFC and on the up, he saw an advert for the Royal Bank of Scotland as general manager of corporate finance and moved to Edinburgh, then led by Charlie Winter. He ran leasing and export finance, and set up their corporate finance advisory team. RBS bought Charterhouse and Robert Smith moved back into venture capital, reporting to Victor Blank, who was with the firm in 1985. Robert rebuilt their venture capital department, doing the management buy-out of MFI, then a £717m deal in 1987. This was high-octane stuff. He had to raise £500m of long-term debt plus £200m of equity in the market, and it had never been done before. He was offered a mouth-watering role with Merrill Lynch but decided not to join and instead went to Morgan Grenfell Development Capital, which became a part of Deutsche Bank. He was given a blank sheet of paper to do his thing. “Timing is everything. It was a great time to raise money. I went out to Japan and they were desperate to export capital. I went to America and the buy-out funds of the big players meant they were desperate to invest in Europe.” He persuaded KKR, a leading global investment and private equity firm set up by the legendary Henry Kravis and George Roberts, and famed for their role in the Barbarians at the Gate takeover of RJR Nabisco in the 1980s, to support him. “KKR invested in my fund in Morgan Grenfell. I remember meeting Henry Kravis and George Roberts. They were some guys. We raised a few hundred million, and invested in Taunton Cider, Inveresk paper in Scotland, the British School of Motoring and Bristow Helicopters. The fund was a huge success when the stock market came back in 1993-1994. It was all about timing.” Then the Peter Young scandal emerged in
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1996 when one of the City’s brightest stars, working for Morgan Grenfell fund managers, was involved in a stock market scam. It would cost Deutsche Bank £300m and result in many losing their jobs. Robert Smith was sent in to investigate and did a thorough clean-up job – and Michael Dobson, Morgan Grenfell’s chief executive, asked him to run the larger fund management business with a staggering US$600bn under management and 5,000 staff. This was light-years away from Robert Smith’s previous management experiences. “This was a huge business, Deutsche Asset Management was in every country around the globe. I was now having to manage a large body of people. It was a wonderful job and we did extremely well.” His success meant he was asked to look into corporate governance, following Cadbury in 1992, Derek Higgs in 2003, and his report on audit committees’ combined code and nonexecutive directors was well-received, and he is now a strong advocate for the increasing role of the internal auditor. At 58, he decided to ‘go plural’, after joining the board of Glasgow-based Stakis, and he became its chairman taking it through to its sale to Hilton. He was ripe and ready for his corporate board career. His parallel life is steeped in his cultural and historic interest. At 31, he joined the board of the Sussex Heritage Trust, and was giving a talk at Chatsworth House where Brian Lang, then deputy chairman of the British Library and later St Andrew’s University principal, met him.
He was impressed and recommended him to Malcolm Rifkind, the Scottish Secretary, that he would be suitable for the Museum of Scotland Advisory Board, chaired by the Marquis of Bute. He later became chairman of the National Museum of Scotland. For his services, he was knighted in 1999 and became a BBC governor. It was in 2002, he joined Weir Group which was then in a precarious position. “It was refreshing to be with a company that made things and they earned their bonuses rather than expected them. “Mark Selway helped set the business on the right path and now Keith Cochrane is doing a fantastic job. “He’s a great chief executive. “I’m a sounding board. I am not interventionist. I’m there if people need me. I’m here to help work out the strategy. You need to cuddle the chief exec sometimes. I’ve been a chief executive and I know what it’s like. It can be lonely. It’s about support and guidance.” He also owns the 660-acre uninhabited island of Inchmarnock in the Firth of Clyde, which he bought in 1999. There he has a fold of 200 highland cattle and commissioned an archaeological study of the island’s monastery and the landscape, published by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 2008. There is so much more to his life, and his time with his wife, Alison and two daughters and four grandchildren, is very precious. So he’s off again to his next meeting. Catching Lord Smith will certainly become an extra Commonwealth Games sport. n
What’s happening in 2013? • Early 2013: Application process to recruit 15,000 Volunteers for Glasgow 2014 opens. • Spring 2013: Celebrated on Commonwealth Day each year, Sport Your Trainers is a campaign which encourages people to lead a healthy active lifestyle while also raising awareness for the Games. • 23 July 2013: One year to Go until Glasgow 2014 Opening Ceremony. • Summer 2013: The process of selling one million tickets for world class sporting action at Glasgow 2014 gets underway. • Autumn 2013: Queens Baton Relay, which will travel throughout the Commonwealth in the lead up to Glasgow 2014, leaves for its international leg. • The opening of Tollcross International Swimming Centre and The Hydro Arena, which will be theatres of sport at Glasgow 2014.
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ENTREPRENEUR
When she was made redundant from her bank job, Susan McCann decided to set up her own condiment business in her kitchen. Now SIMPLYaddCHILLI is one of Scotland’s hottest new food ventures. Karen Peattie visited her on the south side of Glasgow
Mum likes it hot Susan McCann answers the front door of her mews home in the south side of Glasgow with a broad smile and confirmation that the kettle’s on. It’s a Friday morning and she’s been working flat out, packing jars of her unique “chillibased dip-come-cooking condiment” into little canvas carrier bags to sell at a Christmas fair in the city’s Royal Concert Hall the next day. “Welcome to the global headquarters of Lochbroom Fine Foods,” she laughs. The fruits of her labour are now piled up in the hall waiting to be transferred to the car. “This is pretty much a normal scene in the McCann household,” she laughs. “It’s all go, it can be exhausting and, at times, all I want to do is sit down with my feet up and steal half an hour for myself watching rubbish on daytime TV. But then I think….no, I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Sitting at her large kitchen table with tea and biscuits, former bank worker McCann takes a deep breath: “This is where it all started.” She is, of course, referring to her company Lochbroom Fine Foods and SIMPLYaddCHILLI, her creation born out of a lifelong passion for cooking and her son’s love of chillies. Apart
from a huge cupboard full of jars of the latest batch of products, there are no signs that this homely kitchen is at the heart of a cottage industry that is fast becoming one of Scotland’s most exciting food and drink businesses. “I had the pans on yesterday,” she explains, “and you would have found the house just by following the smell. “And before you ask, it doesn’t bother the neighbours. I’m not cooking every day and I’m very careful not to disturb or obstruct anyone when I’m loading up the car – there are no HGVs parked outside.” Perhaps not outside McCann’s home. But in Carluke, where she is in the process of outsourcing production to long-established jam maker R&W Scott to meet growing demand for her Mild, Wild and Extreme SIMPLYaddCHILLI products, there will be. McCann has recently entered into a partnership with the well-known Lanarkshire company to ensure a seamless move from batch to mass production, and is ready to step up distribution. Now listed in all Waitrose stores in Scotland and the much-lauded Whole Foods Markets in Glasgow, SIMPLYaddCHILLI – a moreish
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combination of chillies and strawberries that is fat-free with no added salt, colours, preservatives or artificial flavours – started life at farmers’ markets, giving McCann an introduction to selling and the confidence to aim higher. “It created a real buzz at the first market I attended and having people tell me how much they liked it gave me a real sense of achievement – I don’t think I’ll ever forget that feeling that first day,” she says. “People were asking questions, asking where else they could buy it – it was a pivotal moment for me and confirmation that I was doing the right thing.” She may be on the verge of introducing SIMPLYaddCHILLI to a much larger audience but it hasn’t been plain sailing to reach this stage. And as McCann points out, “just because I worked in banking doesn’t mean I know how to run a business”. She was determined to make it work, however, and did her research, discovering Campden BRI (the UK’s largest independent membershipbased organisation carrying out research and development for the food and drink industry) on Google. “They gave me some excellent product >>
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advice which helped me refine my product and, after a bit of trial and error, it all came together. I then worked with Glasgow Caledonian University who tested it and gave it a five-star rating for appearance, colour, texture and flavour. I was also able to get a 36-week shelf-life for the product.” From these humble beginnings, SIMPLYaddCHILLI extended its reach via independent food specialists, delis, farm shops and a number of restaurants before graduating into the top grade. Now listed by Whole Foods in its flagship store in London’s Piccadilly, the brand could be on even more supermarket shelves in 2013. As UK listings gain pace – McCann is in talks with another major multiple retailer – the brand is also making small but steady inroads into lucrative overseas markets. She attended SIAL, one of world’s biggest
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food exhibitions, in Paris in October, as part of a Scottish Development International (SDI) learning journey to explore opportunities in the French market. In November, her company was one of just 15 leading Scottish food and drink producers selected to showcase their produce in two of Bahrain’s premium supermarkets during a special ‘Scotland Week’. Again, this was an initiative brokered by SDI. McCann also exports to Denmark and, in March 2013, will travel to Canada to hold discussions with major retailers. The outsourcing of production, then, has come at just the right time. “I’ve got to outsource if I want to expand the business,” she says. “In my own kitchen I can produce 100 jars in a batch while the factory can produce up to 1000. It’s a big investment for me but if I want to compete as a national brand it’s the most
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sensible option for me at the moment.” Does McCann fear that her brand’s taste and artisan appeal might be lost in a massproduction facility? “Absolutely not,” she states. “I’ve worked with Scott’s to ensure the product they make matches my exact specification – what is produced in large quantities in Carluke is exactly the same as what comes out of my own kitchen. I suppose this means I’m no longer a cottage industry but it’s all about progress and growth and the brand’s longer term future and capabilities.” Back in 2010, when she was made redundant after 23 years in banking, McCann had no inkling that the lip-smacking chilli condiment she enjoyed making for family and friends would open this new chapter in her life. “I wasn’t a high flier – I was a clerical worker – but I enjoyed banking, particularly the job I
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When we were all made redundant it was an incredibly sad time. I had six months breathing time to think about what a woman who was over 50 could possibly do after redundancy
was doing latterly which involved international transfers and moving funds around the world,” she reflects. “I worked with great people, though, some of them for a very long time, so when we were all made redundant it was an incredibly sad time,” says McCann. “I’d always taken my homemade jams and chutneys into work and everyone would rave about them, saying I should start selling them and even open my own deli! I never took them seriously because not once did it occur to me that I might be able to do that. I didn’t think I had the confidence. “It was only when other friends and my family, particularly my son, James, started encouraging me that I thought, ‘actually, maybe I should explore this in more detail’. The bank gave me six months’ notice so I had some breathing space to think about what a woman
who was over 50 could possibly do after redundancy. The deli idea was one that swirled around for a while but when I researched the Glasgow market it became apparent that it was saturated.” McCann’s “lightbulb” moment eventually came a couple of months before she finished up at the bank. Encouraged by James, whom she describes as a “connoisseur of all things chilli”, she started experimenting with assorted chilli-based condiments. “I was never out of the kitchen,” she recalls. “I’d throw all sorts of ingredients into the pot but when I stumbled upon the combination of chillies and strawberries, it all came together. I’d found the perfect premium product – a dip, a marinade and a healthy cooking ingredient all in one.” It became a real family affair with James, 24, now an executive with global technology company Accenture, daughter Lisa, 31, a TV
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producer with Channel 4 and her husband, James, a plumber, all pitching in. “James [son] was very much involved in the early stages. He’s really interested in cooking and his love of chilli was a big inspiration for me,” McCann says. “He also helped design the logo.” Daughter Lisa, meanwhile, has played a key role on the marketing side and, through her TV connections, introduced Channel 4’s Kirstie Allsopp to SIMPLYaddCHILLI. Since then, the presenter of Location Location Location and Kirstie’s Handmade Britain has regularly extolled the virtues of the product via Twitter to her 265,000-plus followers. Social media, says McCann, will become an increasing important marketing tool along with in-store product sampling and tastings at high-profile consumer events such as the BBC Good Food Scotland. “It’s a unique product and there’s nothing else quite like it on the >>
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ENTREPRENEUR market,” she goes on. “That obviously has its advantages because it makes you stand out but retail buyers don’t have anything similar to benchmark it against so that can sometimes act as a barrier. “Getting the consumer to taste your product is vital, really, because word of mouth then kicks in and people start to seek it out, so I’ll continue doing as many farmers’ markets as possible although with just family and very kind friends helping out, I’m limited to how many events we can attend. My husband’s fantastic, though – he thoroughly enjoys sampling in Waitrose and Whole Foods, and has a fantastic rapport with customers. “The marketing of the brand has reached a crucial point but with a small team and limited finances it does represent a major challenge for me going forward.” Earlier this year, McCann linked up with a business mentor, the industry veteran David Kilshaw. Vice-chairman of industry body Scotland Food & Drink, Kilshaw has almost 30 years’ experience in senior management roles in food manufacturing within both the retail and food service sectors in the UK and North America. He was awarded the OBE in 2006 for his services to the Scottish food industry. Working with Kilshaw, McCann believes she can become more focused on marketing and other areas of the business that until now she has been able to give her full attending. “David has already had a major impact on the business and, more importantly, on the way I think about the business,” she suggests. “I’m a member of Scotland Food & Drink and the advice I’ve had from people there has been invaluable. I’ve also met other producers at networking events – you start chatting to someone and discover they’ve found a solution to one of your current problems, then you speak to someone else and you’re able to give them some advice. It’s great to know that you’re not alone. “But it’s only when you sit down properly with someone like David who really knows his way around the industry that you realise you’re only scratching the surface. There are many more opportunities if you know where to look and pitfalls you can avoid if you know how. “It’s knowing how the system works – I was lacking a lot of that knowledge and
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The marketing of the brand has reached a crucial point but with a small team and limited finances it does represent a major challenge going forward David is filling that gap.” Interestingly, McCann met Kilshaw – who has agreed to become non-executive chairman of Lochbroom Fine Foods – through a mutual friend, not at a trade networking event or through a food industry contact although she wishes they had made contact much sooner. “I know to my cost how important it is to seek out sound advice,” she says, alluding to a run-in with the intellectual property regulators over the use of JUSTaddCHILLI, her brand’s original name. Despite going through all the
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proper procedures, McCann found herself at the centre of a bitter IP battle after one of the multinationals laid claim to the JUSTaddCHILLI name. “It was both distressing and costly,” she says. “The whole thing took me by surprise because I thought I’d done everything by the book. I don’t want to dwell on it because it’s in the past and I’ve moved on but it was a harsh lesson and one I hope others take on board.” Fortunately for McCann, she was able to change her brand’s name to SIMPLYaddCHILLI, minimising consumer confusion and replacing labels on existing stock quickly and without incurring further major costs. With the experience behind her, she is firmly focused on the future at a time when the Scottish food and drink industry is enjoying arguably its highest-ever profile. Her product ticks all the right boxes, boasting strong credentials when it comes to health, provenance and premium – the three key drivers identified by Scotland Food & Drink as crucial to its future growth. In fact, our small nation’s food and drink ambitions are bold – to become a £12.5bn industry with a global reputation by 2017. “It’s an amazing time to be involved in this industry,” McCann points out. “The next couple of years have the potential to be very lucrative for producers who seek out the opportunities surrounding the big events we have coming up.” She is, of course, referring to the Commonwealth Games (Glasgow 2014), the Ryder Cup and Homecoming Scotland in 2014 and, in 2013, the Year of Natural Scotland. From a provenance perspective, only Scottish strawberries are used during the Scottish season with Dutch or Spanish berries filling the void during the winter to enable manufacturing to continue and also to ensure the same flavour and consistency of the product. Chillies come mainly from Holland with a small amount from Egypt, all sourced through Glasgow Fruit Market. “If I could source the quantities I need in Scotland, I certainly would!” says McCann. Her journey from cottage industry to major food brand may still be in its infancy but as McCann gears up for her busiest and arguably most important year yet, expect to find SIMPLYaddCHILLI on a supermarket shelf near you soon. n
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Street star set to shine more brightly, sweet deal at the Sugar Bond, CBI concern over tax rise, Aberdeen drives growth, Davies takes his chair, and buyer looks to become a ghost-buster >> Office opportunity A prestigious Aberdeen office in the West End is up for sale. Situated within the heart of the West End office district, close to Queen’s Cross, the 3,800 sq ft property, offered by Shepherd Chartered Surveyors, is 32 Carden Place close to its junction with Prince Arthur Street. It is a traditional, granite semi-detached office building occupied by a dental surgery and DNB NorBank, Norway’s largest financial services group.
>> Street star to shine Buchanan Street’s retail crown as one of the best shopping streets in the UK will be shining more brightly from March 2013. Land Securities, the UK’s largest commercial property company, has announced 185-221 Buchanan Street will open to the public on 22 March with one million sq ft of space, while Trinity Leeds will open a day earlier. 185-221 Buchanan Street is 99% let and will host the first Forever 21 in Scotland alongside brands such as Paperchase, Gap, Fat Face, Skechers, Office and Watches of Switzerland. For Paperchase, this will be its first flagship store in Scotland at 17,000 sq ft. Gap will open a circa 12,000 sq ft store joining Forever 21’s 60,000 sq ft ‘anchor’ flagship store. The development is located opposite Buchanan Galleries and it will create a new prime pitch on Buchanan Street, giving Glasgow an added attraction for the Commonwealth Games visitors expected in 2014. Nick Davis, development director at Land Securities, said: “We are bringing an extra two kilometres of retail frontage to the UK market in March 2013. The level of pre-lets at both the 185-221 Buchanan Street and Trinity Leeds schemes sends a very clear message that our unrivalled knowledge of the retail market and strong site selection makes us the partner of choice for ambitious retail investors.”
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The £70m 185-221 Buchanan Street is a 150,000 sq ft urban regeneration retail & leisure development with 49 luxury apartments. Land Securities’ Scottish portfolio includes Buchanan Galleries (a joint venture with Henderson Global Investors); Overgate Dundee; Bon Accord & St Nicholas Aberdeen and The Centre Livingston.
>> Gold standard Global fund manager Standard Life Investments collected the Investment Manager of the Year award at the Irish Pensions Awards 2012 in Dublin last night. Jennifer Richards, head of Ireland and joint head of European business for Standard Life Investments, said: “We are proud to have been active in the Irish market for over 170 years. This is a great win for the whole team and due recognition for their hard work over the past year. The team has been especially focused on helping to steer investors through these turbulent market conditions, when it is more important than ever to align ourselves with our clients’ long term objectives.”
>> Three way expansion Chardon Management, the UK’s leading independent hotel management company, chaired by Maurice Taylor who was featured in BQ Scotland earlier this year, has opened three hotels in the space of three weeks. A four-star hotel Holiday Inn at London Southend Airport, a Holiday Inn Express in Windsor and a Best Western Plus Coniston Hotel & Restaurant in Sittingbourne Kent, all of which are managed by Chardon, have opened their doors to guests during the autumn. The full service Holiday Inn at London Southend Airport, owned by The Stobart Group, provides high quality and convenient facilities for airport passengers and staff, as well as local business users and discerning restaurant diners.
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Meanwhile, the new 58 bedroom Holiday Inn Express Windsor, is located near the centre of the historic royal town, making it the perfect base for exploring the many local attractions or visiting London. Chardon Management managing director Robert Crook said: “Opening new hotels in this environment is tough and requires the support of investors, banks and where appropriate brands. It is really encouraging to see this happening and it underpins our belief that there are some great opportunities for hotel development in the UK.”
There are some great opportunities for hotel development in the UK >> New kid on the block Business advisory firm Deloitte is creating a new market identity for its combined real estate advisory practice in the UK. Deloitte Real Estate will be launched on 21 January 2013. All of Deloitte’s real estate specialists will be brought together under the new identity and the Drivers Jonas Deloitte brand will be withdrawn from the market. Deloitte Real Estate brings together traditional property services with financial and business advisory expertise. The practice will have more than 700 real estate specialists. Andy Rothery, a real estate advisory partner with nearly 25 years’ experience at the firm, will be senior partner, working with managing director Richard Owen, currently managing partner of Drivers Jonas Deloitte. Alasdair Ramsay will continue as head of Deloitte Real Estate in Scotland.
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COMMERCIAL PROPERTY >> West End winner A property opportunity in Glasgow’s popular Woodlands Road in the West End is up for sale. Located on the north side of Woodlands Road, the premises are two adjacent and interconnected retail premises on the ground floor which are part of a four storey sandstone tenement building. Will Rennie, surveyor at Shepherd, said: “The properties are let to a private individual trading as Beautylicious and jewellers Love Bling, expiring in 2028 at a rent of £22,000pa subject to a rent review in March 2013 and each third anniversary thereafter.” Offers over £220,000 are invited, reflecting an initial yield of 9.7% assuming purchasers’ costs of 2.75%.
>> Concern over rise CBI Scotland has expressed its concern at the Scottish Government’s new £18m a year tax rise for firms with empty commercial premises. “The vote by MSPs to introduce this £18m a year tax rise on businesses with empty premises is very disappointing. It is a tax on distress and is wholly at odds with Scottish Government promises to promote economic growth. Coupled with the retail levy introduced earlier this year, this now means £131m of new additional business rate taxes are being introduced during the current three-year spending review period. The finance secretary should now move swiftly and give a firm commitment that he won’t bring in further new or additional rates levies,” said CBI Scotland’s assistant director David Lonsdale.
>> Sweet deal signed at the Sugar Bond Pulsant, which provides hosting and managed IT services to medium-sized businesses, has taken a ten-year lease at the Sugar Bond office building in Leith. The company, which has eight data centres and additional offices located in five cities across the UK, has relocated its Scotland office to Sugar Bond. Highcross has let 4,384 sq ft on two floors. Aydin Kurt-Elli, chief operating officer of Pulsant, said: “Pulsant was attracted to Sugar Bond by both the high quality nature of the accommodation and the surrounding environment. Coupled with good on-site car parking and a pragmatic approach in tailoring a financial package to our needs, this made Sugar Bond the obvious choice.”
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It is a tax on distress and is wholly at odds with Scottish Government promises to promote growth BUSINESS QUARTER |WINTER 12
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>> London calling Scottish-based Buccleuch Property has sold Knightrider House in London to the All Saints Educational Trust for the Church of England for £2.2m. The freehold property is located in London’s West End, 300 metres from St Paul’s Cathedral and close to several of the world’s leading businesses. Agents Lawson & Partners sold Knightrider House on behalf of Buccleuch Property and received 15 offers for the building. It is let to Charles Gee Management until 2017 and the initial net yield stands at 4.3%. Nick Waugh, commercial property director for Buccleuch Property, said: “It is particularly unusual for a freehold property to become available in this part of London and there was an extremely high level of demand for it. There is a strong market in London for these types of investment opportunities and with them being rare it increases the value of them considerably.
>> Aberdeen drives market growth A modest upturn in Scotland’s property transactions has been fuelled by Aberdeen demand. In the third quarter of 2012, there were transactions of £307m, more than double the amount in the previous quarter, according to the Scottish Property Quarterly from CBRE. This is in contrast to the comparison between Q1 and Q2 2012, which registered a 56% drop to £134m, the lowest total since Q1 2009, and marks a positive turn for the commercial property market. A total of £234m of Scottish offices were purchased in Q3, 76% of the total, making it the most actively transacted sector. The largest deal of the quarter saw F&C acquire the Prime Four Business Park in Aberdeen for £94m. This deal takes the year-to-date figure for Aberdeen investment transactions to £237m, higher than any full year in the past decade. Scottish all property total returns experienced a modest recovery in Q3 2012 after Q2 saw the first negative return for three years. At 0.3%, all property total returns reached their highest point of the year-to-date. The industrial sector enjoyed total returns of 0.9%, retaining its position as the best performing sector for the fourth consecutive quarter and making the highest returns of the year so far. Offices performed worse than other property asset classes in Scotland in Q3 2012 with total returns at -0.2%. However despite this, it was the only sector in Scotland not to experience a fall in rental values. Aileen Knox, senior director at CBRE in Scotland, said: “We have witnessed a significant increase in investment volumes in Q3 2012 though this figure is still behind the number of transactions for the same period in 2011, showing the market outlook remains uncertain. Aberdeen, however, has enjoyed a high number of investment transactions this year and accounts for around 31% of the total Scotland figure. Edinburgh take-up for the year-to-date is also significantly higher than normal but this is perhaps due to a number of large lettings to financial services organisations.”
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There is a strong market in London for these types of investment opportunities >> ‘C’ listed letting Caledonian House, within the heart of Irvine town centre, is available for let. Comprising the upper floors of an impressive ‘C’ listed building formed originally as a co-operative hall and used latterly as a nightclub, Caledonian House was acquired by Ian Conway of Conway Properties, who have since upgraded and refurbished to create seven office suites. A total of 5190 sq ft of office space, with suites ranging from 570 sq ft up to 1090 sq ft, is available on terms ranging from £3,250pa up to £5,250pa; the building would also suit a single occupier.
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>> Rural spot on the market A residential development opportunity in Drumclog, Strathaven has been put up for sale on behalf of administrators Grant Thornton. The 1.35 acre site, previously occupied by The Baxters Country Inn, which has been demolished, has planning permission for 10 four bedroom houses with parking. Drumclog is between Glasgow and Ayrshire, near Strathaven which enjoys excellent communication links, located a short distance from the M74. Jamie Savage, head of Shepherd’s Lanarkshire office, said: “This site provides a rare and exciting opportunity to acquire and develop an attractive rural residential development.”
COMMERCIAL PROPERTY
Shepherd Chartered Surveyors and Whyte & Barrie. Located at 94 Main Street, in the heart of Wishaw, Hamish House offers fully refurbished modern office accommodation. The 11,270 sq ft premises are part let to Co-operative Insurance Society and to Provident Financial Plc with a passing rent of £61,642 and a total estimated rental value of £104,266.
>> Scotland in line with UK Scottish GDP show that Scotland experienced the same -0.4% decline that was seen across the whole of the UK.This was the third consecutive quarter of negative
economic growth in both Scotland and the UK, serving to deepen the technical recession. However preliminary Q3 GDP figures for the UK confirm that the economy is officially out of recession with growth of 1%, the highest rate of growth since Q3 2007.
This was the third consecutive quarter of negative economic growth in Scotland
>> Davies takes his chair Jestyn Davies, managing director of Murray Estates, has become chairman of the Scottish Property Federation and Alasdair Humphery, Head of Scotland for Jones Lang Lasalle, the new vice-chair. Jestyn will work with MSPs and Government officials on issues ranging from the withdrawal of empty property rate relief to increases in planning fees and how the property industry can support the Scottish economy. He succeeds David Peck, managing director of Buccleuch Property, as chairman.
>> Potential provers Four industrial units in Glasgow prove an established industrial area is ripe for new investment, according to Jones Lang LaSalle. The four terraced units, measuring to 2,230 sq ft each, are being built speculatively in Polmadie, beside Junction 1A of the new M74 motorway.They will be completed in March 2013. Paul Sweeney, of Jones Lang LaSalle, said: “This development is welcome proof of the benefits promised by the M74 extension.”
>> Portavadie aims to become ghost-buster after deal The ghost town of Pollphail in Argyll and Bute has been sold through an administration process to Portavadie Forestry for £250,000 plus VAT. The sale follows the appointment in April of French Duncan’s Brian Milne and Eileen Blackburn as joint administrators of Portavadie Village Limited, which owned land in Portavadie on the Cowal peninsula. Overlooking Loch Fyne with views towards the Mull of Kintyre, the 25-acre site was developed during the UK oil boom of the 1970s as accommodation for oil rig construction workers. The abandoned site, located close to the Portavadie Marina complex, gained notoriety as a ‘ghost town’ and attracted the attention of urban artists and documentary filmmakers. Property consultants CKD Galbraith handled the sale on behalf of administrators Brian Milne and Eileen Blackburn of French Duncan. Portavadie Forestry Limited now plans to breathe new life into this site by demolishing the dilapidated accommodation and embarking on an ambitious programme of investment, incorporating landscaping for a mixture of residential and commercial property development.”
>> Investment opening Hamish House in Wishaw is for sale as an office investment with offers over £400,000 invited from joint agents
ONLINE: More commercial property stories are available on BQ’s website www.bq-magazine.co.uk
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The channel changer When Rob Woodward arrived at Pacific Quay in Glasgow five and half years ago, Scotland’s commercial television group was in debt-laden disarray. Now its fortunes are reviving. Kenny Kemp meets the man who switched the telly back on The top floor of Scottish Television’s modern Pacific Quay complex has urban vistas over the brooding River Clyde towards the SEC’s Armadillo, the Finnieston Crane and the nearly-completed Hydro, Glasgow’s pulsating live entertainment venue and one of the new venues for the Commonwealth Games in 2014. Yet when Rob Woodward arrived in February 2007, the view from the business balance sheet was altogether more bleak. As STV moves into 2013, Woodward and his colleagues can celebrate the New Year with the satisfaction of knowing they have revitalised the company. Indeed, on the day of the BQ interview, STV Productions have picked up a BAFTA Scotland award, its first for a number of years, for Antiques Road Trip, a series produced for BBC2, while a new eight-part commission for a show called Fake Reaction, due out in 2013, was just announced. While Secretary of State Maria Miller has confirmed the renewal of STV’s licence for the next ten years, subject to negotiations with Ofcom. Rob Woodward, a cerebral media man whose formative years were spent at Marr College
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in Troon, its Latin mottos meaning ‘Here lies a field open to the talents’, has switched the company back on. That’s good for all of us. Scottish Television is a fabric brand: an integral part of our national character, woven into our sense of identity and nationality. Since its arrival in the last 1950s, commercial television in Scotland was different from the posh Bee Bee Sea, it was more throaty working-class, more spikey West of Scotland, gallus game-shows and folksy soap operas, especially High Living and Take the High Road, and, of course, Taggart, its gritty Glasgow masterpiece. On the news front, there was Bill Tennent, hosting Here and Now, his successor, John Toye on Scotland Today, then Viv Lumsden and Shereen Nanjiani, who ended up at the BBC, and Scotsport, the world’s longest running sports show, once hosted by Arthur Montford, in tweed sports jacket, and axed in 2008. Commercial television in the UK was changing dramatically and STV became Scottish Media Group, buying newspapers, radio stations and Chris Evans’ Ginger Media. SMG’s ambitions knew no bounds with its breathless ambition
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of becoming a £2bn a year business. The fabric became too stretched and during the expansionist era of chief executive Andrew Flanagan and finance director Gary Hughes, it began to tear. STV’s cloth was unravelling in a sea of debt. Since Rob Woodward arrived on 28th February 2007, it has been an epic multi-series thriller. And he shares the starring role with chairman Richard Findlay, former chief executive of Scottish Radio Holdings, who also joined the board in 2007. “It has been the quickest five and a half years of my life,” he says. “We worked hard to rebuild our relations with all viewers, across all our platforms, one that is an STV one and not an ITV one,” he says. While explaining his business journey, he wants STV to remain current, relevant and able to connect with Scotland. “I had been working with the shareholders and with the new board to implement a turnaround strategy for what was the SMG Group, which was a somewhat troubled organisation. The plan that I came up with we’ve pretty much stuck to. We’ve done >>
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SUCCESS STORY what we said we would do, which was simplify the organisation. It was almost taking it ‘back to the future’. The strategy was to concentrate on STV’s core strength. This was in content production, broadcasting and building an online business to ‘super-serve’ Scotland. “When I joined, the company was burdened with nearly £200m of debt. It had paid a very high price for a number of diverse acquisitions that included Ginger Media, Virgin Radio, Primesight, the outdoor media, and Pearl & Dean, the film advertising business. These were a number of assets which really didn’t complement the core business based in Scotland,” he says. “My initial imperative was to ensure the survival of the company. We set up a turnaround plan with three different components. The first was to strengthen the balance sheet. And sort out the debts.” In November 2007, a £95m right issues helped reduce the debt, but the share price stood at a meagre 24p. At least this was a breathing space that helped a programme of selling off all these extravagant non-core assets. To mark the sale of these businesses SMG, resorted back to its old name Scottish Television, STV. As we went to press, the share price stands at vastly improved 102p. “We re-financed the business. We then went to our shareholders with a rights issue in order to give us some more time so we could go through a controlled sale process. We have used the proceeds from these sales to continue to drive down the debt,” he says. By 2010, Woodward and George Watt, STV’s chief financial officer, told the City that their KPIs were increasing regional advertising market share, increasing margin, making more content [it was 110 hours and the aim was for 150 hours], increase digital revenues, and page impressions on STV.tv. They even took pay cuts in line with a slim-line business. Scottish Television starts the new year with its EBITDA ratio at just over two times, which Rob Woodward says is normalised territory. However, he wants to get it down further. “Our number one objective as a board is to build shareholder value and one of the ways we need to do that in these particularly difficult economic times is to take our net debt
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down to one and half times EBITDA,” he says. Scottish Television is cash-generative, its turnover last year was £102m, and Rob is confident of hitting the EBITA target in the course of the next 12 to 18 months. marking ‘an amazing transition’. City analysts have predicted Scottish Television’s debts will be down to manageable £42m and continue to fall. Last year pre-tax profits were £14m. Digital revenues generated from video on demand; display advertising; classified advertising and transactional activities continue to grow, by up to 70% although national advertising revenues in the third quarter dipped by 3%. “Five years ago the initial deal with the banks was very difficult. There was a breakdown of trust between most stakeholders and the old
is rising again. “I’ve got an absolutely brilliant team. Businesses are formed because of the people within them. We’ve attracted great talent to the company,” he says. Battle-hardened George Watt has been with the company since 1998, joining the board in 2001 as group finance director “He is essentially my right-hand guy in the business. He is the director responsible for finance but being a relatively small company we all roll our sleeves up with different initiatives and George is no exception to that,” says Rob. The leadership team, including Watt and Woodward, drives the implementation of STV’s strategy and meet every week. “We’ve recruited some excellent strong new talent into the top team. This includes Alan Clements,
City analysts have predicted Scottish Television’s debts will be down to a manageable £42m and continue to fall SMG Group, but we’ve worked really hard to rebuild that trust and I would include the banks and our shareholders in this.” Institutional investors include UBS Global Asset Management, Henderson Global, Blackrock, Fidelity and hedge fund multimillionaire Crispin Oday. Crispin, the contrarian city financier who was once married to Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, Prudence, and now married to Nicola Pease, of the Barclay bank dynasty, and a non-executive director of Schroders, runs Odey Asset Management, which manages £3.5bn of assets. “I include all stakeholders in the business because we’ve conducted and led this turnaround in the most transparent way I know possible. I think this has helped. It has given people more confidence about who we are and what we are trying to do,” he says. By offloading the businesses, the turnover might have fallen from £120m to £102m, profitability for the slimmed-down business hasn’t been impaired, and earning per share
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who has grown the content and production business, and Steven Walker, the former commercial directory of News International in Scotland, and managing director of The Scotsman Publications, who is driving new business relationships; Peter Reilly, who joined from ITV as commercial director; Bobby Hain, director of channels which is all the business carrying the STV name, including the relationship with ITV; Suzanne Burns, director of HR and communications; Elizabeth Partyka, who has been with the business for a number of year and is controller of the schedule and online activities; Helen Arnot, who is head of legal and regulatory affairs, who has been at the sharp-end of the business over the last years; and chief technology officer Alistair Brown.” However, STV doesn’t stop with the leadership team, says the chief executive. “Through the rebirth of the company we have proven that this a company that is strong and has ambitious people who want to come and work here. Every person in the top team is >>
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SUCCESS STORY here because they shared the same passion that I have. And where we are taking the company and that’s a really exciting mix.” There are 370 people employed by STV with 700 freelancers added over the year, while relations with Glasgow Caledonian and Edinburgh Napier helps create opportunities for their students. “When I joined we barely had a digital team and now we have a first-class one, including a development department, which we didn’t have before. In production we’ve been
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recruiting to make sure we have the right skills. We are the first broadcaster in the UK to be using a more automated production system.” This up-to-date Ross technology has allowed STV to keep the money on screen and maintain and grow the investment in journalistic skills while taking out labour costs from production. Five and a half years on, is he able to relax a bit more? “It has had its moments and by and large I’ve never lost my faith in what this company could
The Woodward file Rob Woodward lives Kirkmichael in Ayrshire with his family and takes an hour to get into work. He leaves early to beats the rush-hour madness of the M77, although much of his week is down in London. He moved to Scotland when he was six and was brought up in Troon. He did a geography degree at Durham University, then an MBA at University of Edinburgh and was among the first class cohort to come out of that course in 1981. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do but I thought I’d like to go into business so the MBA was a great thing. I was lucky to be offered a place at Edinburgh and it was a fantastic experience,” he says. He went to work with Kimberly-Clark, the health and hygiene business, as a strategic analyst in Kent and then joined Whatman, where he set up and ran the company in Lille in French. He learned the language and took the business all over Europe. With this industry experience under his belt, he returned to London and went into Touché Ross, where he became a partner with what became Deloitte. He led Deloitte’s European TMT group. Consulting was big bucks as media deregulations was starting and every newspaper, radio and regional television franchise was up for grabs as the consolidation process continued. Rob worked on licence bids and advised the likes of the BBC, British Telecom and Reuters. He also worked in corporate finance at UBS in London and New York. His was appointed commercial director at Channel 4 recruited by Michael Jackson, who joined the STV board in 2009, and worked for Mark Thompson, later director-general of the BBC and now chief executive of the New York Times, in the early 2000s. Rob Woodward was responsible for the commercial wellbeing of the channel. But the digital revolution, the internet was on the rise. “Nobody would have predicted what has happened and few people would have been brave enough to be able to predict just how robust broadcasting has proved to be. Actually, I think broadcasting has been fleet of foot in ensuring it makes its content available on as many new platforms as possible. So unlike other traditional media, such as newspapers, television has moved quickly. It embraced new technologies and what we are now seeing are the opportunities afforded to us by the concept of second screening, and watching content while you are out and about, on the move. Smartphones and tablets in the short term are the biggest drivers of changing consumption. It’s a massive opportunity and it is not at the expense of watching television or film in your house, it’s in addition.” “The pace of change has accelerated over the last five or so and it is mobile that is really going to be the continued driver for that change,” he says. Rob is also on the board of NESTA, the UK’s innovation foundation, and Pro-Chancellor of the City University.
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do and what our staff could achieve. What it needed was that shared belief and leadership through some really difficult times. I’m not one for relaxing though.” He knows the current exam question is about growth and maximising STV’s relevance in a multi-platform, digital environment. If the first pillar was sorting out the balance sheet, the second was ensuring that the cost base was in line the revenue. “We’ve gone through and taken a lot of cost out of the business. We now operate the core of the business at 25% less cost that we did five years ago. We’ve seen that the margin of our core business has consistently ticked up through my tenure. At the half year we announced a margin of 20%. Our expectation is to hit our 15.5% margin which would be our highest margin delivered by the broadcast business since 2005.” Being a regional television company, the third component is to make stuff. As Woodward puts it: dropping the seeds of new business ideas, watering them and then letting them grow. This has been through STV’s digital footprint and its core STV Productions. “When I first arrived here the company had a nascent digital strategy and we getting about 30,000 unique visitors onto the STV site every month and now we get over three million, we are serving 3.3 million videos every month and 20 million page impressions a month. These are big numbers for an organisation where 90% of our traffic is coming from Scotland,” he says. “Our production capability is being rebuilt. If you think back five years we had one excellent commission with ITV, which was Taggart, and now we have moved away from that,” Antiques Road Trip and Celebrity Antiques Road Trip have both become prime-time favourites and the shows represent a new-found confidence. “We are delighted that we won the BAFTA Scotland last night, which is great recognition for everyone involved on that show. This follows our recent commissions of Country Show Cook Off, a 20 part for BBC2 and Catchphrase for ITV1.” Who would have suspected that cooking and antiques would be such a lucrative path for the hard-noses of Glasgow media types?
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“The secret is in the detail around the narrative of the show and we’ve developed a strong formula. We are still making network drama such as The Poison Tree, produced by Margaret Enefer, based in London. The production team is split 50-50 between London and Glasgow,” he says. So will Taggart be making an arresting return to the wee screen? “It’s been a great brand for STV,” he smiles, and adds that it is now resting. You never say never, he says, but gives the clear impression that STV has much fresher fish to fry. “We are going into genres that STV hasn’t operated in for a while. Catchphrase a popular game show is being revived and on air in February, a prime time Saturday night slot with Stephen Mulhern as the host.” And STV Productions has been commissioned to make eight episodes of Fake Reaction, a panel show which emerged from the complex a Fuji TV games show. Matt Edmondson will host the show for ITV2. These kinds of commissions would have been virtually impossible to win several years ago. Rob Woodward inherited a nasty Mexican standoff with ITV when he took charge. “It was a dysfunctional relationship between STV and ITV and we brought it all to a head. We worked on three simultaneous High Court actions and what was a stake was the long term independence and sovereignty of the company, which was why it was such a fundamental fight. I’m delighted on where we have ended up and we’ve secured the sovereignty of access of ITV One on programming in Scotland. But we’ve simplified the relationships and the contracts which tie us together. So STV has moved to a much more simplified world where it doesn’t take a forklift truck to move the contracts. They are fit for purpose and fit for the 21st century and able to deal with service such as video-ondemand or mobile and catch-up which were not really heard of when the original contracts were drawn up. It was a mammoth, time-consuming effort. So how is the relationship with ITV now? “It’s just gone through a transformation. Our relationship with Adam Crozier [the chief executive of ITV] and other members of his senior team has certainly never been better
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in my time.” Rob Woodward is convinced there is an opportunity to work closer together. “You can take it that the commissioning of Catchphrase is a sign of that. At the height of the hostility it is unlikely that ITV would have commissioned a prime time slot from STV,” he says. Locally, STV’s commitment to covering the news agenda more comprehensively has also been noted by the Scotland’s chattering classes. The late night current affairs
At the height of the hostility it is unlikely that ITV would have commissioned a prime time slot for STV
show Scotland Tonight launched in October 2011 has already a solid following. “Given our strong reputation for news, we thought there was an opportunity for a revamped, more modern and lessargumentative style around current affairs and that is what Scotland Tonight is all about. It
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has gone from strength to strength and we’ve created a debating ring for Scotland to talk about itself. With John MacKay and Rona Dougall we’ve got two first class presenters.” With news pivotal to STV, Rob Woodward says certain brand values are vital: impartiality, fairness and some new ones such as breaking news and telling genuine stories. It is ensuring that STV is an authority in Scotland. Added to the mix is a current affairs programme, the Road to the Referendum, leading to the vote on independence in 2014, and run in conjunction with the Herald newspaper group. “This is all about our commitment to covering Scotland. It’s a critical time in the country’s history and people want to know in detail what it all means.” “We know over the course of the last few months we generated a ten-year high in our audience. One of the key changes has been the more localised format, STV is now anchoring three simultaneous shows in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, with a five minute opt out in Dundee, so that each of Scotland four major cities their own dedicated component of a show.” Scottish sport remains an Achilles’ heel for STV. “As a free-to-air broadcaster we struggle to cover sport. “We had the rights for the World Cup and the Champions League but the domestic game is driven by the pay platforms and there is very little we can do about that. “So we continue our online activities and, of course, the Rangers story was a huge online story for us and we were setting the news agenda.”STV is also bidding for the local TV franchises in Edinburgh and Glasgow with ETV and GTV, working with the universities and their broadcasting courses. “They will be very different. And the budgets are a fraction and a very different proposition,” he says. “For 53 years there has always been some confusion between ITV and the local licensees in terms of where the loyalty lies but I think most people understand that we are an independent Scottish company and proud to be here to support Scotland and that our content is relevant for Scotland. So we are not just ITV One in Scotland.” n
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A cool knight in Glasgow Sir Willie Haughey talks business with Valerie Darroch
Sir Willie Haughey sports a shiny gold badge in the shape of a capital ‘H’ on his jacket lapel but it doesn’t stand for Haughey, it stands for ‘hope.’ It is a word often on the businessman’s lips these days and close to his heart as he launches ‘Youth with Hope’, an innovative nationwide initiative designed to tackle youth unemployment. Sir Willie Haughey, who built his facilities management business City Refrigeration Holdings from scratch into an international operation employing 11,500 people worldwide and approaching £500m annual turnover, is both the architect and passionate ambassador of the initiative, which is focused on encouraging UK businesses to employ a young person as a ‘green champion.’ “Youth unemployment is a huge problem which is affecting more than one million 16 to 24 year olds and we can’t wait about for the politicians to fix it. “I called the campaign ‘Youth with Hope’ because the one phrase you hear all the time from young unemployed people is that they have no hope....we heard it repeatedly during the London riots. Business needs to step up to the plate to do something about it. I’m hoping one million businesses in the UK will get the message,” he says. The beauty, he explains, is that it is a win-win for young people and employers: the young
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person secures a job while the business saves money and boosts its environmental and corporate social responsibility credentials through energy efficiency savings identified by their ‘green champion.’ Like all good ideas, its simplicity is a large part of its attraction. Sir Willie runs through the numbers which make a compelling argument for businesses to get behind the campaign: of 4.8 million business in the UK, if only one million of them took on one young person at a salary of £16,000, provided that they are making a profit and paying tax that reduces the net cost of providing a job to just £8,000 per annum. The sums get better, he argues - for every tall building of over 250,000 sq ft (there are more than 300,000) which has lots of lights and IT equipment generating significant energy costs, the scheme has proven that a young green
champion can save a business £8,000 per year by identifying simple ways to reduce energy consumption. Factor that into the equation and the cost of employing a young person becomes cost-neutral. Trailed by cameras for the day by BBC’s The One Show, Sir Willie has been campaigning furiously to get his message across and indications are that he is succeeding. Within three weeks of announcing his plans he has secured 256 jobs, including 25 new modern apprenticeships at Tennent Caledonian, one of his first clients. He wants an army of business leaders to take up the challenge. Sir Willie built his business empire into the largest private employer in Scotland by running clients’ facilities more efficiently than they can do independently. He jokes that he is doing himself out of a job by training ‘green champions.’ >>
Youth unemployment is a huge problem which is affecting more than one million 16 to 24 year olds and we can’t wait about for politicians to fix it
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BUSINESS LUNCH In reality, he is enjoying a banner year, both from a business perspective as he prepares to clinch a deal in the United States, and personally after being knighted for services to business and charitable causes. “Because I got my honour for contributing to business and charitable causes I feel I have to do more to tackle the unacceptable waste of youth unemployment.” On Burns’ Day 2013 he will travel to Buckingham Palace for the investiture ceremony, accompanied by his wife and business partner Susan, his son Kenny and close friend James Mortimer, owner of Rogano. It is the latest in a string of honours, including an OBE in 2003, to be bestowed on Sir Willie. Raised in the Gorbals, Sir Willie’s allegiance to his home city and indeed Scotland is fierce and he has located his headquarters in the district in which he spent his formative years, beginning at the bottom rung of the ladder delivering milk. His son Kenny, a banker turned music and nightclub entrepreneur who is based in Geneva, has also invested in the Gorbals, creating a world class recording studio used by Susan Boyle to record her latest album. He has not followed his father into the business, although along with his parents he owns the vast majority of shares in the company. Passionate about education, Sir Willie himself left school at 15 and grafted as a young apprentice engineer before moving to Abu Dhabi to work on air conditioning contracts, a shrewd move which allowed him to build enough savings to start his own business when he returned to Scotland in 1985. He established City Refrigeration with his wife Susan with just £70,000 and four people, specialising in installing and servicing cooling systems for the drinks industry and his first big contract was with brewers Tennent Caledonian. “In the first eight years Tennent Caledonian was 80% of my turnover and people said it was too much, how could I replicate that...We do it by hard work and building up a reputation. We call our clients partners, we hardly ever tender and we don’t spend on marketing - we get work via recommendation,” he says. The business made a quantum leap in 1997 when City broadened its horizons from
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refrigeration to facilities management and secured a nationwide contract with Asda, now owned by US giant retailer WalMart. City secured another 10 year contract with Walmart last year and in a characteristically shrewd move, Sir Willie capitalised on his Asda/WalMart credentials to build a hugely successful facilities management business in Australia, servicing nationwide supermarket retailer Coles. “Australia has been a phenomenal business for us. It gave us the opportunity to prove our model was transferable. We’d done stuff in Germany with Walmart and in Qatar but it was our first major corporate entity outside the UK. We’re in our third year there and it’s going really well,” he says. Part of his success resides in the strong longterm relationship he forges with business partners and the Coles story is a classic example as he knew the senior management from his previous business relationship with
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Asda. He secured an initial two-year contract with Coles and has just signed a five year renewal. Expansion opportunities abound, despite the downturn - Sir Willie is in advanced negotiations on a facilities management contract with a large food retailer in the United States, which has 720 stores and US$11bn. He is reluctant to name the firm at this stage but says: “We’re very far on with that. Hopefully if not by year end we’ll be talking to them about a Q1 announcement on a deal.” Serendipity played a part in the US development as the initial contact came via an American lawyer Sir Willie met while having talks with representatives of Qatari sovereign funds about the possibility of managing overseas facilities. Sir Willie has come a long way in 27 years and could not have foreseen the scale his company would achieve in that time. “If someone said to me in 2012 you’ll employ 11,500 people I’d have said ‘No, I’ll not’, I
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couldn’t contemplate it. But it just happens. We’ve grown totally organically - you grow by stealth. Over 15 years we’ve gone from 47 people to 11,500. In 2004 we were the fastest-growing company in Europe - we went from £6m turnover to £60m and spent nothing on sales and marketing - we did it by doing good things for our clients.” The future is looking good for Sir Willie who says that year end 2012 group turnover will be at least £480m. He adds: “With what’s in the pipeline at the moment I would be disappointed if we’re not through the £500m turnover. In fact I absolutely expect we’ll be up 20% on last year and we’ll be substantially through the half billion mark.” With new overseas ventures close to fruition, Sir Willie’s company is poised to make another quantum leap. “It has taken 27 years for us to get to half a billion turnover - and if only parts
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I’m trying to encourage business to find an answer because I don’t think there’s going to be a political solution
of what we’ve got planned come to fruition we’ll easily get to £1bn turnover in the next five years,” he predicts. Sir Willie’s company may be bucking the downturn as businesses increasingly turn to outsourcing solutions as a means of delivering cost-efficiencies, but he is nevertheless disturbed by the overall weak economic climate. “I’ve never been so concerned in my business life about what could happen if we don’t do something to turn around the economy. When you go into recession...it’s about what happens thereafter and it’s all about business confidence.” “Whether you’re a student of John Maynard Keynes or Friedrich Hayek, what matters when you go into recession is confidence or lack of it among the masses..that determines where the economy goes next and unemployment is a key factor. We have a perfect storm for a really bad situation at the moment. “The good news is we’ve got time to address it but enterprise has to step up to the plate. I’m trying to encourage business to find the answer because I don’t think there’s going to be a political solution.” Still in his 50s, Sir Willie’s energy is undiminished and he has no plans of stepping aside from the helm of the company he founded - at least not permanently, although he would consider a year off to focus entirely on tackling youth unemployment. He has confidence in his management team and says: “I would have no doubts whatsoever operationally that the business would still be there and could thrive.”
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Sir Willie is tenacious in life and in business and battled for seven years to secure planning permission to build a family mansion in the Cathkin Braes on Glasgow’s southside with a commanding view over the city. “I’ll be able to see every streetlight in the city from up there...It’ll be like Tara in Gone with the Wind.”
It is a perhaps surprisingly romantic reference from a down-to-earth self-made millionaire but it would be foolish to bet against both the business empire Sir Willie has created and the home he is building surviving longer than the legendary home of spoiled Southern belle Scarlett O’Hara whose beloved Tara was consumed in a blaze. n
An age-old favourite for good reason Sir Willie Haughey has several reasons for selecting Rogano, Glasgow’s oldest surviving restaurant as his favourite lunch venue. With its distinctive Art Deco design, iconic yellow vitrolite frontage and bold red lobster sign, Rogano is a much-loved city landmark frequented over the years not only by discerning locals but a host of famous faces including Frank Sinatra, Henry Kissinger, Tina Turner, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Harvey Keitel, Kylie Minogue, Sir Alex Ferguson, Rod Stewart and Keira Knightley. It traces its history to 1874 when it opened its doors as the Bodega Spanish wine cellar, selling wines and spirits from casks. The unusual name was coined in 1879 by manager James Henry Roger, combining his surname with the first initials of Mr Anderson, his publicity-shy business partner. Rogano was reborn as an upmarket restaurant in 1935 when, under the meticulous guidance of owner Don Grant, it was fitted out in the same Art Deco style as the Cunard ocean liner Queen Mary which was built at John Brown’s shipyard on the Clyde. A combination of its unique ambience, iconic walnut burr finished interior, fine seafood, classic cocktails and popular champagne bar attracted a fiercely loyal clientele and Rogano developed an enduring reputation as the place to be seen in Glasgow. Acquired by Sir Willie’s long-standing friend and fellow entrepreneur James Mortimer in 2006, Rogano continues to win plaudits for its cuisine and its hospitality. Run by the highly-respected team of head chef Andy Cumming and manager Ann Patterson, Rogano was named Scotland’s AA Restaurant of the Year 2012-13. Sir Willie enjoyed a starter of Haggis, Neeps and Tatties followed by Lemon Sole served off the bone and accompanied his lunch with soft drinks. Rogano, 11 Exchange Place, Glasgow G1 3AN www.roganoglasgow.com
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PATRICK ON WINE
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You picked a fine wine to leave me While Stuart Patrick is the chief executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, he knows the importance of supporting the city’s finest watering holes It was a wintry and rainy Monday in Glasgow. I won’t use the term miserable because our ‘Dear Green Place’ should never be described as such. The call from BQ came out of the blue. At first I was asked to talk about the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce’s 230th year anniversary. But the editor is a dastardly individual. He heard I was deeply involved in the Glasgow licensed trade and therefore must know a thing or two about fine wines. I know a little bit of promotion can go a long way, so I agreed to the early-week suggestion. Steven Borthwick, the rugby-playing manager at Vroni’s, selected a couple of nice bottles. I wouldn’t make any claims to expertise in wine criticism and the following comments reflect a very pleasant evening in the Patrick household over a tuna pasta bake. To start with Marlborough’s 2011 Sauvignon Blanc The Realm, made by New Zealand wine expert Alana McGettigan, who has a brand called Lani that Billy Connolly fans will find rather amusing [Lanliq or Lanny was a rather harsh fortified wine from South Africa]. We really enjoyed this and could easily have sampled it in the bar without food. Each glass was crisp, sharp and clean to the taste and most of the family did mention apples, even
without reading the label! Easily consumed, it was friendly and suitable for all forms of casual drinking. The further into the bottle we went the more we enjoyed it. I want to insist this was not Sarry Heid Lanny! On the 2009 Valpolicella Campolieti Ripasso, from Luigi Righetti, we appreciated that this was probably better suited to a good steak than a tuna pasta bake and so we feel we were not giving it the best of conditions for the fullest appreciation. The notes describe it was “a mini Amarone! Delicious waves of ripe, red cherry and plum with notes of dried fruit and sweet spices.” This really does need to complement a meal; a heavy, smooth and deeply grapey wine but with a hint of an edge to it. I’d returned from Turin the night before and had been quaffing Piedmontese Barbera for the previous two evenings and perhaps that was unfair competition for the Valpolicella. Perfectly acceptable but not one that had us smacking our lips. A word on Vroni’s, owned by my friend Alan Tomkins, a true innovator in the food and bar scene in Glasgow. He set up Lautrec’s bar and brasserie back in 1982 and over the past 30 years he has made his mark with some iconic bars and eating places. His current hot bars
Each glass was crisp, sharp and clean to the taste and most of the family did mention apples, even without reading the label
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included Urban Bar and Brasserie, Kuta, Vodka Wodka, and the Blue Dog. Glasgow’s modern vibe has been created by people like Alan, so cheers to him. n Vroni’s, in 47 West Nile Street, Glasgow, G1 2PT, sells the Campolieti at £27.95 a bottle, and The Realm at £21.95 a bottle.
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MOTORING
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On the road to Paradise
Stephen O’Neill, managing director of Newton Property Management, was rather sceptical about urban 4X4s. But his head has been turned by a rather stylish BMW
Four-wheel drive vehicles often get a bit of stick around town. Aren’t they mighty gas guzzlers populated by Chanel-clad mothers waiting to pick up their cherished weans from private schools? Now this may be true of many of the vehicles that fall into the 4X4 category but the sweet BMW version I have been driving certainly does not instil instant road rage on your average saloon car fella. I’ve had the pleasure of being cosseted by a BMW X3 2 litre diesel XDrive (BMW’s monniker for a City mudplugger) and it’s a great car. As a former Range Rover owner, I am familiar with the obvious irritation we can cause our fellow motorists when we appear to be
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looking down on them, but not once did I experience this in BMW’s charming and wellformed entry level 4X4. I spent my time with my new vehicle traipsing around my home city of Glasgow, where Newton Property Management, set up many
moons ago by my father, William, a surveyor and estate agent, does the bulk of its business. I headed off to the East End in search of some rough-edged, gap-site to put the car through its pace. Over the years, I’ve spent a good bit of time around the areas recently bulldozed >>
Aren’t four-wheel drives gas guzzlers populated by Chanel-clad mothers waiting to pick up their cherished weans from private schools?
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MOTORING
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MOTORING
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I didn’t have any rivers to cross or moutains to climb, although some have suggested it can be pretty wild out in the East End of Glasgow
and making way for the fabulous facilities of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. I was near to Paradise too - for those uninitiated, that’s the name for Celtic Football Club’s hallowed home which was always within sight. I didn’t have any rivers to cross or mountains to climb although some have suggested it can be pretty wild out in the East End of Glasgow. This BMW X3 performed beautifully in all the not-so-great-city terrain that I threw at it. This is a light-footed, nimble four-wheel drive and on the mud-strewn roads around the building site it was found to be extremely sure footed.
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I’d love to give it a thorough try-out in the snow or ice but, from this experience, I do expect it will hold its own. And Mums, yes, I think you will be able to get those cherished weans to school and back safely and probably a lot quicker than the aforementioned larger models, as it’s a neat little vehicle. I had the two-litre version of the car and the only shortcoming this model had was that this engine isn’t as eager as BMW’s very refined 3 litre diesel. However, it’s mated to a beautiful gearbox and the fuel consumption actually beats most cars – petrol or diesel. Apart from this model’s lack of
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power, this particular car is a fine looking, upright 4X4. It’s not vulgar and instead has tasteful lines incorporating smart sculpted elements which help make it look good on the road. The driving position is superb, sitting slightly above your neighbouring cars, therefore giving first class sight lines. Of course, being a BMW, the interior finish is perfect. I was also quite heartened by the inbuilt specification given BMW’s previous reputation of being a little bit frugal in that department and this car comes with a pretty comprehensive free list, including air conditioning, electric windows, ambient internal lighting and a very good in-car entertainment system including i-pod connection and the rest. BMW have an I-drive controller which apparently works everything but having had the car for a short while I struggled to get to grips with it. I got the feeling that once you’ve understood this little gem it allows you to operate all the functions effortlessly. This is a five-door vehicle with tonnes of load space plus great flexibility with the help of the 60/40 split folding rear seat. It has an impressive storage area for a car of this size and I actually suspect I could get my Shetland Pony in the back (the only horse I could buy that I fitted on, being 5ft 6 inches tall). This is a fairly grand car and to me it stands heads and shoulders above all the competitors – another well executed vehicle from the master of making good cars – BMW. n
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MOTORING The car Stephen drove was the X3 xDrive20d SE OTR price £40,635.
Car supplied by Douglas Park Glasgow BMW/MINI, 3-33 Kyle St, Glasgow G4 OHP 0141 333 0088, 0141 333 8245 www.douglasparkglasgowbmw.co.uk
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FASHION
WINTER 12
age-old italian brand loro piana is an exclusive club in which luxury, above all else, is what matters, as JOSh SIMS finds Some €3000 for a jacket might seem like a lot, but when only 20 could be made, it is presented in a lacquered box and, most incredibly of all, it is woven from lotus leaves, the price tag might seems less bank-breaking. “In fact,” says Pier Luigi Loro Piana, joint-CEO of the Loro Piana family business and Italian luxury goods label, “in the end I don’t care how much the resulting jacket might cost. Of course, long-term we have profit in mind. But right now this is more about keeping alive an artisan community making something unique, about saving a very antique tradition from being lost.” That antique tradition happens to be an ageold and little-known craft on the shores on Lake Inle in Burma, where fibres are extracted from lotus leaves by hand and then woven within 24 hours before deterioration sets in. This produces just 120gm of a raw silk-like yarn. Small wonder then that the esoteric and labour-intensive craft is on the point of dying out. Or that Lora Piana, when it heard about it, decided to back and buy the community’s entire output for the foreseeable future. After all, super-exclusive fabrics are its metier. This is the same global company - formed in Valsesia in 1924 by Pietro Loro Piana, taken over by his nephew in 1941 and now based in Milan and run by his sons Pier Luigi and Sergio - that a few years ago acquired 2,000 hectares in Peru to convert into a private reservation for vicuna, the once endangered
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lama-like creature whose coat provides the so-called ‘fibre of the gods’. Or the company that, as the world’s biggest cashmere producer, convinced Chinese and Mongolian breeders to set aside small quantities of ‘baby cashmere’, the super-soft under-fleece taken from a kid’s coat on its first (and only on its first) combing, 19 kids’ worth being required to make a single sweater. Unsurprisingly, such a sweater does not come cheap. “But there is now a consumer with experience in wealth - and I don’t mean ‘old money’ - who is looking for something more, who finds pleasure less in showing off as in the quality of what they buy,” argues Sergio Loro Piana, whose name, since it now adorns some 19 stores across Italy alone, has become something of a national byword for serious luxury. “The fact is that we’ve never put a logo on anything and that hasn’t prevented the company from growing. For those who are in the club, the product alone is recognisable enough, even if it’s invisible to others. “And that is not an easy position to duplicate - if you’ve sold to a segment of the market on the back of branding, it’s very hard to leave that behind to sell to the very top end of the luxury market...” Loro Piana’s position - and its verticallyintegrated operation, unusual in the fashion industry - has certainly paid off. Sergio Loro Piana attributes this in part to being a family company - this allows projects to be progressed at their own pace, rather than in a rush to meet shareholder expectations. Its baby cashmere operation has been years in development, the kind of plan that guardians of the bottom line might condemn as extravagant. Sergio, three years Pier Luigi’s senior, jokes how his brother (with >>
We’ve never put a logo on anything but that hasn’t prevented the company from growing
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FASHION
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whom, unusually, he swaps seats to lead the company every three years) only started using email a few years ago - and then only when he realised that decisions were being made without his involvement because he never checked his in-box. But this bubble-like existence certainly works. The E500m company has seen its revenues grow to ten times what it was just a decade ago. And it has slowly extended its remit beyond clothing made from top textiles to bags, shoes, specialist outerwear (developing techniques to allow natural fibres to be as protective as technical synthetics), and interior decoration fabrics. Its latest product line, sunglasses, similarly strives to meet its ‘best of the best’ philosophy - they are made with the thinnest optical glass in the world, which also contain a secret combination of rare earth elements to provide extreme levels of contrast and clarity, with a celluloid frame polished over days by tumbling amid chips of beech and birch. That perhaps explains their £600 ticket. Still, Sergio Lora Piana, a keen pilot, is very pleased with his. “They are, of course, just a pair of sunglasses and the world doesn’t need another pair of sunglasses,” he says. “But as vicuna is to knitwear, so these are to sunglasses...” Indeed, part of the appeal of Loro Piana is that it could put its name to almost anything, as other ‘luxury’ goods companies have, but chooses not to. Expansion, the company says, will come from more stores and emerging markets, “whereas give your name to a licensee and they want to sell as much of everything as possible,” he says, “which is good for making money - but only in the short-term. But we’re not really into ‘brand extension’,” Sergio Loro Piana adds. “We did shoes, for example, only because I needed some to sail in and someone thought the ones we made were so good we should put them in production. And the sunglasses came about because we didn’t want to use somebody else’s in a fashion shoot we were doing. You do a fragrance and next thing you know you’re making toilet bowls. We just want to use the best raw materials to make things in Italy with a bit of good taste.” n www.loropiana.com
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new breed is born What happens if you cross the swagger of a super-car with the practicality of an SUV, asks Josh Sims
When Eterniti launched in the UK in November, its debut car design not only turned heads but raised eyebrows. At £210,000 and, should the buyer want it, almost entirely bespoke-built, here was another super-car. But this one, the Artemis, was different. Neither a dust-gathering track car nor a lumbering limo, here was the first of a new breed: the super SUV. “It’s certainly a quirky idea,” says brand director Mark Carbery. “You could call it schizophrenic, or all things to all men. But the reality is that most super cars are no use in the city, and road quality is often not >>
good enough anyway, while a limo-type car, such as a Bentley, is well-appointed but lacks the thrills. The super SUV is practical, luxurious, but also very high performance. It will do a lot of what both super car and limo can do but in a car you can actually drive.” Bentley, by the way, will launch its own super SUV in 2013, with Maserati having one on the cards for next year. All follow in the huge success of the more mass-market Porsche Cayenne, which, after initial scepticism, proved the market was there: indeed, it now accounts for some 50% of Porsche volumes worldwide. The Eterniti Artemis certainly has the right credentials, not least being engineered by Alastair Macqueen, who has three wins at Le Mans and the building of the JCB land speed record car under his belt. It has a 4.8 litre, twin-turbo V8 giving 600 bph and a top speed of 180 mph, 0 to 62mph in 4.5 seconds, with a ride that doesn’t rattle your organs about in your rib cage and a cabin interior that is more stately home - or at least a stately home owned by a rock star. It is a very modern luxury vehicle - and, what is more, from a British company, “for a customer
Most of the ideas we have come from the gut and polarise opinion. We’re out to provoke new ways of thinking
who appreciates the British track record of being very good at cars with small volume production, or who just want to deal with a company in London rather than Stuttgart,� says Carbury. And nor is it alone. With the big guns of the super car world - the likes of Ferrari and Lamborghini - so entwined in their prestigious histories they rarely produce cars that feel like a genuine break with the past (which is a boon or a hindrance, depending on your view), the benefit of being a young company is that you can, as it were, think out of the gearbox. “We have the space to do something interesting,� as Carbury has it. Noble Cars, also British, also run by men with a racing background - Peter Boutwood, its managing director, is a one-time Formula 3 driver and worked in Formula 1 with Damon Hill - has gone down a similarly left-field road. While Eterniti has got a head start in a new category by piling on the rather pleasant surroundings and the common sense, Noble has, in a way, gone back to race car roots, stripping its M600 back to make a car that demands to be driven, rather than to do all the driving for you. Indeed, capable >>
of 0 to 60mph in just three seconds and with a top speed of 225mph, the M600 might be so much more the typical very powerful car were it not for the fact that it has a six-speed manual gearstick and no ABS braking. The dashboard gives the minimal information because, really, this is a car in which the eyes really, really need to be on the road. With Noble a small company, based near Leicester, it too takes the full bespoke option to the limits, with the design team ready to work up a new interior design in order to fit in your music system of choice, if that is what you want. That also explains why only around 12 cars are built a year, with each taking three months to complete. Bravely for times in which cars seems as much about posing as getting anywhere, Boutwood says that, for all of the smooth lines of the M600’s carbon fibre shell, this is a car that is not about good looks. Rather, it is about the drive. And that’s drive, not dive. If being less wellknown rather than a household name, if a certain oddness or particularity and is the
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unexpected are all assets increasingly sought by the car fanatic - “the few with the money and passion for cars ready to go off piste and buy a more interesting car,” says Carbury then perhaps the concept cars from Swiss company Rinspeed are to their taste too; and not least the sQuba, a car that really can go underwater. Road car turns submersible. Among founder Frank Rinderknecht other visionary vehicles - and these are actually designed, built and tested, existing on the road not just on paper - are the Presto and the iChange, both extendable cars; the Bedouin - convertible to a pick-up, not to mention being the world’s fastest natural gas-powered car; the Senso - with a bio-metric interior that detects and responds to driver mood detection; the eXasis - its floor and body made from a transparent, high-tech plastic; and, for speed freaks, the Advantige Rone - the first supercar to be powered by a biofuel made from kitchen waste. Along the way Rinderknecht has devised windscreens with scratch-proof coatings, rust-proof plastic composite bodies, as well as
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inventing the steering wheel mounted controls now common to many cars. Like Eterniti and Noble, the similarly small and independent Rinspeed kicks against the predictable, in Rinspeed’s case in aiming to predict where car design may go next. “Most of the ideas we have come from the gut and a lot of them polarise opinion - but that’s ok, we’re more agent provocateurs, out to provoke new ways of thinking,” says Rinderknecht, with a sentiment no doubt shared by the bosses of the other brands too. “But big car companies are not structured to allow emotions to lead,” he adds. “That corporate structure isn’t flexible enough. The industry is hampered by its size, and the brands by their need to maintain an image. “Of course, you have to be realistic about what has commercial potential and what doesn’t - even if it’s important for touching hearts, for being a provocative idea, about making it possible even if nobody really needs it. After all, it’s easy to do a nice little sportscar, no. 742. But, you know, so what?” n
Head turner: The fiercely independent Rinspeed iSpeed model
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ENTREPRENEUR
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ENTREPRENEUR
The financier who does good with money Yorkshireman Peter Armitage was all set to retire to his beloved home county, when he fell in love with a country house on Loch Lomondside, now used for private and not-for-profit organisations. Carlos Alba travelled to Ardoch House
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ENTREPRENEUR Peter Armitage is a reluctant millionaire. After spending a career in global portfolio management, he decided he had more money than he and his family would spend in all of their lifetimes so he decided on a more altruistic path for his retirement. Yorkshire-born Armitage founded Ardoch, a charitable foundation based at a development on the banks of Loch Lomond at Gartocharn, Dunbartonshire, into which he invested several millions pounds of his own money. The complex of conference, dining and event space, including 17 bedrooms, is hired by corporate clients, educational establishments, government agencies, private consultants, coaches and professional firms to host day and residential meetings, seminars and training events. “I decided I wanted to retire after a long career in portfolio management and calculated that if I retired in 2006 at the relatively young age of 58, I should have enough time for new pursuits,” says Peter, who left Leeds Grammar School, aged 16 with a fist full of ‘O’ levels. “I’d worked in financial services all my life, so there was a strong urge to do something completely different. In 2006, six years after making the decision to leave, I took the plunge and resigned from Capital International SA, the Swiss subsidiary of The Capital Group Companies Inc, one of the most highly respected fund management companies in the world. I quit a job I loved [managing global equity and convertible bond portfolios] to develop an idea which is now coming to life at Ardoch” The money raised through these commercial operations helps to finance the centre’s other use as a resource for charities, mostly working for the benefit of young people. The facility was conceived, planned and developed by Armitage who transferred its ownership into the not-for-profit Ardoch Foundation for charitable and social purposes. From Spring 2013, Ardoch will also host a series of luxury activity holidays. These will include a creative writing course, run by bestselling author Aly Monroe and literary agent Maggie McKernan, and a photography course run by Stuart Wallace, former chief photographer with the Sunday Times Scotland and Elaine Livingstone, a former
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Reluctant millionaire: Peter Armitage
The moment I saw Ardoch and its inspirational setting I knew I had found the right place picture editor at Sunday Herald. Ardoch recently held an Open Day which helped to expose the venue to a range of new potential clients. Recent customers have included the British and Irish Lions, Edinburgh University, Penumbra, ReConsulting, the Taylor Clarke Partnership, the Scottish Institute for Enterprise and Vascutek. Set in 133 acres, Ardoch has fused traditional and modern architecture to create an environmentally friendly, state-of-the-art, multi-purpose facility for business and charity use. The building incorporates some reclaimed materials and it is furnished to high standards, with comfortable rooms, naturally-lit meeting spaces and an eclectic art collection. All the food served in the centre’s dedicated restaurant is fresh and locally sourced. The building is powered by renewable energy, an underground source on
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the estate provides for all its water needs, the pond has been improved and stocked with trout and more than 1,000 trees have been planted on the estate in the last few years. Columba 1400, a Scottish registered charity working with young people from tough realities, uses Ardoch as its home at Loch Lomond and benefits from a significant discount from the corporate use rate. Several other charities have held programmes at Ardoch at preferential rates, some of them recipients of grants from Ardoch Foundation. The intention is to review discount rates for all charities using the centre against the rising commercial success of the venue. Peter Armitage had joined Capital International in 1982, just before the start of a global bull market and had minimal exposure to the steep share price declines that followed soon after his retirement. “This fortuitous timing resulted in an accumulation of more wealth than my family needed and, because I find the teachings of Buddha and Christ, more attractive than conspicuous consumption; I resolved to give some of it back. I had in mind establishing an exclusive corporate conference venue with a socially worthwhile purpose and I wanted to locate it in my native Yorkshire,” says Peter Armitage, who has spent most of his working life in Switzerland. He had been looking for a location where he could invest and make his dream a reality. The idea had been many months in the planning but he needed a very specific site before proceeding. He received a call from Norman Drummond, a friend and the founder of Columba 1400, a Scottish-based social enterprise, who urged him to venture north and inspect a property overlooking Loch Lomond. “I travelled north, more as a courtesy than anything else because my heart was set on Yorkshire which is where I spent my formative years, but the moment I saw Ardoch and its inspirational setting I knew I had found the right place. It was only later that I discovered that some of my ancestors are buried in a cemetery not far away from Ardoch which means I can genuinely claim to be giving back to where I came from.” Peter, who now spends much of his time
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in Jersey, persuaded former classmate and lifelong friend Robert Cockill to leave Yorkshire and move north with his wife Penny, to run the estate. “It was very important for me to find the right couple as resident managers because I’m away from Ardoch most of the time and must be able to have total trust in the local managers,” he said. “Robert and Penny have many years of experience in hotel management which is akin to the core of Ardoch’s business. I had been at Leeds Grammar School with Robert in the 1960s and was his best man when he married Penny in the early 70s so I know them both extremely well. They have done a remarkable job, from supervising Ardoch over the first three years, when it was a muddy, noisy building site, to the present time when the focus is on customer satisfaction and growth.” The skills Peter Armitage learned and developed in his career were valuable to his quest to develop a social enterprise, but he also discovered challenges for which he was less prepared. “I worked for a large, privately-owned investment management company where my responsibilities included company research, portfolio management and reporting to clients. This involved a lot of international travel which fulfilled its promise of broadening my mind and, hopefully, raising my awareness
ENTREPRENEUR
of the human condition,” he says. “The advantages of working for a wellresourced, mature and successful company are numerous. All the support functions (e.g. IT, human resources, office supplies, budgeting, and diary management) are at your service which allows you the luxury of becoming a specialist with deep knowledge in a relatively narrow field without the distraction of being a jack of all trades.” He adds: “Founding a small social enterprise put me on a steep learning curve with handson involvement in all aspects of building the business (accounting, legal, trademark registration, personnel, marketing, customer relations, estate management and partnering with charitable organisations). “The lessons I learned in my corporate life are extremely valuable at Ardoch and those I would highlight in particular are the skill to analyse a business, the ability to think longterm and the importance of building a great team of people (we have one at Ardoch). “I’ve also had to recognise that a small social enterprise is limited in what it can achieve relative to a major corporation. It will never move markets, let alone change the world and so the best hope is that it touches the lives of as many young people as possible so that they, in turn, may positively influence the lives of others. Ardoch isn’t designed to make a big splash but it’s capable of creating ripples.”
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For Peter Armitage, philanthropy is a natural response for any human being who is in a position to practice it and he doesn’t find it particularly meritorious. “Once the awareness has dawned then it is simply a matter of opening your wallet and implementing your ideas. Many famous people, Andrew Carnegie and Bill Gates come to mind, and many less famous names have been philanthropic over the centuries and long may it continue. I was so busy being busy that awareness came quite late in my life. “If I was to pinpoint a time when the imperative of philanthropy hit home, it would be during a three day stay on Mount Athos. There, I met several wonderfully happy and fulfilled individuals who had made fortunes in industry and walked away from their materialistic lives to join one of the monasteries on the Greek peninsula. “I met a jolly monk, kneading bread in the bakery, who recounted how he had made his money in textiles and then found real happiness by exchanging one kind of dough for another.” Through Ardoch, Peter Armitage has had the opportunity of meeting a range of interesting people, including The Princess Royal, patron of Columba 1400, who officially opened Columba 1400 at Loch Lomond. His aim is to grow it to an annual turnover of £400,000 and to give increasingly favourable terms to those charities that work with young people at Ardoch. “Some of the growth will come from new customers with a similar profile to those we have already, some from repeat visits from satisfied customers and the balance from new prospects such as product/book launches, activity holidays (golfing, photography, writing, yoga) interfaith groups, family reunions, and visitors from North America, Japan and other countries where Scotland is marketed and known as an attractive destination,” he says. “Homecoming Scotland 2014 and the Commonwealth Games should provide Ardoch with good opportunities too. When we reach the revenue targets the primary measure of success will be on the return on human rather than financial capital; in other words how successful Ardoch is in positively impacting the lives of young people.” n
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BIT OF A CHAT
with Jock Yuler >> Counting on Canada How times have changed. Eight years ago senior Scottish banking figures poured scorn on Canadian banks for being so risk averse and failing to make acquistions. Yet the Russell Canada Index of investment management has significantly outperformed the Russell UK Index since Mark Carney was appointed governor of the Bank of Canada in 2007, suggesting superior governance for Mr Carney in his role. Mr Carney starts his five year term as Governor of the Bank of England in July 2013. He was appointed as governor of the Bank of Canada on 4 October, 2007 and during his tenure has been credited with helping to shield Canada from the worst of the global financial crisis. The Russell Canada Index returned 9.3% from October 4th, 2007 through November 27th, 2012 relative to a (-6.0%) return for the Russell UK Index.
>> Outsider wins HR gong Congratulations to Peter Russian, of Investors in People Scotland, for winning the outstanding contribution to human resources in Scotland at the HR Network national awards, sponsored by Badenoch and Clark. I understand this is the first time a non HR director has picked up this gong, so it says something about how he is driving his business in Scotland. Surely his success can’t be all down to listening to headbanging Marillion in his car?
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Alan Collett, President RICS (right) presents award to Derek MacKay MSP, Minister for Local Government and Planning, who received the award on behalf of the nation.
>> Rabbie’s unsung talent What a neat wheeze – and a nice touch too. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has recognised Robert Burns for his work as a land surveyor. RICS director for Scotland, Sarah Speirs dreamed up the idea of honouring our National Bard and everyone agreed it was a nice one. The Bard was awarded the title Honorary Chartered Surveyor at a dinner in Edinburgh. The posthumous award was presented to Derek MacKay MSP, minister for local government and planning, who received it on behalf of the Nation. The award will be housed at the National Trust for Scotland’s Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway. He said: “While his contribution to Scotland and Scottish culture is widely recognised, his work as a surveyor is less well known. Like Burns, the work of the surveying profession is a vital
part of modern Scottish life, and it has been a pleasure to hear more about the work of the profession, and its association with the Bard.” Although celebrated the world over for his poetry and song, Burns never made a living from his literary works. A tenant farmer by birth and background, the only professional training he ever received was as a land surveyor. At Kirkoswald, he studied land surveying and geometry under the parochial teacher, Hugh Rodger, a man celebrated at the time as a great land surveyor and geometrician. Professor Nigel Leask, professor of English language and literature at University of Glasgow, confirmed: “As a 17-year-old son of an Ayrshire tenant farmer, Robert Burns was trained in ‘Mensuration, Surveying, Dialling etc’ at Kirkoswald, and read widely in the contemporary literature on the subject.
>> Batting to glory Cricket fanatic Tom Cross will be bowled over by winning the Entrepreneurial Exchange’s Entrepreneur of the Year award. The executive chairman of oil and gas business Parkmead Group is seeking to repeat the success of Dana Petroleum, which sold for US$3bn in 2010. Parkmead has already made a number of acquisitions in the North Sea and in the Netherlands. So congratulations to Tom, and to Hermann Twickler, founder of PressureFab Group in Dundee, who was Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year. I’m sure a good night was had by all at the Hilton in Glasgow.
>> And a Parting Shot from
According to Saga, 88% of the over 50s feel that Christmas has become too materialistic while 44% say they sometimes feel they buy presents out of obligation rather than generosity. Yet Granny might want a tablet computer or an iPad rather than bath salts this yuletide.
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EVENTS
WINTER 12
BQ’s business events diary gives you lots of time to forward plan. If you wish to add your event to the list send it to editor@bq-scotland.co.uk and please put ‘BQ events page’ in the subject heading
December
29 Thrive for Business, Hospitality Club, John Hinckley, RIEDEL glassware, The Corinthian Club, Ingram Street, Glasgow. 8.30-10.30am Contact: Alex Berman 0131 526 3105
20 Annual Meeting of Renfrewshire Chamber of Commerce, followed by Christmas Lunch. The Glynhill, Renfrew. www.renfrewshirechamber.com 20 Power Lunch Club, with Ivor Tiefenbrun MBE, Chairman of Linn Records. HSBC Corporate Banking Centre. First Floor 141 Bothwell Street Glasgow G2 7EQS. 12-2PM. Contact: info@powerlunchlub.co.uk
JANUARY 10 Power Lunch Club, Chris Tiso, CEO of TISO Group. HSBC Corporate, Hobart House, Hanover Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1EL. 12-2PM. Contact: info@powerlunchclub.co.uk 11 Thrive for Business, Technology Club. Alexander Bradley, AB Simulation, and Sunil Kadri, Aquaculture Innovation. The Corinthian Club, Glasgow, 8-11am. Contact: Emma Taylor 0131 526 3106. 14 Scottish Highland Leadership Lecture with John Swinney, MSP. West Highland College, UHI Fort William, 4.30-6.30pm Iod Scotland Highland & Islands. www.iod.com 15 The Marketing Experience – Innovate with your marketing budget. Jon Walton of Wellgate Shopping Centre in Dundee. Sensation, Greenmarket, Dundee. 6-8pm www.dundeeandangusechamber.co.uk 17 Power Lunch Club, with guest speaker Jim McColl, Chairman and CEO of Clyde Blowers. HSBC Corporate Banking Centre. First Floor 141 Bothwell Street Glasgow G2 7EQS. 12-2PM. Contact: info@powerlunchlub.co.uk 17 Sean Connaughton, of Scottish Chamber of Commerce, network meeting, Abbotsford Visitor Centre, Abbotsford. 7pm. www.borderschamber.com 18 Business Breakfast for Renfrewshire Chamber with Douglas Alexander MP, Shadow Foreign Secretary, Reid Kerr College. 8.30-10am Members only. www.renfrewshirechamber.com 22 Replacing the Forth Bridge: A breakfast update with Lawrence Shackman, project manager of Forth Replacement Crossing. Brook Queensferry Hotel, St Margaret’s Head, North Queensferry, KY11 1HP. 8-9.30am. www.iodscotland.com or contact 0131 557 5488. 23 Breakfast Connections, Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, Sue Bruce, of City of Edinburgh Council., Ghillie Dhu, Rutland Place, Edinburgh. 8.30-9.45am www. edinburghchamber.co.uk 23 Business and Communications: PR chief Nora Senior, of Weber Shandwick, The Bay Hotel, Burntisland. 12-2pm www.fifechamber.org.uk 23 Networking Lunch for Inverness Chamber of Commerce, Thistle Hotel, Milburn Road, Inverness, 12:15-2pm www.inverness-chamber.co.uk 23 Thrive for Business: Property Club. Craig Pollock, of Lloyds Banking Group. Blythswood Hotel, 11 Blythswood Square, 12-2pm. Contact: Andrew Young 0131 526 3107 24 New Members welcome for Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce. HSBC, Princes Street. 5.30-7pm. www.edinburghchamber.co.uk
February 6 Speed networking breakfast, Joint Dundee & Angus, Fife and Perthshire chambers of commerce networking event in Dunfermline. Carnegie Conference Centre, Halbeath Road, Dunfermline. 8-11am www.fifechamber.co.uk 7 Power Lunch Club, with guest speaker TBC. HSBC Corporate, Hobart House, Hanover Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1EL. 12-2PM. Contact: info@powerlunchclub.co.uk 7 Central Investment – Lunch ‘n’ learn Derek Robertson, Central Investment on pension reform. Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce, Aberdeen. 11.45am-2pm www.agcc.co.uk 15 City Connections: networking lunch, Kissing With Confidence. Copthorne Hotel, Aberdeen, 11.45-2pm. www.agcc.co.uk 20 The Inside track with Sir Brian Souter, Balbirnie House Hotel, Markinch. 12-2pm. Free event. www.fifechamber.co.uk 21 Power Lunch Club, with guest speaker Andrew Muirhead, CEO of Inspiring Scotland. HSBC Corporate Banking Centre. First Floor 141 Bothwell Street Glasgow G2 7EQS. 12-2PM. Contact: info@powerlunchlub.co.uk 21 IoD Glasgow influencers’ Dinner, Colin Robertson of Alexander Dennis. Central Glasgow, tbc. 21 In Conversation with Nigel Farage MEP. Institute of Directors London. 6.30-8.30pm www.iod.com 26 Member networking event, Fife Chamber. Rufflets Hotel, St Andrews, KY16 9TX. 5.30-7.30pm. www.fifechamber.co.uk
March 1 Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce annual dinner at Ayr Racecourse. Hosted by Fred MacAulay.Contact: Yvonne Munro, email events@ayrshire-chamber.org 7 Power Lunch Club, with guest speaker, Brendan Dick, Managing Director of BT Scotland. HSBC Corporate, Hobart House, Hanover Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1EL. 12-2PM. Contact: info@powerlunchclub.co.uk 18 March Vince Cable, Business Secretary speaking on the Green Investment Bank, RBS Conference Centre, Edinburgh. 7pm. Contact: MacKay Hannah, 0131 556 1500 21 Social Enterprise Exchange, SECC, Glasgow. A gathering and exhibition for social entrepreneurs. 21 Power Lunch Club, with guest speaker TBC. HSBC Corporate Banking Centre. First Floor 141 Bothwell Street Glasgow G2 7EQS. 12-2PM. C ontact:info@powerlunchlub.co.uk 21 Institute of Directors Scotland – Director of the Year Awards & Gala Dinner. Crowne Plaza Hotel Glasgow, 6.45-11.30pm www.iod.com
24 Motivational business breakfast, Hilton Treetops, Aberdeen. 7-9am. Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce. www.agcc.co.uk 25 Burns Supper for ICAS, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Castle. www.icas.org.uk 25 Negotiation and Conflict Management Master Class: Building a Collaborative Culture and effective Business partnerships. Edinburgh. All day. Led by John Sturrock of Core Mediation. Contact Stefanie Gibb 0131 226 6564. 28 Thrive networking workshop. Mike McGrail , Digital Velocity, on Linkedin. CitizenM. 60 Renfrew Street, Glasgow, G2 3Bm. 5-7pm Contact: Amanda Kremer 0131 526 3108
BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 12
31 Burns Supper for ICAS Glasgow, House for An Art Lover, Glasgow. www.icas.org.uk
The diary is updated daily online at www.bq-magazine.co.uk 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.
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SEE HOW THE ARTS CAN HELP YOUR BUSINESS Arts & Business Scotland has 25 years’ experience of brokering effective creative engagements that use the arts to fulfil key business objectives, including branding, CSR, stakeholder engagement, staff development and training. To find out more, visit www.aandbscotland.org.uk
Creative Scotland is the national agency for the arts, screen and creative industries, investing in individuals and organisations throughout the country. For more information, visit www.creativescotland.com Damian Moppet, The Brollachan, created as part of the Glenfiddich Artists in Residence programme Photo: John Paul Photography