BQ West Midlands Issue 08 by We Are UMi

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ISSUE EIGHT: WINTER 2014

on the edge The social impact guru who overcame suicidal thoughts

built on faith ‘Field of Dreams’ vision became a reality

Driven to achieve Horrendous childhood spurred me on show must go on How the Hippodrome was rescued ISSUE EIGHT: WINTER 2014: WEST MIDLANDS EDITION

alive and kicking Kickboxing legend building his business

BUSINESS NEWS: COMMERCE: FASHION: INTERVIEWS: MOTORS: EVENTS

WEST MIDLANDS EDITION

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BUSINESS QUARTER: WINTER 14: issue EIGHT There’s a worthy theme of helping aspiring youngsters in this edition of BQ West Midlands, led by our ‘Success story’ interview with social impact guru Joel Blake. Joel came back from the edge of suicide as a teenager to develop a career helping talented job-seekers into work. Now his Cultiv8 Solutions company guides firms on how to combine social impact strategies with commercial success, and he’s also set up The Hot 500 network for would-be entrepreneurs. It’s an inspiring story, and one that’s seen Joel become StartUp Britain ambassador in the West Midlands. Meanwhile, writing for ‘As I see it’, Jerry Blackett outlines why his Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce is backing a business-led academy for 11-to-18 year olds. This new school – based at the Chamber’s Edgbaston headquarters – could soon see local firms directly passing on business skills to the next generation. Also seeking to help youngsters is former world champion kickboxer Kash ‘The Flash’ Gill. Since retiring from the ring, Kash has developed an inner city gym to help deprived kids stay off Birmingham’s streets. And now he’s expanding into the commercial world, offering get-fit training for stressed executives and their teams. Another entrepreneur featured in this edition include Richard Taffinder, who experienced unimaginable violence in an abusive childhood, describes how he hopes his Hills Numberplates business will soon be turning over £50m a year. His story really is proof that anyone, from any background, and in the face of the worst experiences, can be successful.

Meanwhile, restaurateur James Wong, whose father helped found Birmingham’s Chinese Quarter, explains how he’s seeking to diversify the family business – and why he’s cut down his drinking. Wong has broken into the very heart of the city centre as part of a strategy to better integrate Chinese business, and wants to help drive investment from Beijing into Birmingham. In this edition’s Business Lunch, Stuart Griffiths, the chief executive of the Birmingham Hippodrome, tells how he brought the historic venue back from the brink of collapse to become the UK’s busiest theatre, with annual revenues of up to £30m. And our interview with Sultan Choudhury provides a captivating read about the man behind the Birmingham-based Islamic Bank of Britain, and how it’s changing its name and expanding – all without the use of any interest-bearing products. Finally, don’t miss our exclusive reshoring feature by Professor David Bailey and Dr Lisa De Propris, providing real insight on what’s needed to bring more manufacturing back to the UK. All this comes with our regular pages of news, the latest on rail and aviation, commercial property and events. I hope this edition provides you with some focused hours of great business reading. Please continue to send me any feedback, ideas and critiques via steve.dysonmedia@gmail.com, and I’ll reply to you direct. Meanwhile, have a fabulous Christmas, and a happy New Year! Steve Dyson Editor, BQ West Midlands

CONTACTS room501 ltd Christopher March Managing Director e: chris@room501.co.uk Bryan Hoare Director e: bryan@room501.co.uk EditorIAL Steve Dyson Editor e: steve.dysonmedia@gmail.com Design & production room501 e: studio@room501.co.uk Photography KG Photography e: info@kgphotography.co.uk Chris Auld e: chris@chrisauldphotography.com Jolly Media e: info@jollymediaproductions.com advertising Chancelle Blakey Business Development Manager e: chancelle@room501.co.uk t: 07786 070 772 Mike Moloney Business Development Manager e: mike@room501.co.uk t: 07801 849367

room501 Publishing Ltd, Spectrum 6, Spectrum Business Park, Seaham, SR7 7TT 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 © 2014 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. Company profiles are paid for advertising. All information is correct at time of going to print, November 2014. room501 Publishing Ltd is part of BE Group, the UK’s market leading business improvement specialists. www.be-group.co.uk

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WEST MIDLANDS EDITION

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BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

CONTE BUSINESS QUARTER: WINTER 14

a bank based on islamic finance

32 East meets west

Features

Restaurateur James Wong is aiming to help the Chinese to integrate better

38 life on the edge As a teenager, Joel Blake contemplated suicide. Now he’s a business legend

20 No flash in the pan Former kickboxing champion Kash ‘the Flash’ Gill is now a winner in business

26 I built it. They came Entrepreneur’s ‘Field of Dreams’ vision led to pioneering Islamic bank

30 Funding growth Sunday Times economics editor David Smith offers his thoughts on growth

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

42 show must go on How Stuart Griffiths prevented the last curtain call at the Hippodrome theatre

56 driven to achieve A horrendous upbringing only served to spur on indefatigable Richard Taffinder

60 Bringing it home The reshoring trend is good news for the region, but there’s still work to do

26 Bridging the east west divide

TENTS WEST MIDLANDS EDITION

36 commercial property

Behind the biggest new deals and developments across the region

46 wine Leukaemia survivor Graham Hampson Silk samples two life-affirming wines

Regulars

48 motoring Former footballer Geoff Thomas finds Aston Martin is in a league of its own

looking up after life on the edge

50 fashion 08 the big issues Highlighting the importance of a new rail engineering college... and more

10 news Who’s doing what, when, where and why here in the West Midlands

Josh Sims checks out the world’s most expensive – and desirable – wellies

54 equipment Josh Sims chats to Angelo Bonati, CEO of iconic watch makers Panerai

64 bit of a chat With BQ’s backroom boy Bill Borde

18 as i see it An enterprising new idea will inspire students to become entrepreneurs

tough childhood spurred me on

66 events Key dates for your diary

56 BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

AVIATION NEWS

WINTER 14

New daily flights are planned to New York’s JFK airport, and Birmingham Airport recorded its busiest month ever. Steve Dyson reports on the region’s latest aviation news >> Breaking new records Birmingham Airport recorded the busiest month in its 75 year history in August. Passenger figures peaked at 1,104,831, 5.2% up on August 2013 and beating the previous record achieved in August 2008 by 2.3%. It was the fifth consecutive record-breaking month for the airport, with April, May, June and July also smashing previous records. There was also a 1% increase in long haul passenger traffic in August, with flights operating to Beijing, Dubai, Delhi, Egypt, Islamabad, Jamaica, Mexico, New York and Toronto. The airport’s chief executive, Paul Kehoe, said: “Passengers are voting with their feet and more and more are choosing to fly from Birmingham.” Scheduled services accounted for 77.3% of traffic and saw particular growth between Toulouse (+251.3%), Milan (+86.6%), Stuttgart (+70.5%), Dubrovnik (+68.3%), Aberdeen (+53.6%), Jersey (+49.5%), Shannon (+49.4%) and Ashkhabad (+37.9). Charter destinations experiencing growth during August were between China (+100%), Italy (+37.8%), Mexico (+25%), Portugal (+22.4%), Cyprus (+12.6%) and Jamaica (+11.7%).

>> Gatwick plan backed A second runway at London Gatwick rather than Heathrow has won the backing of Birmingham Airport. Gatwick and Birmingham’s chief executives stood sideby-side at a fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference this autumn to deliver the message to the Airports Commission. Birmingham’s Paul Kehoe said: “Growth at Gatwick will support demand for greater connectivity, improving value for passengers flying from the South East and supporting the continued growth of our regions.” And Gatwick’s Stewart Wingate added: “By expanding Gatwick we can harness the strength of the country’s network of great airports, delivering new South East capacity and supporting growth across the UK. We’re delighted Birmingham is supporting our case.”

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

>> New York route will open up global markets New daily flights between Birmingham and New York will help global businesses such as JLR, JCB, Cadbury and Kraft and their suppliers from spring 2015. American Airlines’ new direct route to John F. Kennedy (JFK) Airport will start on Friday 8 May 2015 and will provide nearly 100,000 seats a year. And by using a code share between American Airlines and British Airways, business customers can earn and redeem both BA air miles and Avios points. Paul Kehoe, Birmingham Airport’s chief executive, said: “This new route will create more capacity to the US, broaden connectivity with American Airlines across North America and Canada, and will also see the return of a British Airways flight code to Birmingham. “Last year, the West Midlands exported £4.5bn worth of goods to North America and has the largest trade surplus with North America of any UK region. With global brands such as JLR, JCB, Cadbury and Kraft trading both locally and in the US, this is an important link for West Midlands business. “The region is also a major tourist destination for Americans, with attractions such as Stratford, Warwick and Birmingham drawing in thousands of visitors every year, so we look forward to welcoming many of these tourists next summer.” The American Airlines flight will arrive daily from JFK into Birmingham at 07:10 local UK time, departing for its return leg at 10:00, and then arriving into New York JFK at 12:55 local US time. Suzanne Boda, American Airline’s senior vice-president for Asia, Canada and Europe, said: “Adding Birmingham to American’s growing global network is an exciting development. “Tourists from the US will have closer access to a wide range of attractions in the West Midlands while business travellers will also be rewarded with greater choice when flying across the Atlantic. “New York is one of the world’s most renowned business and leisure destinations, while connecting passengers will have excellent access to key business and leisure markets up and down the East Coast. I’m confident of its success.” The new flights will be on a Boeing 757 airliner with 22 business class seats and 160 main cabin seats. They are already on sale at www.aa.com.

WINTER 14

AVIATION NEWS

>> Airport boss honoured

>> Drop-in provides a haven for business travellers Business travellers will benefit from a new drop-in lounge and meeting space at Birmingham Airport. Regus Express, a short walk away from the check-in and arrivals area, has a professional business lounge and a suite of high-end meeting rooms from as little as £8 per hour. The lounge is designed as a professional haven away from noisy passenger areas to hold meetings. It includes workstations, comfortable seating with laptop stands, secure wifi, printers and scanners, as well as free refreshments and administrative support. Regus Express customers also have access to dedicated parking spaces at the airport. Phil Kemp of Regus said: “There’s a growing need for professional work and meeting space on the go. Regus Express offers business people a productive alternative to working in noisy public areas, and for local and national businesses to hold meetings with contacts flying in or out of the airport.” Richard Gill, head of commercial at Birmingham Airport, said: “Now passengers flying to and from Birmingham can continue their working day without disruption, with the added advantage of discounted on-site parking for users of the facility. “We’re confident the Regus Express lounge will prove to be extremely popular within the region’s business community and demonstrates our commitment to providing passengers with the facilities they need.”

>> Fund helps firm to shine A leading airfield lighting company is moving to bigger West Midlands premises after receiving funding from a business support programme in the region. Tailor Made Systems Ltd, which produces equipment that tests and maintains lighting at all major UK airports, is moving from Warwick to Waterside Business Park, in Rugeley, Staffordshire. The company’s turnover was up by 40% last year and it is funding its new growth with the help of the Business Development Programme (BDP), an £8m project that hopes to assist more than 400 SMEs across the region. The firm has already taken on two staff this year and needed larger premises for its manufacturing, stock and

administration. Robert Shafton, managing director at Tailor Made Systems, said: “We’ve seen phenomenal growth recently and needed premises which were fit for purpose.” Mr Shapton was involved in a management buy-out of the company in 2008 when turnover was at just £300,000. It now has a turnover of £2m – projected to reach £10m by 2019. He added: “The Business Development Programme team were tremendous. We received support at every stage of the process, making it easy for us to apply for funding. And approval was very quick. I would encourage any business looking to grow to apply.” The BDP provides grant funding of up to £15,000 for businesses with expansion plans to safeguard or create new jobs.

Birmingham Airport’s chairman John Hudson was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Birmingham City University this autumn. John was chief executive of Wagon Industrial Holdings plc for 10 years, and is a past president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, ex-chairman of the West Midlands Industrial Development Board and founding member of the CBI National Manufacturing Council. John, who’s been airport chairman since 1997, said: “I feel extremely honoured. Birmingham City University is offering highly relevant courses matched to the needs of industry and commerce.”

>> Post Office opens 24/7 A new Post Office open 24 hours a day, seven days a week has started trading in Birmingham Airport’s Spar Store. Visitors will be able to use the wide range of Post Office services, and customers of 95 per cent of UK banks can access their cash through the Post Office. Adrian Wales, regional manager for the Post Office, said: “This is one of only two 24 hour branches in the UK, operating whenever customers need it.”

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

THE BIG ISSUES

WINTER 14

Steve Dyson reports on the importance of a new rail engineering college, the latest news about high speed train links, and how young people need inspiration to succeed in education >> Training for the ‘elite’ Birmingham’s new high speed rail college will be an “elite institution” that will provide crucial engineering skills for the West Midlands, according to a leading academic. The National College for High Speed Rail, due to open in 2017, will be mainly based at Birmingham’s Science Park, with a satellite site in Doncaster, and will create about 2,000 apprenticeships. Professor Jon Binner, from the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Birmingham University, said: “This is clearly very good news for both the railway industry and for the two regions. “The new college will be an elite institution as defined by its focus on a higher level of study, its employer leadership, its role setting industry standards, the breadth of its curriculum covering a very wide range of engineering disciplines, and the quality of its provision, with the best in teaching and specialist equipment. “It will also be closely linked to the Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE) at the University of Birmingham, the largest such centre in Europe.” Prof Binner says the college was needed due to the range of engineering activities required by the new high-speed railway system. “We need technical and organisational systems that are complex and, as speeds increase, the intricacy of tasks and the workmanship demanded grow rapidly because of the much tighter tolerances needed to operate safely. “Components, signalling, control and communications systems must work quickly, and dependably, if high-speed lines are to carry the traffic needed to justify their existence.” All this, he said, created a need for engineers to operate both modern, high-technology systems and structures that are over 50 years old, in “a constantly varying environment over hundreds of miles, all day, every day.” He said people were needed who can understand how a modern railway can be affected by nature and third parties, and who can carry out tasks “safely, quickly and efficiently.”

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

>> HS2 will help Midlands reach its full potential The multi-billion pound high-speed train lines will not only cut journey times between Birmingham and the North but will transform the West Midlands economy. That’s the claim made by HS2 chairman Sir David Higgins, who said the new network would help the rest of the country achieve the same economic success as London. He was speaking as he confirmed plans to extend HS2 from Birmingham in two directions, to Manchester and Leeds, and to build HS3 across the Pennines to link the North East and North West. A new report set out the following reductions in high-speed journey times: • Birmingham to Nottingham will fall from one hour, 13 minutes to 36 minutes • Birmingham to Leeds will fall from one hour, 58 minutes to 57 minutes • Birmingham to York will fall from two hours 10 minutes to one hour, three minutes • Birmingham to Newcastle will fall from three hours, 14 minutes to two hours, seven minutes • and Birmingham to Manchester will fall from one hour 28 minutes to 41 minutes. The government said the latest high-speed plans would help to create a ‘Northern Powerhouse’, bringing together cities such as Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle into a single economic area. A new transport authority called Transport for the North will oversee the infrastructure, with Chancellor George Osborne due to announce funding of up to £15bn in his Autumn Statement on 3 December. Higgins, chairman of HS2, insisted these measures would also benefit the West Midlands. He said: “The effect should be transformational, a situation in which London grows sustainably, and the Midlands and the North achieve their full potential. The country’s productivity will rise as a whole.”

>> Forum hails self-belief Young people must be inspired at a much earlier age to believe that they can succeed in life, according to a forum of business leaders, politicians and academics. Paul Uppal, MP for Wolverhampton South West, recalled his own experience having arrived in the UK as an immigrant. He attributed the success of running his own business for 20 years before becoming a politician to a 10-minute inspirational talk he had with his teacher. Speaking at the West Midlands breakfast event, hosted by Barclays, he said: “In my view, self-belief is incredibly powerful and infectious. It changes mind sets and leads individuals to believe that there are no limits to what can be achieved.” Another conclusion drawn from the discussion, at the University of Wolverhampton Science Park, included the need to forge better links between education and business. Mark Robertson, principal of the City of Wolverhampton College, said: “The skills

needed to prosper in this information technology age are extremely different and we need to look at how we make real opportunities available. We need to look at what employers want...so we produce workready people who will meet the skills gap.” Ray O’Donoghue, managing director of event hosts Barclays, said: “Building a network of contacts to explore what opportunities are available is extremely important. Often young people are not aware of the careers they want to pursue and work experience placements can be an ideal way to explore this.” Pat McFadden, MP for Wolverhampton South East, spoke about the success of the Wolverhampton Work Experience Programme. He said: “This was aimed at young unemployed people who didn’t have access to the usual networks for arranging placements in fields like law, politics and the media. We got over 50 local employers signed up and of over 500 young people given placements over 200 went on to get jobs.”

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NEWS

WINTER 14

Skills show aims to attract 100,000 visitors, pay dispute mars opening of JLR factory, MTC celebrates triple success, metals firms seeks to exploit niche market, merger plan adds up for accountancy firms >> Careers in focus at NEC The NEC in Birmingham will host The Skills Show, the nation’s largest skills and careers event, for the next two years. The show attracted around 80,000 visitors this November, offering hands-on experiences to help young people find out more about the world of work. Ross Maloney, chief executive of event organisers Find a Future, said: “The excellent facilities and superb transport links at the NEC enable us to a host a show that offers experiential careers advice and the opportunity to watch the UK’s most talented learners and apprentices take part in the finals of the WorldSkills UK Skills Competitions.” Kathryn James, managing director at the NEC, said: “We aim to build on the show’s success, and our unrivalled connectivity means we can set our sights on the 100,000 visitor target for the future.”

>> Green light for jobs Expanding retail designer Green Room has secured investment from Finance Birmingham to support the creation of 40 new jobs. The company, based at Fort Dunlop, Birmingham, has recently opened a studio in Amsterdam, and plans another this year in London. The business, currently employing over 60, focuses on the design and delivery of multimedia retail experiences for consumer brands including Nike, The North Face and British Gas. This is the fourth deal for Finance Birmingham’s £56m Mezzanine Fund for SMEs in the West Midlands, which is supported by the Government’s Regional Growth Fund, offering funding up to £2m.

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

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

>> JLR expands despite strike threat over pay Jaguar Land Rover’s new £500m engine factory was opened by HM the Queen near Wolverhampton at the end of October. Based at the i54 Business Park, the plant will create around 1,400 jobs and will initially make the company’s new 2.0-litre diesel engine for the Jaguar XE. But the opening was marred by news that the company could face strike action after members of the Unite union turned down a pay deal. Shop stewards at Solihull, Castle Bromwich and Halewood said they were “disappointed” at the 14% three-year pay deal Jaguar Land Rover offered them. “We are very disappointed with the company’s offer at a time when they are making millions of pounds a day,” said Des Quinn, a regional secretary for Unite. In the 12 months to 31 March 2014, JLR generated profit before tax of £2.5bn on revenues of £19.4bn. Meanwhile, the company confirmed that its Land Rover Discovery Sport will be one of the models to be produced at its new factory in Brazil from 2016.

>> Back from the brink A Coventry aerospace company that was rescued from the brink of closure two years ago is now more than doubling in size after nearly £1m of funding. CFS Aero, near Coventry Airport, was bought from liquidators by business partners Jon Freedman and David Newhouse in 2012. The 25-year-old firm was struggling with its business model of refurbishing and overhauling engines and propellers on small aircraft used by flying enthusiasts. But after funding through the

Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative, and assistance from the Coventry and Warwickshire Growth Hub, CFS Aero is expecting to double staff from 30 to 70 by offering new products and services. The funding helped pay for the internal construction work needed to move into remanufacturing turbine engines for larger aircraft, and for a training programme for apprentice engineers. Mr Freedman said: “The support we have received is helping us to grow more quickly.”

Putting world-class expertise to work in your business

>> Investors back pioneering pipe repairer A Halesowen company which performs ‘keyhole surgery’ on water pipes under roads without digging a trench has secured funding from venture capital specialists Midven. Kobus Services, based in Mucklow Hill, has developed a machine which enables underground pipes to be replaced without the need for a trench to be dug. As well as being cheaper, it virtually eliminates the chance of disrupting other technologies underground by pulling a replacement into the space left as old pipes are extracted. Now Midven’s Early Advantage fund, alongside other private investors, is enabling Kobus to build a prototype pipe puller for the gas market.

>> Technology firm lands deal in desert state HME Technology, which specialises in supplying engineering equipment to schools, has won its first contract in Saudi Arabia worth £140,000. The Bromsgrove-based business will supply a package of advanced technology and traditional machines to ‘The World Academy’ at King Abdullah Economic City near Jeddah. Director Martyn Hale said: “It’s a very sizeable order for HME, and breaking into Saudi Arabia is a major boost for our business. We hope that we can build on this and win more work there.”

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NEWS

WINTER 14

>> MTC scores a hat-trick

>> Monster gets bigger

The Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) in Coventry is celebrating a triple success after attracting three major international companies to become members. Crown Packaging, leading retailer Sainsbury’s and European imaging leader Stemmer have all joined the MTC to work on major projects with engineers and technicians. The US-owned Crown Packing will be working to improve production lines. Sainsbury’s will be developing packaging designs, shelf-stocking, store displays and layouts. And Stemmer Imaging will be working on new techniques. The MTC was founded in 2011 by the University of Birmingham, Loughborough University, the University of Nottingham and TWI Ltd.

Graphic firm Hollywood Monster has created 10 new jobs after a growth in trade helped by new technology. The Birminghambased company has increased its workforce to more than 75 to cope with demand. Managing director Tim Andrews said the new jobs were in sales, production, artwork and installation, and three apprenticeships for young recruits. He said it came after a £250,000 investment in a modern printer opened up new markets.

>> Metals expansion Aerocom Metals, the Coventry-based provider of high-strength steel tubes, is expanding into South East Asia with the help of a £955,000 funding package from Santander. Simon Littleford, director at Aerocom, said: “International expansion is a key part of our business plan and we have been impressed with the knowledge and experience provided by Santander.” Leon Sloyan, relationship director at Santander, said: “Aerocom is an excellent example of a business which has found a niche market in which to operate.”

>> Expert help for less PwC has launched ‘My Financepartner’, a new accounting service for SMEs that offers a qualified accountant to act as a mentor and adviser for a monthly fee. Kirsty Daniels, Financepartner for the West Midlands region, said: “This gives businesses access to accounting support they need when they need it, and sophisticated management information which will deliver the necessary insight for planning for future growth.”

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

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

Salima Mawji and Anita Chopra with Rob Bhol, centre

>> Back on the Bhol The former boss of an expanding Birmingham law firm has revealed one of the first big contracts for his new management consultancy. Rob Bhol, a solicitor and former chief executive of DBS Law, left the company along with a number of other senior executives after disagreements with chairman Davy Bal. But Bhol’s new company, Anseris Mons Ltd, has now been retained by London-based education law specialists Match Solicitors to help with a planned expansion across the UK. Match is already a national firm, opening offices in Birmingham in October with more growth to follow.

>> PwC talent pool deepens More than 70 new students and graduates joined PwC’s West Midlands office in Birmingham. The professional services firm welcomed 67 graduates and seven new university business placement students, with many coming from the University of Birmingham, Aston University and Warwick University. Mark Smith, regional chairman of PwC, said: “Great people make us a great business. We are committed to looking for the best local talent.”

>> Triple success

>> Merger adds up

Burgis & Bullock, the West Midlands accountants and business advisers, is celebrating a hat-trick of awards. The firm was voted West Midlands Corporate Finance Team of the Year at the Acquisition International Finance Awards 2014. Now its role advising Nuneaton-based Ingleby Care Limited on the sale to Voyage Care Limited is a finalist for the prestigious SME Deal of the Year at the Midlands Dealmaker Awards. Not to be outdone, the firm’s tax team secured the accolade of Midlands Corporate Tax Firm of the Year at the 2014 International Tax Awards. Wende Hubbard, managing partner, said: “It’s great to have the hard work and success of our specialist teams recognised.”

Growing Solihull-based accountants and business advisers Jerroms has merged with one of Birmingham’s well-known accountancy firms.The merger with Trafalgars Chartered Accountants, based in Kings Heath, Birmingham, comes two months after a similar deal with Bromsgrove accountancy firm Harrison Priddey & Co., now practising as Jerroms Priddey. Trafalgars was formed in 2001 and provides a full range of business advisory, audit and accountancy services to businesses in Birmingham and Solihull. The firm also provides specialist tax planning advice to individuals including business owners. The Kings Heath office will practise as Jerroms Trafalgars. The group now has over 90 staff.

Putting world-class expertise to work in your business

WINTER 14

NEWS

>> Fund helps firm expand

David Willis, Lee Clarke, John Hardcastle and David Hardcastle

A Birmingham plumbing and heating supplier has reshored its production thanks to funding from Barclays. Tesla UK, which supplies plumbing and heating components to distributors in the UK and overseas, has moved into new 40,000 sq ft premises – twice the size of its old base. The additional space has allowed the business to bring the manufacturing of its cooker hose – its primary product – back to the UK, creating four new jobs. Tesla UK is a family-owned business set up in 2008 by John Hardcastle. Significant growth saw John’s sons David, Richard and Andrew join the company, and in 2011 and 2012 it acquired two competitors. Today Tesla UK employs 25 people and is anticipating a £12m group turnover this year.

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

WINTER 14

>> Jon’s fast-track rise

Michael Newman, Catherine Box and Chris Elliott

Solihull-based lawyers Meridian Private Client has appointed Jon Croxford as partner just months after he joined the firm. Chartered tax adviser Mr Croxford, who joined Meridian in June as a director, is one of the region’s leading tax planning experts and a specialist in personal tax planning.

>> Chris lands top job Cushman & Wakefield has recruited Chris Elliott as head of UK property management accounting, based in Birmingham. He joins from Workman LLP in Bristol, where he was a client accounts director. Other appointments in Chris’ team are Catherine Box, head of client accounting and Michael Newman, head of operational accounting. Michael joined the firm in 1997, and Catherine has spent 14 years in property management.

>> Contributions rewarded Birmingham accountants Mazars has promoted Narinder Sandher to director in the governance, risk and internal controls department, Dan Guy to senior VAT manager, and Lindy Hunt as a director in the outsourcing team. Managing partner Lee Cartwright said: “They are exceptional members of the team who have been making a very significant contribution.”

David Hillan, Mick Verney and James Hemphill

>> Mick joins the team Business and finance adviser Grant Thornton has appointed Mick Verney as senior manager in its Birmingham office. Mr Verney joins Grant Thornton following nearly 17 years at KPMG in Nottingham, 10 of those specialising in employment tax in the education sector. He previously spent over 24 years with HM Revenue & Customs.

>> Neil’s new role Neil Sumner has joined PwC as a director in the firm’s corporate finance team in the West Midlands. Neil was previously global mergers and acquisitions manager of specialist engineering company IMI plc. Prior to that, he worked for KPMG in Birmingham. He will lead the corporate finance team’s focus on industrial products.

>> KPMG promotions KPMG has made five director promotions in its Birmingham office: Gordon Docherty and James Tracey in audit, Gwyn Llewelyn and Nick Taylor in transactions and restructuring and Kaljinder Nijjar in tax. They are joined by a sixth director, Colin Brearley in audit, based at the firm’s Nottingham office.

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

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

from left, Jon Roberts, Alex Dyer and Andy Hunt

>> New partners appointed Worcestershire chartered accountants Ormerod Rutter have appointed three new partners. Alex Dyer, Andy Hunt and Jon Roberts have joined the firm, which has offices in Droitwich Spa, Bromsgrove and Worcester. Bromsgrove-born Alex Dyer joined the practice as a junior accountant after leaving school 17 years ago. Andy Hunt qualified as a chartered accountant in 1993 and as a chartered tax advisor in 2005. And Jon Roberts joined the firm as a senior accountant six years ago.

>> Six of CPBigwood’s best CPBigwood has promoted Beverley Wootton to senior property manager alongside Kerry Shugar in Birmingham. It means the firm’s new senior property management team is now complete, comprising Kerry and Beverley in Birmingham; Adrian Archer, Stratfordupon-Avon; Alicia Franklin, Loughborough; and Rupy Jandu, London – a mixture of promotions and new appointments.

Putting world-class expertise to work in your business

WINTER 14

COMPANY PROFILE

Getting gold is good for business Today, far more people work in small firms than in large companies and more people than ever work for themselves. Across the UK, there are nearly a million micro businesses employing fewer than 10 people. The Small Business Charter originated following the publication of ‘Growing Your Business’, the report by Lord Young, the Prime Minister’s Advisor on Enterprise. The report aimed to bring business schools, business and entrepreneurs closer together to deliver support for small businesses and drive local economic growth. The Department for Business Innovation and Skills is aligning many aspects of its business support to those business schools that have or will receive Charter status. Aston Business School is one of only three business schools nationally to be awarded Small Business Charter status at Gold level in recognition of its role in supporting enterprise and entrepreneurial activity. In practical terms, this means new opportunities are opening up for small firms in the Midlands to get help to grow their businesses through Aston Business School‘s access to a range of government and other initiatives. The first of these initiatives is the government’s £30 million Growth Voucher programme which provides match funding to small businesses seeking business advice, and is a scheme designed to measure the impact of advice on small business growth. The programme was launched in January 2014, but the key difference in this new roll-out of Growth Vouchers, with Aston Business School leading a national consortium of university institutions across England, is the access that it gives entrepreneurs and small business owners to world class business school expertise. HOW IT WORKS Eligible businesses can apply for a voucher to match fund up to £2000 towards the cost of a full programme of workshops covering growth issues

The new roll-out of Growth Vouchers gives entrepreneurs and small business owners access to world class business school expertise.

for SMEs such as competitor analysis, cash flow and general financial management, marketing and sales strategies, process mapping, and raising the finance for growth. The Small Business Charter Growth Vouchers programme is open to any business based in England that has been running for at least one year, has fewer than 20 employees, a turnover of less than £3.2 million and has not paid for external strategic advice in the past three years. BENEFITS FOR BUSINESS All applicants to the Aston Growth Voucher programme will take part in a free half-day diagnostic workshop, designed to help them evaluate the growth potential of their business and to work up an action plan to unlock that potential. The businesses selected for the full programme will go on to take part in a programme of business growth workshops to equip them with the tools and training to grow their business, as well as specialist workshops tailored to their needs and one-to-one support from a

business mentor. Lord Young said: “Strategic advice is crucial to business success and I welcome the arrival of Aston Business School as a partner delivering the Growth Vouchers programme. With their support, more businesses will be able to access the advice they need to succeed and grow and create more jobs and opportunities.”

If you would like to find out more about how the Growth Voucher programme can help your business to grow or to apply to the scheme, contact the Aston Growth Vouchers team. Tel: 0121 204 4822 Email: growthvouchers@aston.ac.uk Website: www.aston.ac.uk/growthvouchers.

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GIVING SOMETHING BACK

WINTER 14

>> Cash is Heaven sent Bloomer Heaven, the Birmingham-based chartered accountants, raised £5,092.25 for Guide Dogs for the Blind. Fundraising efforts by the firm’s 45 staff included sponsored runs and walks, bike rides, cake sales and even a knitting marathon. Visit www.guidedogs.org.uk for more details.

>> Leaders lead fundraising More than 100 business leaders raised over £1,000 at a networking event in aid of Midlands Air Ambulance at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Birmingham. Ten times Paralympian gold medallist Lee Pearson CBE gave an inspirational talk. www.midlandsairambulance.com

>> Hey Pesto! We raised £420 Diners clinked cups at Pesto Italian restaurant’s coffee and cake morning to raise over £420 for Macmillan Cancer Support. Pesto, on Hollyfield Road South, Sutton Coldfield, provided homemade cakes, teas and coffees in return for donations to the charity. Visit www.macmillan.org.uk for more details.

>> SRA effort tops £17K Workers at the Birmingham-based Solicitors Regulation Authority raised £17,282.50 for Birmingham Children’s Hospital. The team took on the Ice Bucket Challenge, charity runs, cake sales and dress down/fancy dress days for the charity.

>> A fairway to help charities Businesses in Coventry and Warwickshire raised over £3,000 at Harrison Beale & Owen’s charity golf day at Kenilworth Golf Club. The event was in aid of Zoe’s Place Baby Hospice in Coventry and the Warwickshire and Northamptonshire Air Ambulance Service.

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

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

Joe Bates, Nicola Clemow, Captain John Murray, Alix Cottam and Jo Giles

>> Accountants’ efforts add up to good news for air ambulance Birmingham accountants Clement Keys raised £14,398.93 for The Children’s Air Ambulance charity. Fundraising by staff in the last year has included the Three Peaks Challenge, completed by a 19-strong team. One staff member also raised more than £2,000 in the London Marathon. Visit www.theairambulanceservice.org.uk for more details.

>> A visibly good gesture

>> Peak performance

A Staffordshire house builder is celebrating its 21st year in business by donating 35 high-visibility jackets to improve children’s safety on school trips. Cameron Homes, based in Chasetown, donated the special, child-sized jackets to St John’s Church of England primary school in Walsall Wood. The school’s former site is where Cameron has built its latest family homes.

Hilton Birmingham Metropole raised more than £3,200 for charity after general manager Patrick Stapleton and director of operations Max Flude took part in Derby Sportive. The duo were joined on the gruelling 100-mile cycle challenge across Derbyshire and the peaks by Bryan Steel, the four-time Olympic cyclist and medallist, plus 1,200 other riders. Their efforts were in aid of Molly Olly’s Wishes, which provides emotional and financial support for children with terminal or life threatening illnesses, and the Hilton in the Community Foundation, helping children who are homeless, sick, disabled or have a life-limiting illness. Visit www.mollyolly.co.uk or www.hiltonfoundation.org.uk for more details.

>> Water great achievement Brindleyplace donated £66,854.68 to the Help Harry Help Others charity after the annual Dragonboat Festival in Birmingham city centre. The charity boat race on the canal saw 18 teams compete, each raising over £1,500. Event sponsors Deutsche Bank raised £33,118. Visit www.hhho.org.uk for more details.

Putting world-class expertise to work in your business

WINTER 14

COMPANY PROFILE

New cell is in the bag as NDC Polipak looks to take on European rivals UK manufacturers are enjoying a purple period when it comes to bringing work back home. NDC Polipak is the latest company set to benefit from this growing trend. A Cradley Heath manufacturer is looking to tap into the reshoring trend by becoming one of the first firms in the UK to offer production of vertical quad seal plastic bags for retail. NDC Polipak, which employs 77 people across two sites in the Black Country, has invested £600,000 into the new project that will see a dedicated cell launched. This will be responsible for manufacturing the semi-rigid plastic bags that are extensively used in a wide range of packaging including rice, pet foods and other agro-chemical products. Supported by the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS), the company is expecting full-scale production to start towards the end of the year and has already taken on three new staff with the promise of five more to follow by mid 2015. A number of letters of intent have been signed and the management team are conservatively predicting up to £3m of additional sales, most of which will have been secured from rivals in France, Italy and Poland. Paul Cox, Managing Director at NDC Polipak, commented: “We identified these new opportunities as they fit within our existing manufacturing facilities and our core strategy of offering high quality, innovative packaging solutions backed up with excellent customer service. “As we researched the market it was very evident that at present the only suppliers of these products are outside the UK and the presence of a home manufacturer would be very welcome.” He continued: “This involved creating a dedicated performance packaging division at our Halesowen facility, where existing staff can put 40 years in industry to the best possible use. “The investment includes additional 8-colour CI printing capability, a high speed laminator, state-of-the-art quad seal machine and a new design studio.” NDC Polipak, a manufacturer of building films,

UK First: (l-r) Alison Phillips (MAS) and Paul Cox (NDC Polipak).

ancillary building, quality mono and multi-layer films and flexible intermediate bulk containers, has received extensive support from the Manufacturing Advisory Service. New Product Specialist Roy Pulley has worked with Paul and the management team for a number of years on identifying potential markets and in securing funding for initial prototyping work in a host of areas. He is now working with the firm to maximise the opportunities of the new cell by looking at supplier matching and signposting it to additional business assistance. Roy explained: “We are seeing a lot of examples of companies returning production back to the UK and this is a further extension to that with NDC Polipak choosing to deliver a solution for the issue of ‘quad seal’ bags. “The way it has set up production means it will be as competitive as its European rivals, but can offer domestic manufacturers all of the benefits that come from close proximity of supply, including flexibility in volumes,

shorter lead times and more innovation.” He went on to add: “The latter is very important, especially when it comes to printing on the bags, which are like large pouches and free standing in stores. Quality and accuracy has been a big industry issue and this is something NDC want to exploit with the introduction of the process equipment and design studio.” NDC Polipak is one of the first Black Country companies to be assisted by MAS and UKTI under the new ReshoreUK service, designed to bring manufacturing back to England and to ensure there is capacity in the domestic supply chain to take advantage of new opportunities.

For further information, please visit www. mymas.org or follow @mas_works on twitter.

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

AS I SEE IT

WINTER 14

enterprising idea to inspire pupils

Broadway Chamber Academy could become the first school to be run out of a Chamber of Commerce. Jerry Blackett, chief executive of the Greater Birmingham Chambers, explains the bid In a first for the UK, the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce has teamed up with a local academy to put a bid into Government to open a school for enterprise. If successful, the Broadway Academy will retain its successful base in Perry Barr, Birmingham, and will open a ‘satellite’ school, called Broadway Chamber Academy, at the Chamber’s headquarters in Edgbaston. This will see up to 300 11 to 18-year-olds a year study the traditional GCSE and A-level curriculum plus, via an extended day, a range of modules related to starting and running a business. For example: ‘How to finance a start-up’; ‘Understand the market; ‘Find the skills’; ‘Sell the products’; ‘Delivering great service’; and ‘Value for money and then grow the business’. So why is the Chamber doing this? It’s certainly an advantage that we have a 1960s office building that, with comparatively little work, can be upgraded to create classrooms and all the other space a modern school needs. There is also more than enough space to house a school and to allow the Chamber to continue its work. The arrival of a school would regenerate an old building and contribute to the growth anticipated in the Edgbaston quarter of the city. However, apart from the property advantages and by a quantum leap much more important, is the vision we

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

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have for the roles we see our members playing in creating and running the school. This will enable the Chamber’s members to really demonstrate their commitment to helping young people prepare for the world of work. Our vision has our members working hand-in-hand with Broadway’s exceptionally talented educationalists, at the heart of everything the school does – from helping to both design and deliver the curriculum to being part of a rigorous governance structure. We envisage three or four ‘real’ businesses being started by the students. The exact nature of these will be informed by the students themselves once they have assessed the market opportunities. Once a business is being developed we are confident that our members will give willingly of their time and other resources to help the young people maximise their learning. This won’t, however, extend to artificially propping-up any failing enterprises. Dealing with businesses that have gone wrong is all part of the world of enterprise. Indeed, sometimes the best learning comes from failure! A big driver for the Chamber’s involvement is the increasing appreciation that business needs to get a lot more involved in explaining the world of work to young people. Ten years ago, the Chamber’s most visible contribution to the quality of young people emerging from school was to moan that the students couldn’t read or write. We’d thunder: “Something must be done to fix the system!” While the pass rates for GCSE Maths and English provided some justification for this outrage, I think we have now matured into a much clearer realisation that business is part of the system – indeed, integral to it. We know from the success of countries like Germany that getting the skills provision right has industry in a long-term partnership with education providers. Right from school to college and university. Opening a Chamber school is perhaps the strongest evidence we can provide of our willingness today to be on the skills pitch, not just shouting from the stands. Our decision has also been encouraged by the confidence we have in Broadway Academy. At a time when the national media (post Trojan Horse) would leave you worried that all Birmingham’s schools are broken, it’s very important to remember the numerous examples of

AS I SEE IT

excellence we have in our city. We believe the evidence shows Broadway is indeed one of our shining stars and that between us, our partnership can put Birmingham in the school headlines for all the right reasons. We are in the final drafting phase of our bid, which we expect to submit in January. The interest from our members and the broader business community has been overwhelmingly positive. A number of our members have committed their involvement, ranging from being willing to serve in the governance structure to helping design and deliver the curriculum. A number of our most successful entrepreneurs have said to me: “I wish there had been something like this when I was at school.” Parents also have given the concept a big thumbs-up. They appreciate how fast the world of work is changing and how difficult it is for them to keep up. Creating a business is a vocation and finding ways to nurture and encourage the spark of an interest that a young person might have is what we will be all about. n Any business that would like to find out more about the proposed Broadway Chamber Academy can contact Jerry directly at j.blackett@birmingham-chamber.com

We envisage three or four ‘real’ businesses being started by the students. The exact nature of these will be informed by the students themselves once they have assessed the market opportunities

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

gym king is no flash in the pan BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

WINTER 14

ENTREPRENEUR

He was crowned World Kickboxing Champion no fewer than four times. Now Kash ‘The Flash’ Gill is developing a gym in inner city Birmingham. Ros Dodd reports Kash ‘The Flash’ Gill wants to add after-dinner speaking to his career portfolio. “I’ve got a lot of charisma, I’m quite funny and I’ve got a good story to tell,” he says with charming immodesty. He might also mention that he can talk the hind leg off a donkey, which of course will come in quite handy on the speakers’ circuit. Kash – real name Kashmir Singh Gill – is certainly a character. He also happens to be a four-time world kickboxing champion and the UK’s “most prolific kickboxer”. He has competed across the globe and rubbed shoulders with a host of celebrities, from Belgian martial arts film director Jean Claude van Damme to members of the Birminghamborn reggae band UB40. Today, at the age of 48, his fighting days are over – although he is still passionate about keeping fit and looks much younger than his years. His boyish looks, enthusiasm and chattiness, coupled with his drive to help disadvantaged youngsters, have helped to keep him in the media spotlight. Last year he was inducted into the BBC’s Hall of Fame in recognition of his titles and community work, and a documentary of his life is currently in production. “If it’s done properly, it could be a Bollywood blockbuster – like an Asian-style Rocky!” Kash, a divorced father-of-three, now runs an eponymous gym in Ladywood, Birmingham, where he trains children and adults in the art of kickboxing and other martial arts. Since setting it up six years ago, he’s produced six new world kickboxing champions. Having come from a deprived background and experienced a difficult childhood, Kash

is as focused on helping disaffected and underprivileged youngsters as he is on financial success for his business. “I’m a giver, not a taker. I get a lot of satisfaction from helping kids to change their lives,” he explains. “I work with all sections of the community, including kids who have been into drugs. It’s why I made it into the regional finals of the Pride of Britain Local Hero Award in 2011. As well as coaching, I also go into many inner-city schools to spread the word about the importance of health and fitness.” But he’s also keen to attract more of a corporate clientele to his gym business: “Companies already come to me to train: kickboxing and other martial arts are good for anger management and stress relief. I’m looking to attract more corporate clients.” He set up the gym, on Icknield Port Road, with £100,000 that he and a sleeping partner put in. Not only is it well kitted-out, it’s also something of a shrine to Kash’s fighting years. There are cardboard cut-outs of him (made to advertise his biography, My Life in a Flash, published in 2012), the walls are lined with photographs and newspaper cuttings and the shelves are packed with cups and trophies. It opened in 2008 and although it’s gone

through “tough times”, it’s now well established. Kash also runs “mobile gyms” at leisure centres around the Birmingham area. “Quite a few of the people I’ve trained, who have got their black belts, have gone on to open their own gym or coaching businesses.” Kash’s parents who came to Britain from India in the 1950s. He grew up in Handsworth, the second youngest of six children. When he was nine his mother died, leaving his sister to care for the family while his father worked 18-hour factory shifts to support them all. One imagines his mother’s death would have been a traumatic time for him, but Kash says he took it in his stride. “It didn’t affect me that much. It made us independent – we had to learn how to iron, how to wash clothes. I look at the positives rather than the negatives, although it probably did affect us. Our sister, who was 16 at the time, took mum’s role. My dad was working double shifts, getting up at 5am. I remember him saying, ‘make sure you kids don’t end up doing what I’m doing’.”Kash took up kickboxing when he was 14. “I spent a lot of time in Handsworth Park when I was a kid and one day I saw a kickboxing demonstration there and decided it was what I wanted to >>

Quite a few of the people I’ve trained, who have got their black belts, have gone on to open their own gym or coaching businesses

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

ENTREPRENEUR

WINTER 14

How martial arts craze was kick-started Kickboxing is a form of martial arts and combat sport based on kicking and punching. Its origins are disputed: some people say it began in Thailand, Japan or elsewhere in the Far East in the 1950s, a combination of karate and Muay Thai boxing. But the World Kickboxing Association (WKA) – the oldest and biggest of the sport’s governing bodies – says its real origins can be traced to America in the 1970s and it is, in fact, another name for full contact karate. “Various American tournament karate practitioners became frustrated with the limitations of the then rather primitive competitive scoring system,” explains the WKA, whose administrative office is in Erdington, Birmingham. “They wanted to find a system within which they could apply kicks and punches to the knockout. Full contact karate was born. “Early bouts were fought on open matted areas just as ordinary karate matches were. Later events were staged in regular size boxing rings. These early tournaments produced kickboxing’s first stars, Joe Lewis, Bill Wallace, Benny Urquidez and Jeff Smith. Later the Americans really wanted to test their mettle and sent teams of kickboxers to Japan under the banner of the WKA. From this point, kickboxing developed into a true international sport.” Because several international bodies, rather than one, govern the sport, there is no single kickboxing world championship, and individual promotions issue champion titles. Fights organised by different governing bodies apply different rules, such as allowing the use of the knees or clinching. As well as being a competitive sport, kickboxing is practised for self-defence and general fitness.

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

People ask me what I did before kickboxing, and I tell them I didn’t do anything else do. I loved it from my first lesson. My father was a wrestler back in the Punjab, so it was in the blood. He encouraged me. I’ve got four brothers and a sister. I was a bit of a scrapper.” When teachers asked Kash what he wanted to do when he left school, he would reply: “I want to be the world kickboxing champion.” They would smile indulgently and say: “What do you really want to do?” But his mind was made up. “I knew I’d achieve it,” he says. After leaving school at 16 without any qualifications, he threw himself into training. “I would train four times a day – it became a full-time occupation. People ask me what I did before kickboxing, and I tell them I didn’t do anything else.” Becoming a martial arts devotee not only made Kash super-fit, it also helped to bring him out of his shell: “I was a shy kid and this gave me confidence. I see the same thing happen with kids today when they come to train at my gym. It changes them. They get a chance to compete and do well at something; it gives them something to channel their energy into.”

By the age of 20, he was world amateur kickboxing champion. The same year, 1986, he lifted the British and European professional titles, and at the age of 24 was crowned professional world champion – in Birmingham – for the first time. He went on to win the title a further three times before formally retiring in 2002 – after a mammoth 101 fights. Standing 6ft 3ins tall, it was Kash’s speed and athletic ability combined with his flashing showmanship that earned him his nickname. He suffered his fair share of injuries, as well as battles with his weight, en route to world glory: “In my third fight, in Austria, I was in hospital for a week after being knocked out cold, and in 1989 I broke my jaw in two places – but I still won the fight!” Kash won his four world titles at three different weights – from 10st 12lbs to 11st 6lbs. “Being tall, it’s not easy to keep the weight down. I made a lot of sacrifices. I was dehydrated and dizzy a lot of the time: in those days there was no real sports management or sports science.” He still misses fighting, he says. “It was tough, but I really enjoyed it. It’s been a good life – and it still is. If I had my time over again – I’d do the same all over again.” Since his divorce from wife Julie in 2011 after 16 years together, Kash has lived alone in Solihull. But you get the sense that his heart’s still in Handsworth – where it all began. “Handsworth is famous for riots and bad things, but good things have come out of Handsworth, and I’m one of them.” n

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

COMPANY PROFILE

WINTER 14

Helping you understand Later Life planning and the deprivation of assets Andrew Whiting Wealth Consultancy LLP offers an informed insight into how later life planning can help protect wealth. A significant issue for many people is why their elderly relative, who has accumulated wealth by being financially astute all their life, has to pay for his or her care – while those who have been less prudent have the cost of their care paid by the state. Some people with too much capital to qualify for state funding attempt to protect their wealth by ‘deprivation of assets’ i.e. artificially reducing their holdings. First, it is important to understand that, as one might expect, there is no lawful way in which an individual can deliberately gift an asset to avoid paying for care and expect the state to pay for it instead. The most obvious way to deprive oneself of significant assets would be to gift one’s home, and this may be tempting; but things can go badly wrong. Consider the position if you gave it to your children and a combination of the following occurred: • They do not keep up the mortgage payments • They become bankrupt • They get divorced and the property is included in the divorce settlement • You were asked to leave the property, having no legal right of occupancy • You wanted to sell it and move to another property but your children declined to allow you to • Your partner died and you met someone else whom you wanted to move in with you; but your children didn’t approve of them • You wanted to release some of the capital tied up in your home to fund care costs of your choice rather than those offered by the local authority. The above are just some of the situations that could arise and could very much restrict the way you live your life in retirement and limit the freedom of choice that owning your own property brings.

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

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COMPANY PROFILE

There are specially designed financial products for meeting care costs Once you consider the above and appreciate how much freedom comes with owning your own home, it is rarely appropriate to give it away. And if the reason for making the gift was to avoid paying for care, the whole exercise may prove futile; if care funding is being provided by the local authority and it identifies that an asset has been deliberately given away to avoid contributing to care cost, then it is almost certain that the value of that property will still be counted in the means-test. Any financial assessment for care-home funding will include the question “Do you or have you ever owned a property?” If the answer is “Yes” but that you have given it away, enquiries as to the reasons why you gifted the asset will need to be made. Where a significant reason for gifting the asset was to avoid contributing to care costs, you will be treated as if you still owned it and the value of it treated as ‘notional capital’. If the gift took place within six months of needing care then the cost of care can be reclaimed from the recipient. While in theory there is no time limit as to how far back the council can go when considering whether deprivation has occurred, the need to demonstrate a causal link is a practical limitation. In reality, examples of when a council would consider individuals to have deprived themselves of capital would be if: • A sum of money is gifted to someone, whether or not this is to a family member • The title to a property has been transferred to an individual or trust • Significant expenditure is incurred • Investments have been placed into trust, from which the donor is excluded

Richard Avery of Andrew Whiting Wealth Consultancy LLP and Associate Member of SOLLA

• Money has been converted into a form which would be disregarded e.g. a life assurance policy • Capital has been reduced by living extravagantly It should be noted that, to be treated as deprivation of assets, avoiding paying for care costs needs to be a significant motive, but not the main one. Examples in which the council is unlikely to treat a transaction as deprivation of assets, (as it would be unreasonable to regard the individuals’ motivation as depriving themselves of capital deliberately in order to reduce the residential accommodation charge) include: • An individual about to move to a residential care home pays off an outstanding loan for home improvements

Combining advice to maximise the support you are entitled to from the state with appropriate financial advice could go a long way in mitigating care costs

• Moving into residential accommodation with a 50% interest in property which continues to be occupied by a spouse or civil partner (NB: The value of one’s share in the property is ignored while a spouse lives there; but should the spouse move and so sell the home; the 50% share of the proceeds could be taken into account – rather than 100% in the case of deprivation of assets.) Ultimately, the likelihood of needing to move into a care home is quite small. After all, it is government policy to enable individuals, where possible, to receive the care they need in their own homes. If a care home is needed, there are ways of paying for it without using up all of your capital. Combining advice to maximise the support you are entitled to from the state with appropriate financial advice could go a long way in mitigating care costs. In addition, there are specially designed financial products for meeting care costs. For example, immediate needs annuities make it possible to meet care costs for as long as care is needed whilst using up only part of the available capital – provided the individual has not deprived themselves of capital in the first place. *Trusts are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority For more information on how we can protect your financial future please contact:

Web: www.AndrewWhiting.co.uk Email: Andrew.whiting@sjpp.co.uk Tel: 0121 215 0926

The Partner Practice represents only St. James’s Place Wealth Management plc (which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority) for the purpose of advising solely on the Group’s wealth management products and services, more details of which are set out on the Group’s website www.sjp.co.uk/products. The title ‘Partner’ and ‘Partner Practice’ are marketing terms used to describe St. James’s Place representatives.

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

INTERVIEW

WINTER 14

Sultan Choudhury was but a young sprog back in 1989, when Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams dominated box offices around the globe with its whimsical tale about an Iowa farmer, baseball and the unlucky Shoeless Joe. However, as he recounts his journey – from ambitious teenager to a pioneer of Islamic finance within Britain’s banking community – the theme to his career over the last decade or so has to be the film’s catch-phrase: ‘Build it and they will come’. Today, as the chief executive of Britain’s only fully Sharia-compliant retail bank, its balance sheet bolstered by £100m capital investment from its Qatar parent, Masraf Al Rayan (MAR), Sultan’s vision has finally been realised. “The owners want to make their bank into a global brand, and we will be the European footprint of that ambition,” he says. “Our name will change in December 2014 from the Islamic Bank of Britain (IBB) to Al Rayan Bank plc, but we will always be a bank for retail customers, and our headquarters will remain in Birmingham. However, we will become more of a commercial bank, so there will be a greater focus on corporate and real estate finance which will run out of London. “As IBB, we had the vision, the innovation and the potential, but not the capital. However, we’ve already attracted more than 50,000 customers by our ethical approach and the quality of our products. Now we have to get our message across to the wider community.” As Sultan sits in IBB’s head office, off Hagley Road, he’s every inch the modern banking professional: sharp of suit and mind, and with a reassuring presence. However, his confident demeanour belies the many challenges which IBB encountered since it was formed in 2004. Sultan believed if a bank based on Islamic finance could become established that the customers would come, but he wasn’t just constructing a small baseball diamond on the fertile grasslands of North-East Iowa. He had to learn about the banking system, build a bank and its brand, and make potential customers, the finance community and even software houses understand what Islamic finance was. “There were times when the challenges were immense,” admits Sultan. “IBB lost money for nine successive years because we just didn’t have the capital. Now though, our balance

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

I built it...and they came

Sultan Choudhury, the boss of the Birminghambased Al-Rayan Bank, chats with Ian Halstead about ambition, overcoming challenges and cornering the market in Islamic finance sheet is over £600m, our book has doubled for each of the last three years, and we are recording a profit month-by-month.” IBB now operates from five branches and three agencies. As of December 2013, it had retail deposits of £320m – up 35% year-on-year – and total customer financing was up 87% to £241m. Commercial property finance was up 196% to £34.3m. But the most impressive statistic is that non-Muslim customers are flocking in ever-increasing numbers. When its fixed-term deposit account launched in January 2013, almost 83% of customers were nonMuslim. So what is ‘Islamic banking’? Islamic banking operates without interest (known as ‘riba’), which is not permitted in Islam. And the source of its funding, profit and business investments cannot be in, or from, companies which deal in interest, gambling, pornography, speculation, tobacco or other commodities contrary to Islamic values. Instead, the principal means of Islamic finance are based on trading, with any risk involved in trading activity. Any gains from that trading are then shared between the person providing the capital and the person providing the expertise. Despite the ethical appeal of Islamic finance though, no investor is going to park their savings with any institution unless the returns from its products are appealing. And in early November, IBB products held first place in the Money£acts tables for the best fixed-rate bonds over one year, 18 months and two years. “We focus heavily on creating attractive products, but also invest

in IT infrastructure so customers can open accounts online with minimum fuss. We’re also big on having excellent support structures, because it’s vital to offer the highest service standards,” says Sultan. His CV features a first degree from Nottingham University in economics and econometrics, and an MBA from Aston University, but he learned the critical importance of customer care in a rather different environment – running his dad’s Indian restaurant. “My parents came from Bangladesh in the 1960s, and dad opened an Indian restaurant near Bude, then another in Bodmin. Although we were settled in Birmingham, Cornwall became my second home,” recalls Sultan. “When I was 16, I started helping out and quickly progressed to running the restaurant, being front-of-house, and looking after the staff. I realised you could overcome many obstacles through hard work, and that looking after your customers is absolutely vital.” Sultan’s experiences also taught him that talent must be dovetailed with >>

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INTERVIEW

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INTERVIEW

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tenacity to deliver success. “When I’m looking to bring new people to the bank, I always think a person who looks to jump off at the first sign of trouble is probably not for us,” he admits. However, Sultan is certainly not someone to linger on the negatives, neither today nor as he looks back. “When I was young, we lived in Sparkbrook, so right in the middle of Peaky Blinder territory, in one of the terraced houses built for BSA workers. It was very much a white working-class area then, with a smattering of West Indians and some Asians. “I went to Montgomery School, a lovely Victorian building. But it had a lot of oldfashioned teachers and no-one was going on to grammar schools, so dad had me sit the entrance exam for King Edward’s and I went there. It had a big influence on my character. It was excellent academically. There were only four pupils from ethnic backgrounds in my class, so it was tough at first, but I had a really happy and fulfilling time.” The teenager also developed ambition. In the ‘What do you want to be?’ section of a job advert, he wrote ‘A CEO’. He was recruited, but lasted just two days! “The job turned out to be selling really tatty stationery from Taiwan by cold-calling firms on industrial estates in the Black Country, which taught me another lesson. Always do your research.” Sultan was soon off to university though, sponsored by Sainsbury. “I worked at their head office during the summer, and was impressed by their focus on quality, but it was a very hierarchical organisation and I could see it being restrictive in terms of what you could achieve as a newcomer,” he recalls. “I’d chosen an accountancy course, because it was an expanding profession, and after graduating, I joined Deloitte in Birmingham. I really enjoyed being in the field, talking to their clients, but the administrative element of accountancy was not very interesting.” Four years on, a mix of wanderlust and ambition saw Sultan move to one of Deloitte’s clients, Charles Schwab Europe. “I was working with them to make their call centres more efficient, and mentioned to a colleague that I was thinking about an MBA. Schwab offered to take me on, give me a rise and pay for my MBA, so that was an easy decision.” Sultan was later appointed director

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When I’m looking to bring new people to the bank, I think a person who looks to jump off at the first sign of trouble is not for us of the company’s brokerage operations, which further honed his management skills: “I liked the ‘can do’ philosophy of the Americans. I’d got a background in accounting, auditing and strategy, and they gave me the chance to turn round several ‘problematic’ departments. I managed to flip them around into some of their strongest units, which was very satisfying.” The European arm was unexpectedly sold to Barclays Private Banking, but Sultan escaped the inevitable management cull, and was soon operating a sizeable chunk of his new employer’s business. “It was slightly unreal. I had between 300 and 400 people operating on two sites, and the volume of work was so great they gave me three secretaries. Then I heard a buzz about people looking to set up an Islamic finance bank.“I’d been interested in that form of finance since university, and the chance to build a High Street bank from scratch was too good to miss. Right from the start, I had a vision of how it could work, from the call centre right through to the staff and the products. “In January 2004 though, IBB had just three staff, an MD, a CEO and some banking software. We gradually built the structure, persuaded the Financial Services Authority to grant a licence, and then set off round the country talking to people. “We weren’t driven by the desire to make a return, and hadn’t got the capital to make an impact, so it was all about passion. I was doing seminars in mosques and for business leaders, then we started building a branch network

and I spent two years on the road. ”Unfortunately, all the fixed overheads burned our cash. We strengthened the management team, and started pushing deposit accounts, but the fuel was still running out.” Finding a new, capital-rich owner was long and challenging, as Sultan pitched relentlessly through Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, but ultimately, MAR recognised the bank’s potential, and now Sultan expects significant progress over the next two to three years. “I’d expect to see us engaged in wider areas of banking. We’ll have products available for SMEs, for example, and wealth management is another area we’ll move into. By then, I’d hope we’ll also have a foothold in Europe, although that will obviously be challenging. In the UK, we now have a climate in which Islamic finance can flourish, but not so in Europe, so we’ll have to put a lot of effort into explaining the concept.” With two sons and a daughter, there’s not a great deal of spare time, although intriguingly, for a technocrat, the main hobbies Sultan shares with his wife are the National Trust and English Heritage. At the moment though, his biggest ‘guilty pleasure’ is popping back to Sparkbrook. “I dine out a lot,” he admits. “My number one choice this year is La Favorita, off Ladypool Road, which does wonderful Italian and Asian food. It sounds an odd mix, but the proprietor is Algerian, and they are his favourite cuisines. I love eating there, perhaps just a little too much.” n

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COMPANY PROFILE

Former England Footballer Geoff Thomas set for two cycling challenges in 2015 for Cure Leukaemia Ten years after going into remission from blood cancer, former England, Crystal Palace and Wolverhampton Wanderers footballer Geoff Thomas has set his sights on helping raise £2million in two years for Cure Leukaemia through two immense cycling challenges Geoff will revisit the challenge of cycling all twenty-one stages of the Tour de France; this time, just one day ahead of Le Tour 2015. Along with a group of only twenty participants, Geoff will complete one of the toughest physical challenges around and raise £1 million for Cure Leukaemia. Geoff will also lead a four-day, 500 kilometre cycling challenge: London 2 Paris: Inspiring the Revolution. A 300 strong ‘Team Revolution’ will embark on this epic journey in June 2015 including former footballers Mark Bright, Ian Wright and John Salako, to raise further funds and awareness for the charity. In 2003 Geoff was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia and was given less than three months to live. Following treatment from Cure Leukaemia Co-founder Professor Charlie Craddock, including a bone marrow transplant from his sister, Geoff has been in remission since January 2005. Six months after his treatment, inspired by cancer survivor and pro-cyclist Lance Armstrong, Geoff Thomas set himself the challenge of cycling the Tour de France 2005 route two days ahead of the race. Geoff succeeded in his 2005 challenge and wrote ‘Riding Through The Storm’ to chart his physical and emotional journey. Commenting on the challenges, Geoff Thomas said “At that time I had no idea what I would be doing ten years on, but being in such good health and having returned as Patron of Cure Leukaemia I want to get more involved and help to raise awareness and funds that I know will make a direct impact on the treatment of people who are in the same position as I was a decade ago. London 2 Paris: Inspiring the Revolution will be an experience open to everyone, whether they are a keen cyclist or new to the sport. Regardless of their level of experience we would love people to join us. Revisiting the Tour de France just one day ahead of the professional peloton will be incredibly taxing both physically and emotionally but I’m hoping

Geoff Thomas

London 2 Paris: Inspiring the Revolution will be an experience open to everyone, whether they are a keen cyclist or new to the sport. Regardless of their level of experience we would love people to join us that my efforts will inspire the public to get behind us and donate to Cure Leukaemia and help us save more lives.” Geoff, and the footballing community, have a strong connection to Cure Leukaemia. The charity is credited with saving Geoff’s life and, more recently, the life of former Aston Villa Captain Stiliyan Petrov. Based at the Centre for Clinical Haematology at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, Cure Leukaemia recently launched the ‘Birmingham, Let’s cure leukaemia’ campaign with the University of Birmingham which aims to help the city find a cure for blood cancers within the next 30 years and Geoff is determined to raise funds to hasten this progress. Cure Leukaemia cofounder Professor Charlie Craddock said, “Geoff has been an inspiration to both patients and clinicians ever since his transplant ten years ago through his selfless work to increase treatment options for blood cancer patients. It is a huge privilege to be working with him again to maximise curative options for patients from across the whole of the West Midlands.”

Entries for both events are now open. For enquiries about joining Geoff on his Tour de France challenge visit www.beforethetour.com for more details. If you or your business have an interest taking part or sponsorship opportunities for London 2 Paris: Inspiring The Revolution visit www.L2Prevolution.com for more details and how to sign up. The ride will take place between June 18th and 22nd 2015. For more information about Cure Leukaemia please visit the website www.cureleukaemia.co.uk.

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

Funding business growth WELCOME If you’re ever wondering how the UK economy is performing, try counting the number of builders’ skips on your street. That was the light-hearted advice from David Smith, economics editor at The Sunday Times, who said: “If there are no skips, it’s a recession; if there are two, there’s a growth trend; and if there are four, it’s an unsustainable boom!” In his opening talk at Barclay’s ‘Funding Business Growth’ event, Smith described how the UK economy was picking up after “the worst recession since post-war times”, but that it was a “stopstart recovery” as a result of many factors. These included spending cuts driven by deficit reduction, weak credit growth, an inflationary squeeze on real income, with lower wages. There was also weakness in the main export markets, weak productivity growth, a deleveraging of household and corporate debt, and a regulatory backlash. “All these factors have reduced the pace of recovery,” said Smith, “but undoubtedly things have started to get better… it’s just taking longer.” Other economic risks had not gone away, Smith said, including the Eurozone weakness, geopolitical crises such as the Ukraine and the Middle East, and UK political uncertainty ahead of the 2015 General Election. Despite these hurdles, Smith pointed out that inflation was down, there had been the biggest fall in unemployment on record, and the UK’s monetary policy was working – including the 0.5% bank rate, quantitative easing, the Funding for Lending and the Help to Buy schemes. He said: “It’s like lighting a bonfire on a damp afternoon. You strike one match, a second match, a third match and a fourth, and nothing happens, but then the fifth match works and nearly takes your eyebrows off.” Discussing probable interest rate rises in later 2015, Smith said: “Leading indicators point to a GDP growth of 2.5% or so, the Bank of England is still upbeat, and the household debt burden has fallen, so the economy can take it.” But any interest rate growth would be gradual, he said, with small rises leading to an eventual “new normal” at somewhere like a “manageable” 2.5%.

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economy skips to a new beat David Smith, economics editor at The Sunday Times, was the guest speaker and panel facilitator at a ‘Funding Business Growth’ event held by Barclays at The Belfry Hotel, Sutton Coldfield last month. Steve Dyson reports THE DEBATE Ian Tetsill, Barclays’ head of debt finance in the Midlands, said the bank had a real appetite to lend. He added: “Interest rates and the cost of borrowing are at historic lows. It’s a good time to secure new borrowing, and we are getting more requests to support both organic and acquisition related growth.” Richard Sanders, a partner of Catalyst Corporate Finance, said that M&A deals in his sector were 30% or 40% ahead of last year. The challenge, he said, was to “make sure companies make the most of their opportunity”, referring to an old saying that: “You can’t overpay for a very good business.” Ian Downing, investment director at the Business Growth Fund (BGF), said his organisation was working with SMEs with turnovers of £5m to £100m, lending them “between £2m to £10m a time in return for an involvement and shareholding”. He said: “We support them over the longterm, lending from five to ten years. We’ve been going for three years, and have invested £400m in 70 businesses so far.” James Webber, Barclays’ head of trade and

working capital in the Midlands, said there had been a 46% growth in exports in the West Midlands over the period 2010-2013, the highest level in the UK, largely driven by companies like Jaguar Landrover. But Webber said: “The export market is the elephant in the room.” There was a “lack of confidence for businesses to step into export markets” because of a “fear of not being paid”, and rather than dealing with that issue firms were staying within the UK. There were, Webber said, better opportunities within emerging markets like parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America where you will find economic growth of up to 7%, and there was “a lot of advice around” from banks, the UKTI and other organisations. Rather than seeing these advisors separately, he said: “Why not get us all in the room at the same time? We look at the risks and can help companies to mitigate them.” He added: “We should put more (successful) exporters in front of (potential) exporters. Go into exports with your eyes open and there are big prizes.” Sanders said there was a “great diversity in funding”, and that even crowd-funding

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Funding business growth

There’s a lot of finance out there for businesses looking to expand... but it can be confusing

had become successful at the £100k to £250k level. “As businesses progress through different types of ownership they’re using different pots of funding.” Downing said the BGF was dealing “almost always” with owner-managed companies with ambitions, and with “exciting entrepreneurs”, but these were often very different. “We’ve recently helped a 214-year old family firm in its ninth generation, and another firm we’re helping is just three years old.” Tetsill said: “The rules of banking have not changed since I started lending 25 years ago: The questions we ask are: What’s the cashflow like? How much can they afford to repay? What’s their track record? What are the contingencies? It’s about looking at the operating business first – is it growing? Is it

in good health? And then overlaying the right capital structure second. Sanders agreed and said: “Some of the banks are operating in a much more sophisticated way. Rather than saying ‘let’s grab as much as we can’, they’re saying ‘these guys here, we can work very closely with’.” Webber said Barclays had seen a gradual move away from traditional overdrafts towards a mixture of products such as sales finance, letters of credit and trade loans. “Clients like that structured approach for flexibility in their business, and it means we can potentially leverage higher than with traditional overdrafts. But it’s an educational process, as there’s still that sharp intake of breath when ‘letters of credit’ are mentioned.” Discussing BGF finance, Downing said: “We

try to pay a fair price. We’re buying shares. If there’s a rise in value, we benefit. If there’s a drop, it’s worthless. If a business fails, we lose our money. So valuing a business is a subjective process. Whether it’s your house or your car, you always think it’s worth more.” Graham Nicoll, Barclays’ head of midcorporate banking in the Midlands, said: “There’s a lot of finance out there for businesses looking to expand. But it can be confusing and complex. Where do you go? How do you find out about different funding? “The challenge for us is: how do we make sure we’re meeting your needs? We can act as that conduit to find the best sources of finance for you. Our job is to make sure we can support you, the client, to source all the different options.” n

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entrepreneur

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Bridging the east-west gap 32

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

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ENTREPRENEUR

The late restaurateur Siu Chung Wong helped create Birmingham’s Chinese Quarter. Now his son, James Wong, wants the Chinese to play a new role in the city’s future. Steve Dyson reports On James Wong’s seventh birthday in 1981, when his mother laid her eyes on him for the first time in three years, she sobbed at his hollow cheeks and skinny body. Born in Birmingham, he’d lived with his grandparents in Hong Kong while his mother, Yuk Ying Wong, and father, Siu Chung Wong, worked long hours to establish themselves in the emergent Chinese restaurant industry. But living in a crowded apartment block with older cousins meant James, and his younger brother Richard, often missed out on the best food, leaving them close to malnutrition. “I remember the Hong Kong years vividly,” recalls James. “We lived in two high-rise apartments knocked into one, 10 or 11 people sharing three bunk beds. Me and my brother shared a bottom bunk with my grandmother. The bath was a tin tub. “Our daily diet was steamed pork and vegetables. A bread roll was a snack. A tiny crab’s leg or Lucozade diluted with water were luxuries. My mother used to send us chocolate, but with older cousins I hardly got to eat any. I became quite thin and my mother cried when she saw me. She took me for chocolate cake to celebrate my birthday, but I’d never eaten one before and was sick because my body couldn’t take it.” It was an austere beginning, but the Wongs soon whisked their sons back to the UK after hard graft and a little luck saw them become independent restaurateurs. “My parents arrived in the UK in the mid-tolate 1960s, my father working all hours as a chef, my mother front of house. I’d grown up in Selly Oak until I was four, but they didn’t have time to look after us, so we were sent to live with our grandparents. “Basically, my father wanted to be an entrepreneur. He started in Nottingham, then had a part-share in a Birmingham restaurant, but that failed after a couple of years. He was a gambler, won around £10,000 on Nijinsky at the 1970 Epsom Derby, and eventually used

the winnings and other savings to start Seven Up, a small restaurant for ten to 20 people. “They both worked really hard, and by 1981 could afford to bring us home. In July 1981, my father opened Chung Ying [a simple mixture of his parents’ names] in an old warehouse near the Hippodrome Theatre in Birmingham – one of what’s now China Town’s first restaurants.” James went through school as “a painfully shy” young man, only just scraping a Paper Science degree at what was then the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). “I was a complete nerd,” laughs James, “but at UMIST I socialised, had a girlfriend and discovered beer and vodka, which brought me out of my shell – probably why I only got a Third Class honours!”

and had little idea about running a 400-seat restaurant. And as the boss’s son, he was picked on by experienced staff. But he studied Cantonese in his spare time, mastering both the writing and nuances of pronunciation. And before long, he realised that Chung Ying Garden’s service was poor – with too much backchat from waiters. He started to push service harder, leading from the front by getting to know customers, many from older Chinese generations. “I wrote myself Cantonese scripts,” says James, “about sports, politics, and something I’d done that week, and was talking to customers, not just boringly serving them. Before long, 90% were my customers and friends, and over the years I became known as a bit of a story-teller. Customers would say: ‘Let’s go to Chung Ying Gardens, as James >>

I was a complete nerd, but at UMIST I socialised, had a girlfriend and discovered beer and vodka, which brought me out of my shell – probably why I only got a Third Class honours! Early sales jobs didn’t go well, and in 1996 James was working 50-hour weeks at Frankie and Bennys in Manchester. Then came Pizza Hut, in Dudley’s Merry Hill Shopping Centre, where he thrived on keeping long queues happy with banter and free garlic bread – cheerfully serving twice as many tables as other waiters. “I realised I had a gift for serving people,” he chuckles. In April 1997, his father asked him to become assistant manager at his second restaurant, Chung Ying Garden, in Thorp Street, Birmingham. Initially, James struggled: he couldn’t speak or write Cantonese properly,

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

ENTREPRENEUR will have something interesting to tell us.’” James became general manager in 2007, introducing karaoke and disco evenings, dealing with all diners personally, rarely taking days off and regularly packing the venue. But business was hit hard from 2008 by a double-whammy of recession and a growing popularity of Chinese buffet-style restaurants. Annual turnovers quickly fell by nearly 30% from a height of £3.2m to £2.3m. Then, on 24 January 2011, James’ father – a chain smoker and alcoholic – died from a heart attack, aged just 68. “I partly blame myself,” says James, a tremble in his voice. “You see, my father was often drunk and collapsing, and so when my mother called me at the restaurant I didn’t take it seriously. “I told her I’d come as soon as I’d finished serving some customers. The ambulance crew gave him CPR but he was brain dead after 15 minutes from not having air.” James ponders: “Could I have saved him?” But really, he knows it was down to his damaging lifestyle. As boss of the Chung Ying business in the depths of recession, James turned to drink himself for a while, becoming a back-office recluse, and burying himself in paperwork. This was unhealthy, but it led him to discover the business was losing huge sums of money, and he began what he carefully calls “plugging holes in finance and supply”. It took James two years to turn the business around, helped by younger brothers Richard, now 38, an accountant, and William, 31, who’s “good at talking and networking”. But James “missed doing the food” and so last year opened a new restaurant on Colmore Row, in the heart of Birmingham. He says: “It was always my dream to be on Colmore Row, where all the accountants and solicitors work, a street almost paved with gold!” Chung Ying Central opened in November 2013, and while the other two restaurants are traditional, “where the Chinese eat”, the new venue’s a lot smaller, with a simpler menu, offering attractive dim sum, cocktails, happy hours, two-for-one deals and express lunches for a busier, younger audience. “I want to do food really well here,” says James, “with good presentation and attentive service.” That said, there was a sticky start. “I used to like eating a family dinner with my

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James’ top 10 tips: 1. Work hard, don’t give up. 2. Stay true to your beliefs. 3. When opportunities come, you’ve got to be ready. 4. Concentrate on every little thing, because staff see your hard work and follow your example. 5. Always make sure you have enough funds. If a business costs ‘A’, you have to have twice the amount of ‘A’ for cashflow. 6. But don’t borrow too much, and never owe favours. 7. Respect your elders, and people who work hard. 8. Remember your roots, where you came from. 9. Stay humble, part of the community, and they’ll help you. 10. Always tip. They’ll remember you

mother on Saturday evenings, and earlier this year it was the night Paul Fulford [restaurant reviewer for the Birmingham Mail] tried us out. He had a bad meal, with bad service, and his review shook us. I’ve stopped eating at my mother’s home on Saturday evenings since.” Despite that early drawback, Chung Ying Central is now becoming popular, which is just as well, given James invested a “six-figure sum”. He explains: “People from Colmore Row

don’t go eastside [to the Chinese Quarter] and have realised this is somewhere different and enjoyable to dine.” Business has also improved at the other Chung Ying restaurants. James has taken control of his own life, too. “I was drinking a lot,” he admits, “but since turning 40 [last April] I’ve become more responsible. I told myself, if I’m lucky, I’ve got another 40 years of life. So I’m drinking less.” The wake-up call might have been James’ love life: after a string of short-term relationships, he’s now settled with partner Phin Sham, 27, from Derby, and they hope for a family in the next couple of years. As well as heading 70-odd staff at three restaurants, James is exploring “two or three new businesses” in the areas of “property investment, student services and Chinese investment”. He says: “Compared to Manchester, Birmingham’s been sleepy getting involved with China. There’s an upturn, phenomenal property deals to make, and I want to get China to invest more in Birmingham. “Look at all the Chinese students coming to the UK. Who’s looking after them? No-one is. I want to explore how I can cater for students’ accommodation. Chinese students keep to themselves too much, and I want to give them a mix of placements in areas like law and accounts on Colmore Row. “To them and Chinese investors I want to say: ‘Experience the real English way of life. Invest in Birmingham property, and jobs.’ The Chinese gamble, enjoy karaoke, get drunk, buy shoes and handbags, and posh cars, but they’re not integrating. I want to change that. “I want to make Chinese people feel welcome here with proper packages – hotels, bus tours, dim sum meals, plans for different visitors.” James is also busy as a governor of the Birmingham Chinese School, regularly helps a charity for the elderly Chinese, is a board member of Birmingham’s Southside Business Improvement District, and is about to start leading the Chinese festival committee. He adds: “My father started what’s now Birmingham’s China Town. I love the respect he had for that. My aim is to push the Chinese to do more in Birmingham, my beautiful, multi-cultural city.” n

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COMPANY PROFILE

Bringing science to life A cluster of medical and biomedical activity is growing around the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham and the University of Birmingham’s College of Medical and Dental Sciences, and 2015 will see the launch of two exciting new developments in this sector. Situated in the heart of Birmingham’s Edgbaston Medical Quarter, these developments will add to this thriving medical research and healthcare district which is home to 64% of the City’s healthcare economy. The first to open will be The BioHub Birmingham*, a fully serviced biomedical laboratory, specifically designed to provide entrepreneurs and innovative start-ups with access to affordable laboratory facilities, equipment and a base at which to locate their business. The 4,500 square foot biomedical laboratory is fully managed, providing users with on-going support and training. The open plan innovation office provides hot-desking and high speed internet. Flexible price plans enable tenants to easily control their finances and focus on core activities. Business Development Manager, Helen Miller-Viney explains: “The ground floor of The BioHub is the first phase to open and offers a large area of bench space, with 24 Lab Stations. In addition, there are high-specification laboratories for performing tissue cell culture, microbiology and microscopy, and it will enable entrepreneurs with a low budget or looking for funding to come and share facilities.” Just over the road from the new BioHub, Birmingham Health Partners** are also leading the development of an Institute of Translational

The BioHub Birmingham is scheduled to open in February 2015

Medicine (ITM), a new world class clinical research facility scheduled to open in June 2015. Working with community and industry partners, the ITM will help progress the very latest scientific research findings from the University into enhanced treatments for patients across a range of major health issues including cancer and liver disease. The ITM will accelerate the translation of scientific discovery into methods for improving public health. It will respond to national unmet need, unlock growth potential in the NHS and develop a portal to create a resource for SMEs and international pharmaceutical companies. Its work will accelerate discoveries from the laboratory bench to the patient’s bedside enabling effective products to be tested and brought to market faster, yielding major health

The ground floor of The BioHub is the first phase to open and offers a large area of bench space, with 24 Lab Stations. In addition, there are high-specification laboratories for performing tissue cell culture, microbiology and microscopy, and it will enable entrepreneurs with a low budget or looking for funding to come and share facilities

and economic benefits. Locating pharmaceutical firms with clinicians and academics will provide opportunities for export-rich growth and employment and deliver major clinical benefits for patients. In addition, the ITM, will provide opportunities to develop a post-graduate training programme in translational medicine alongside joint NHS/ private scientific and professional development courses. It will also offer serviced office space, meeting and conferencing facilities for SMEs.

For further information contact, Tim Yates, Marketing and Communications Manager, Business Engagement, University of Birmingham T: 0121 414 8635 E: t.yates.1@bham.ac.uk

* The BioHub Birmingham is part funded by the European Development Fund. ** The ITM is delivered by Birmingham Health Partners, which brings together the clinical, scientific and academic excellence of University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB), the University of Birmingham (UoB) and Birmingham Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (BCH) as well as the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.

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COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

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City swimming pools revamped, property auction raises over £8m, bookmakers expand in the Black Country, listed building gets £500,000 makeover, musical instrument retailer opens new store >> Tasty deal finalised

from left, Paul Alekna, Dean Williams, Nicky Grogan and Mark Paswey MP

>> Recruitment firm recruits A growing recruitment and training firm has created 15 jobs at its new £60,000 offices in Rugby, Warwickshire. Based at the town’s IO Centre in Valley Drive, eResponse Recruitment’s 6,000 sq ft facility also houses the firm’s new Forklift Truck Training School. Nicky Grogan, regional manager in Warwickshire, said: “We know the jobs market well and through the new training school we can offer all the tools people need if they are interested in a career as a forklift truck operator or upskilling for related roles.” The Rugby opening is eResponse Recruitment’s fifth office in the Midlands with other branches in Coventry, Redditch, Worcester and Kidderminster.

>> New jewels in city’s crown A Birmingham civil and structural engineering consultancy has completed a major contract on two new swimming pools. CWA Ltd, based in Coventry’s Jewellery Quarter, carried out the civil and structural engineering work on the £6.5 million aquatic extension to the city’s AT7 leisure centre. The work for the Coventry Sports Foundation involved building a new 25 metre six-lane pool along with a racing pool slide, a new leisure pool and health suite. The project also involved a second building with changing facilities, a conference room and office accommodation.

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Black Country property agents Bond Wolfe have put together a tasty deal in the centre of West Bromwich. It has let the final unit at the former 25,000 sq ft Allied Carpets store at 294-310 High Street to a Mediterranean restaurant operator on a 20-year lease. The transaction takes the total income for the asset – owned by Real Estate Investors plc (REI), the West Midlands-based property investment company – to £145,000 per annum. The deal follows the recent lettings of the adjacent unit to betting chain Corals, and 11 newly built retail units at the Latitude development which is now producing an annual income of in excess of £250,000 per annum.

>> Relocation is the solution A Midlands company specialising in IT solutions for the retail and hospitality industries has relocated to larger premises in Redditch. Agora Solutions has, with the help of property agents John Truslove, gone from around 1,000 sq ft of offices in the town’s Empire Court complex to 5,832 sq ft at 87 Heming Road, Washford. Ben Truslove, a director at John Truslove, said: “Redditch is such a central location and it has great appeal to companies like Agora Solutions who can be working all over the country.”

>> Auction raises £8.25m CPBigwood’s fifth property auction of the year has raised £8.25m with 64 of the 83 lots offered being snapped up at the Holte Suite, Aston Villa FC. Two former outdoor children’s centres in Gwynedd, North Wales, both owned by Midlands councils, proved popular and were sold well above their guide prices. Ogwen Cottage at Nant Ffrancon, run by Birmingham City Council, was acquired by Wales National Trust for £450,000, and

Towyn Camp, Golf Road, Pwllheli, run by Wolverhampton City Councils respectively, sold for £200,000. Other Birmingham City Council lots which sold included Grade II Listed Bloomsbury Library, Nechells Parkway, which went for the guide price of £100,000; Fellowship Hall, South Parade, Sutton Coldfield, which went for £500,000 off a guide of £350,000; and a car park off Manor Road – guide £60,000 – sold for £170,000.

From left, Andrew Rowson, Simon Green and Ken Salway

>> A refreshing change A coffee machine company has relocated to the West Midlands, bringing new jobs and investment to the region. Birmingham-based chartered surveyors Johnson Fellows helped Bunno-matic Corporation move from Milton Keynes to Monkspath Business Park, Shirley, Solihull. The firm agreed a 10-yearlease on the 7,815 sq ft unit with landlords Solihull Industrial Owner LLP. Simon Green. Bunn-o-matic’s European technical manager said: “Relocating is never easy but we achieved it with excellent support from Johnson Fellows.”

>> Bath firm in the Black A bathroom supplies company has opened its first showroom outside Yorkshire in the Black Country. Easy Bathrooms has signed a lease for E Block, Bay 4, a 6,997 sq ft unit at The Stourbridge Estate on a 10-year lease with landlords London & Cambridge Properties.

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COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

>> All bets are on

>> Listed building set for market

A 625 sq ft bookmaker’s shop is earmarked for the Hill Top area of West Bromwich. Black Country property agents Bond Wolfe have completed a deal for Corals to take No 115 on a ten-year lease. It’s the firm’s second recent deal involving national betting companies and follows Paddy Power launching in Bearwood. James Mattin, Bond Wolfe managing partner, said: “It’s a clear sign that the retail market is extremely active in the region.”

Evenacre has completed the £500,000 refurbishment of the Grade I-listed property at 122 Colmore Row, Birmingham. The four-storey building comprises four office suites from 375 sq ft to 1,528 sq ft and a ground floor retail/leisure unit of 1,671 sq ft. 122 Colmore Row dates back to 1900 and is listed in Pevsner’s architectural guide as “one of the most important monuments of the Arts and Crafts Free Style in the country”, designed by influential architects William Lethaby and Joseph Lancaster Ball. Evenacre bought the 6,180 sq ft building in 2011 and has restored its stone façade and completed a sympathetic upgrade of the interior. The common parts and office suites are now at Grade A standards. CBRE has been appointed to market the space.

>> Investment soars Investment in the West Midlands commercial property sector during the third quarter of 2014 reached £0.6bn – almost double the total for the same period last year. New research by national commercial property consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) shows that investment across the UK reached £16.3bn – a 37% increase on the previous quarter and 41% higher than in the corresponding period last year. In addition, the latest edition of LSH’s UK Investment Transactions report reveals that investment in the UK regions totalled £6bn in the past quarter, the highest level since 2006 and the first time investment in the regional markets has outstripped inflows into London since the start of 2011. Adam Ramshaw, head of office at LSH for the West Midlands, said: “We are on course for a record year of transactions in our region, which continues to attract major inward investment. It will be interesting to see if the momentum continues well into 2015.”

>> DLT makes the Grade A Wolverhampton management company has bought a Grade II-listed building in Dudley in a six-figure deal put together by property agents Bond Wolfe. DLT Management (UK) Ltd has taken the freehold of King Charles House, 2 Castle Hill, and will be relocating there. The 4,791 sq ft property, previously a Conservative Club, is over four floors. James Mattin, Bond Wolfe’s managing partner, said: “As well as moving

in themselves, DLT Management (UK) aim to offer some of the most exclusive office space available in Dudley. “This sale further highlights the increasing demand for not only freehold opportunities, but particularly Grade II Listed buildings with potential.”

>> Partner secures hotel One of Birmingham’s most historic hotels has been bought out by one of the partners of the business with funding from Barclays. The Plough and Harrow, on Hagley Road in Edgbaston, has been bought by Robert Smith of Complete Hotel Services Limited, who previously owned a share of the business with his partners. The £750,000 deal secured 100% ownership. Manoj Patel, senior business manager at Barclays, said: “The Plough and Harrow is an iconic building in Birmingham’s landscape. Robert and his team have worked tirelessly to grow the business and to be able to support this purchase has been very rewarding.”

>> Move is music to the ears Hobgoblin, a folk music and instrument retailer, has opened a new city centre store in Birmingham. Hobgoblin came from humble beginnings in the 1970s with its first

shop in Crawley, and has since grown to nine stores, which includes a recent store opening in Brighton. Previously based at the Custard Factory in Birmingham, the shop is now open at Nurton’s Two Colmore Square. CBRE and GVA act as joint letting agents on the building. Shop manager Mark McCabe said Birmingham was top for sales having seen a significant upturn in the past 12 months. He said: “We chose the new location as there was an obvious demand in Birmingham and we needed a decent amount of space on one floor and close to a major shopping district.”

>> Rail firm relocates Solo Rail Solutions Ltd has expanded into an additional 25,000 sq ft industrial unit in Birmingham. The supplier of rail vehicle doors and interior parts is now based on Long Acre Trading Estate, Nechells, after a deal agreed by DTZ on behalf of landlord A&J Mucklow. The refurbished property includes a warehousing unit, 3,534 sq ft of offices and car parking. The firm has produced doors, interiors and ancillary products for the rail industry for over 20 years. Dave Hunt, managing director, said: “Location, working area and decent offices were our main criteria. This ticked all of the boxes.”

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

SUCCESS STORY

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looking up after a life on the edge

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Social impact guru Joel Blake is positively brimming on how businesses can succeed by helping the communities they serve. But he wasn’t always as confident, as Steve Dyson finds out

SUCCESS STORY

We all experience dark, lonely moments, but not many of us reach where Joel Blake found himself as an earnest 15-year-old: seriously considering suicide. He recalls: “We lived in an eight-storey block of flats in Lee Bank, Birmingham, and on a dark, cold winter’s night, when my mum was out working, I climbed onto the balcony and balanced on the edge of life for half an hour, trying to decipher all the reasons why I wanted or didn’t want to be here. “I’d been doing a bit of soul-searching and felt judged for being young and from an ‘ethnic minority’ background. I was passionate but didn’t know how to release it. I knew I was worth more.” As a young Joel sat looking down, legs dangling, he spotted a young mum carrying her heavy bags of shopping, her little daughter tagging along behind, and he heard music. “I knew the woman, and she had no more than us. But she was singing, and her daughter was singing along with her, and I realised: ‘They’re happy.’ I thought: ‘What the hell am I worrying about? I’ve a roof over my head, there’s food in the fridge, and my family cares for me’. “I climbed off the balcony and decided: ‘I’m going to be successful.’ And since then, I’ve always wanted to help people in similar situations. Life’s about being happy in the environment you find yourself in. Do you wallow in self-pity? No. What choices are you going to take to make things better?” This underlines everything Joel, now 34, has been telling me for the last 90 minutes about his passion for aspiring entrepreneurs, and what he terms the ‘social impact’ needed from more established companies. But let’s start at the beginning, and explore Joel’s background. His parents met after arriving in Birmingham from Jamaica with their families in the 1960s, and he was born at the old Dudley Road Hospital in Winson Green, in April 1980. His earliest memory was watching rats startled by a flashlight as they scampered around a bedsit in Aston, where he and his parents shared a bathroom with four families. Joel proudly recalls that his dad was heavily involved in community activity and ran a renowned Birmingham nightclub, but his parents split – which is when he and his mum

moved to the flat in an inner city suburb. After rejecting suicidal thoughts, Joel left school aged 16 and started work peeling stickers off M&S clothes hangers. He continued this part-time while studying for an advanced GNVQ in business at Halesowen College, then dabbled in various jobs before volunteering for Connexions, the education and advice service for teenagers, in 2001. He was soon full-time leader of Connexions’ local mentoring team, training 250 people in his first year. “That was my first taste of social impact,” says Joel, by then living with his girlfriend, now his wife, a stepson and the couple’s own little boy. He stayed with Connexions for four years, but in 2004: “I opened a gas bill we couldn’t afford, and I said: ‘I want to start my own business.’” Trading as JJB Mentoring, he worked with young people at risk of exclusion, based almost exclusively at John Wilmott School, Sutton Coldfield. “I made £35,000 in year one, paying for a holiday and a sports car,” remembers Joel. “But I made the classic

I climbed off the balcony and decided: ‘I’m going to be successful mistake of focusing on one customer, and when the funding process changed the business died overnight. “It meant Christmas 2005 was the worst ever – our family was still very young, and we had a mortgage and bills to pay.” Ever optimistic, Joel launched his second business, Cultiv8 Recruitment, in March 2006, recruiting ethnic minority talent from universities and matching them with vacancies in the professional services sector. “My service was in demand and I turned over £50,000 in the first nine months from my spare bedroom. But established recruitment firms soon started operating in that area and I was pushed out of the market, becoming insolvent. It was my second lesson: I didn’t >>

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SUCCESS STORY understand my market.” However, he quickly bounced back with Cultiv8 Solutions in 2007, looking at two different areas: diversity management and corporate social responsibility (CSR), focussing on “creating positive solutions” and “bridging the gap between business and social ideas”. At this stage my eyes have started to glaze, and Joel bristles in a friendly way as he shifts in his chair and attempts to bring me into his world of “social impact”. “An example of diversity management was helping Aston Villa FC to develop its social impact strategy in 2007. This six-month programme involved everything from diversity training, legal matters, personal development, the executive culture, and even writing the chief executive’s speeches for major events. “Then there’s CSR – which businesses too often see as simply charitable giving, or allowing staff days off to help charities. What I’m doing with Cultiv8 is helping customers to create better social impact with their CSR, and making sure they have the right teams to deliver the best impact.” Joel outlines what’s known as a ‘social earnings ratio’ (SER), created by the Centre for Citizenship, Enterprise and Governance at the University of Northampton. This ratio – which puts a figure on what a company’s CSR contribution adds to their bottom line – is calculated by analysing three metrics. One, a company’s brand equity awareness – what people are saying about it online, via channels like Twitter and Facebook, good and bad. Two, a company’s CSR reporting – what it promotes about its CSR activities; and three, a company’s annual accounts – everything from turnover, profits and dividends to actual CSR figures. Don’t ask me how it all works, but this analysis creates the SER – a ratio you then multiply by what a company says it spends on CSR. In trying to grasp this, I sketch a quick example: if the fictional Smith & Sons Pressings gives £20,000 a year to charity, and its SER is calculated at 5.0, the effect is 5.0 x £20,000, which equals £100,000 in social impact. “Exactly,” beams Joel, who adds that the highest SER he’s seen is 18.5, and the lowest 1.5. “And it’s all academically verified,” he stresses, pointing out that Aston, Birmingham and Birmingham City Universities support

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There’s no such thing as failure. Failing is just learning how not to do something this ‘social value’ work. “Everything that’s measured gets managed, but if a company doesn’t measure, how do they know its value and how can they manage it? This benchmarking tool says: ‘This is where you are, but to get to stage two, this is how we can change things’. It allows companies to make strategic decisions at a board level that then have a social and commercial impact. “I’m trying to get businesses to understand what the city can do as a collective to get communities to prosper and grow, to show we care about our own. And how that can open the door to more investment.” Joel, who founded the annual Birmingham CSR summit in 2011, and sits on various boards in the creative and education sector, is working with 16 MBA students from Aston Business School on analysing local companies’ social impact values. This will result in social impact league tables listing the ‘top ten’ firms in legal, banking and finance, recruitment, property, construction, and IT services. Cultiv8 may get research funding and potential fees from companies who want individual reports. Meanwhile, although annual revenues

fluctuate, Joel says they’ve reached heights of around £85,000 from other projects that include working on entrepreneurship with Birmingham University. Although Joel earns “enough to run a home”, profit isn’t his only target. He says: “It’s about me as an individual being able to help businesses based on my personal experience and knowledge. The profit, for me, is seeing the light switch on in a boardroom when they see social impact and commercial growth as a combined strategy.” Joel’s work won him the coveted title of Birmingham’s Young Person of the Year in the recruitment and training category in 2010. He says: “I’m as comfortable sitting in a café in Handsworth wearing a hooded top and Timberland boots as I am wearing a shirt, tie and suit in a city boardroom. I want to be that counduit bringing people together, bringing differences together, and saying differences are an advantage, not a disadvantage.” It’s dazzling stuff but – I tentatively suggest – doesn’t this, for some people, almost make Joel a revolutionary? He laughs, and replies: “Ha! If being revolutionary means helping people from both the commercial and social sides, then a revolutionary is what I am!” Aside from Cultiv8 Solutions, Joel’s a founding director of Bizbritain Finance Ltd, a delivery partner for the government’s Start Up Loans initiative. In the last 20 months, Bizbritain has helped 340 businesses access loans, turning over more that £250,000 in management fees, and increasing its own staff from three to nine. Work aside, Joel’s also a regional ambassador for Start Up Britain, and he’s developing a community interest company called The Hot 500, billed as the West Midlands’ largest entrepreneur network for 16-to-35 years olds. This, he says, is where his passion lies: “The Hot 500 is about harnessing young people and talent – and maximising someone’s potential. “There’s no such thing as failure. Failing is just learning how not to do something.” And reflecting on why he balanced on that balcony as a 15 year old, Joel advises: “Watch your negative language. Things you say to yourself will have an impact on your future. Thoughts create feelings, and feelings create actions. So be positive, not negative.” n

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COMPANY PROFILE

Business is centre stage at Birmingham Hippodrome Birmingham Hippodrome is justifiably proud of its 115 year performing history bringing the very best in live theatre to audiences that stretch far beyond the Midlands. As a business the Hippodrome has recently experienced an exceptional performance period with over 625,000 tickets sold in financial year 2013-14 and an estimated contribution to the region’s economy of £65m. But as a wholly independent not-for-profit charitable trust, the city’s number one visitor attraction is equally proud of its community ambitions and achievements beyond the main stage and its relationship with the corporate community. Indeed the varied and widespread business engagement at the theatre forms a distinct and important strand of philanthropic support for the work of the Hippodrome’s Development Trust, established in 1981. With a principal function of offering advocacy and support for the theatre’s fundraising efforts, the Development Trust has secured millions, most notably during the public appeal for the awardwinning 1999-2001 redevelopment project, and subsequently in 2012 through the successful £1m Stage Appeal campaign. Currently the focus of all fundraising is Hippodrome Plus, the theatre’s Education, Access and Outdoor projects programme. Headed up by Chairman Mark Smith, Chair of PwC’s Regional practice, the Hippodrome’s Development Trust comprises fourteen senior, cross-sector Trustees who assemble five times a year. Mark Smith explains, “The variety of Trustee support for the theatre is second to none. Some, like me, are individual patrons. Others engage their teams through a corporate membership. There are those who host Patron events or tables at Gala Dinners and there are Trustee relationships that involve sponsorship of some of the theatre’s private hospitality suites. And not forgetting the enterprising initiative of the female Trustees who launched and now sponsor the Leading Ladies business network.

Irwin Mitchell, volunteers Open Theatre and One of Kind participants from Queensbury School .

The variety of Trustee support for the theatre is second to none. Some, like me, are individual patrons. Others engage their teams through a corporate membership Leading Ladies, with its unique offering of mixing business with show business, has rapidly grown to become one of the most popular (and glamorous) networks of its kind in the city with over 120 participating companies. Alongside sell-out shows or stand-alone events the network has raised around £15,000 for projects that reach out beyond the main stage. Birmingham Hippodrome’s Corporate Development team, “who really know how to make a relationship work”, take care of a 40-strong membership portfolio. Businesses are encouraged to take

full advantage of a host of unique benefits using tailor-made packages that meet business objectives and budget. Popular benefits include staff rewards and volunteering with city law firm Irwin Mitchell taking an exemplary lead in their weekly support for the One of a Kind drama group for young people with learning disabilities. Business philanthropy also extends to support for inner city schools such as the WOW (Welcome to our World) Project at Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School, about to enter its third year with backing from Centresoft. Community-minded Wesleyan have used allocated tickets to bring a smile to the faces of BCH patients at the pantomime Relaxed Performance while others had a brief meet-up backstage with stars of Wicked. Long-term business supporters such as Brewin Dolphin can be found entertaining clients at major shows, their guests generously supporting Hippodrome Plus through Prize Draws. This special relationship has extended to visionary headline sponsorship of the award winning International Dance Festival Birmingham (IDFB) in 2010 and 2012 and as sponsor of the world première of Concert Dansé at IDFB 2014. Businesses of any size are encouraged to get in touch to discuss ways they can put their own business brand centre stage and in the spotlight. Birmingham Hippodrome’s corporate calendar sizzles with opportunities, including sponsorship at one of the city’s most popular theatrical events in 2015. Birmingham Hippodrome Theatre Development Trust Registered Charity No 511567

Contact: Judith Greenburgh, Corporate Development Manager. T: 0121 689 3082 E: judithgreenburgh@birminghamhippodrome.com

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

BUSINESS LUNCH

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BUSINESS LUNCH

the show goes on and it must evolve Stuart Griffiths rescued Birmingham Hippodrome from near-bankruptcy and turned it into a successful £30m a year theatre. Steve Dyson finds out how over lunch When Stuart Griffiths arrived at the Birmingham Hippodrome in September 2002, the 103-year-old theatre was on the brink of disaster. After a two-year closure for a major £35m rebuild, the venue had been open for less than 12 months. And while many experts had spent months carefully scheduling this project, not everything had gone to plan. “The anticipated ‘honeymoon’ period didn’t quite come to pass,” explains Stuart, “and when I arrived the theatre was technically insolvent. The regularity of programming is everything for your audience, as you promote and sell one show after another. But after such a hiatus, it was almost like opening a new theatre, because people just got out of the habit of going to the Hippodrome. “Also, the redeveloped building was half as big again in volume, which means it was half as much again to run. And we had slightly fewer seats in the main auditorium. Most of our revenue was what we retained from ticket sales, and so the business model wasn’t really working. “On top of this, we faced quite a capital shortfall because we’d just spent £35m and the funding raised hadn’t quite covered that. We needed new income streams, we had to get the audience back, and we had to find a model that worked.” Stuart’s first steps

were financial: the Hippodrome had prized its freedom since becoming a trust in 1979, never needing public sector support for ongoing revenues. It couldn’t, therefore, simply go back to Birmingham City Council or the Arts Council and demand more money. But as a muchloved institution, doors were quickly opened to meetings that discussed how the support of the city could be mobilised, while retaining the theatre’s independence. He says: “We found ways for them [the city council] to help us get back on our feet, and they were great. Essentially, it was capital help – including a renegotiation of loans – and we said: ‘If you can help us like this we won’t come back to you again.’ It took us four or five years to get over, but since then we’ve been true to our word.” With insolvency averted, the next task was to secure new trading income. The theatre started by taking hospitality and catering back in-house, retaining more of the bottom line from its audience spend, and also developed conferences and meetings. “We tried to focus on adding value to your visit – yes, you come to see a great show, but you can also have a good time in a shiny new restaurant, or a business can use a private room for pre or post-show events. This created more income and was saying: ‘Come early,

stay late,’ building the Hippodrome experience into something more than just 10 minutes at the bar for a drink before the performance.” With capital finance and ways to create more revenue on track, the next thing the Hippodrome had to do was attract the audience – which meant working closely with theatre producers. “We don’t create shows ourselves,” explains Stuart, aged 51, himself married to a theatre producer, with two teenage daughters. “So we had to re-establish ourselves in the market, regaining the confidence of the Sir Cameron Mackintosh’s of this world and saying: ‘We’re back in business and we can sustain one of your long-running shows’. “For us, the most important thing is numbers. We know if we keep our audience at 500,000 or more a year – 75% to 80% capacity – the business model pretty well works. Birmingham’s a big market, with 4.5 million people in our catchment area. If we put the right thing on, in the right place, at the right time, for the right length of run, the model works.” This hard work saw the 1,850-seat Hippodrome return to good health after three or four years, with annual turnover doubling from £12m when Stuart arrived to an average of £25m today. It reached around £30m in 2013-14, although he terms this a “special year” which included the long-running Lion King, one of the most popular shows ever. And although the theatre is nowhere near the UK’s biggest, it’s become the busiest, with audiences topping 625,000 last year. This has resulted in an annual ‘surplus’ of >> Proudly sponsored by

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BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

BUSINESS LUNCH between £500,000 and £1.5m in recent years. It’s essentially profit, but as a charity the ‘surplus’ is reinvested into the theatre’s operations, which include 115 full-time staff and up to another 200 seasonal jobs. It’s not all been plain sailing: Stuart’s come to realise that it’s really only musical theatre, panto, ballet, dance and opera that are Hippodrome winners, with plain drama rarely working. Proof of that were takings from The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby in 2007, a “great play” but one that “just didn’t sit well” in the theatre’s spacious auditorium. “There’s always the show that won’t work and you don’t always get it right,” says Stuart. “For the main stage we now have a clear focus on what we are and what we’re after, and we tend not to stray too far from that. The Hippodrome works when it’s full. “One of the things I noticed straight away was the sheer size of our circle – seating 1,000. That’s a lot of people in the same place, whereas most theatres have three or four levels, which means they’re less connected. The right show makes the feel of the place, the great atmosphere.” Stuart nods furiously when I tell him this is what I experienced at the Hippodrome in 2009 with the rock extravaganza We Will Rock You, by Queen and Ben Elton. This was one of his

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great memories too, and it’s these “shows of scale”, he says, that really work. “We’re selling the main experience, and the feeling that’s created among [nearly] 2,000 people sharing that experience.” And so despite a few hiccups, Stuart’s developed a real understanding of what shows sell, and that the Hippodrome just isn’t the “intimate space” needed for smaller dramas. But despite getting into a “comfortable” position with his audience and revenues, he then faced a difficult conversation with the theatre trust’s chair, John Crabtree. “I have a fantastic relationship with John,”

Taking a philosophical approach to the arts Born in Castleford, Yorkshire, in April 1963, Stuart Griffiths was brought up in Leeds from the age of seven. His dad, George, was an insurance salesman until the 1970s when he started painting watercolours, soon becoming a full-time artist known as ‘Griff’. Along with Brenda, Stuart’s mum, George is now in his mid-80s, and is still painting. After comprehensive school, Stuart went to Leicester University and graduated with a Philosophy degree in 1986. He’d been involved in putting on bands at student social events and, “as my Philosophy degree didn’t really line me up for anything in particular”, he started applying for “anything and everything in the arts”. His first job was “assistant to the assistant manager” of the Beck Theatre, in Hillingdon, in 1987, and he became general manager within a year. He recalls: “The chief executive instilled in me how to run arts buildings. He’d say: ‘They’re here to be used – every corner, every day possible. The dark theatre is not a good idea, they have to stand on their own two feet.’ This commercial imperative was good training and has stayed with me ever since.” In 1992, Stuart opened the Swan Theatre in High Wycombe, where he had to find shows for a new audience from scratch. “It was a steep learning curve, establishing a brand new business in the middle of somewhere that had not had a theatre before.” But after ten years, the Swan was thriving, and so he took his experience to the Birmingham Hippodrome in 2002.

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Stuart says, “and he’s always given me the freedom and support that was needed. But at one stage he sat me down and said: ‘What’s next?’ To start with I said: ‘Well, we’ve done it, we’re here and it’s working.’ And John said: ‘Well, yes, and that’s fine if you’re now leaving us to go somewhere else, and if someone else is planning the future. But perhaps the challenge for you is what happens next? What we do with it now the theatre’s in this position?’” What Crabtree was reminding Stuart was that cashflow – so crucial for most theatres – was no longer a short-term stress for the Hippodrome, and that this should enable strategic, long-term thinking. “These were such wise words and good advice,” recalls Stuart. “How could we take advantage of a business working so well? We were able to say: ‘What kind of organisation are we? What more we can do? And how can we extend that success?” This led to an increased programme of learning, education and outreach under the name Hippodrome Plus, attracting new funds for projects like working with special needs groups, and taking art and dance outside the building to outdoor festivals and street theatre – often for free. Hippodrome Plus funding has come from the likes of PwC, Pinsents, IMI, Lloyds, Wragge & Co and Brewin Dolphin, corporate sector brands that have existing relationships with the theatre but want something “new and creative”.

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“We say: ‘Talk to us about what you’re interested in. Is it young people? Different parts of the city? Different age groups?’ the great thing about Hippodrome Plus is that we can always do more because there’s no limit to the number of schools or the number of young people we can include across the city. The corporate world doesn’t spend on hospitality the way it used to. Companies find these closer relationships valuable, and often staff join in.” Stuart also has a growing number of roles across the city. He’s chair of the Southside Business Improvement District (BID), which has 300 members and is pushing to improve things locally that “work for everybody” so that businesses no longer feel “just on our own”. The BID works with others across the city – such as Colmore and Broad Street BIDs – and between them they represent three quarters of businesses in Birmingham’s centre. “That’s pretty representative,” says Stuart, “and it means the city [council] tends to want to talk to us about things like transport and public realm, and we have a voice on those decisions. Having a clear, more direct say on how the city develops, on behalf of businesses on the ground who are trying to survive and thrive, is a really good thing.” This, he suggests, could even mean Southside “becoming the Covent Garden of Birmingham”, although he admits the BID needs to help develop China Town, sort out traffic chaos, increase business activity, and “offer more people more life” before this becomes a reality. Meanwhile, from this November, Stuart becomes vice-president of the Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, ahead of serving as president in two years’ time. And it’s in this Chamber role that he hopes to challenge traditional commercial structures, encouraging businesses to grasp the value of creative arts. The West Midlands, he points out, has more graduates in this sector that anywhere else in the UK, and it’s time businesses realised and benefited from this.

BUSINESS LUNCH

“I want the Hippodrome, which is not grant-funded and has major revenues, to be seen as a serious business, not just the ‘nice-to-have’ cream on top. And that’s absolutely the case for every other arts organisation I know in 2014: they’re efficient, serious businesses because the days of hand-outs and grant-funding are gone. I want the business community and cultural community to come together, developing

a better kind of engagement.” His thinking is still forming, but Stuart envisages a “culture fund” where investors can support a whole collection of shows over threeto-five year periods, with tax advantages and financial returns. He says: “Public funding is not what it used to be, and we’ve got to find new ways of doing things to provide a benefit: that could be social, it could be CSR, and it could be financial returns as well.” n

Spacious yet intimate surroundings It’s Filini’s sheer space that hits you when you first climb the stairs to the restaurant on the first floor of the Radisson Blu in Birmingham. As you look beyond the bar, dining tables seem to stretch forever around the curve of the hotel’s frontage, with sunlight pouring in through floor-toceiling windows and views of the busy A38 below. And yet its roominess and thick glazing create a soft buzz that’s ideal for business meetings. We shared croquettes of autumn mushrooms (£7) and roasted scallops (£11) to start. The juice of the mushrooms rescued the dry coating, and the scallops were nice in a subtle mixture of curry spices, butter and pistachios. For main courses, we split dishes of grilled tuna (£18) and veal (£16), which complemented each other perfectly. The fish was firm and tasty, and the veal cheeks were simmered to a delicious, melt-in-your-mouth quality. For desserts, we shouldn’t have but did share hazlenut panna cotta (£7) and lemon and thyme tartlet (also £7), and enjoyed a white Spy Valley, a 2013/4 Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand (£32). Its hint of gooseberries especially suited the fish. * Filini Restaurant, Radisson Blu Hotel, 12 Holloway Circus, Queensway, Birmingham B1 1BT. Call 0121 654 6098, email filini.birmingham@radissonblu.com or visit www.filinirestaurant.com/restaurantbirmingham

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BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

Hampson Silk on wine

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worth the experiment Graham Hampson Silk was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2001 and given three years to live. He wasn’t prepared to accept that and, after taking part in a new clinical drug trial, he has been in remission for 13 years. He has since co-founded the charity Cure Leukaemia As a keen collector – but whisper it quietly to my doctor, also a keen drinker – of wine, the invitation to try two different bottles and give my interested, though inexpert, opinion, was obviously something I jumped at. My own wine preference lies in the red wines of Bordeaux, and while my wines in-bond are simply a different approach to the normal investment profile, my collection at home concentrates heavily on Cru Bourgeois Wines, which in my humble opinion offer truly brilliant Clarets at sensible prices. However, one downside of such a heavy concentration on a single region is that I don’t often try wines from other areas. WIENINGER – WIENER TRILOGIE. 2010 Therefore, the first wine I was given, I found really intriguing. As someone who can remember the negative reputation Austrian wine held in the 1980s, I’ve basically avoided drinking any. This has obviously been a mistake. Not only is this a red but it’s a blend that includes around 30% of the two main grapes of Bordeaux, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, with the remainder the predominantly Austrian grape, Zweigelt. I found this wine surprisingly good. Contrary to the trend with New World

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wines, it was not overloaded with fruit but had a good balance of tannin which together with the classic “red berries” – interestingly, I thought strawberry – gave it a lovely flavour and taste. The wine really benefited from being allowed to breathe and had a deep and inviting ruby colour. SALADINI PILASTRI – FALERIO. 2013 The second wine that I tasted was a white from the Marche region of Italy, specifically from the area of Falerio. Saladini Pilastri have been making wine here since the year 1000 and are described as a noble family from Ascoli Piceno whose ancestors were priests and leaders. Whilst the vineyard has always tried to continue their history and combine the value and culture of their region, since 1994 they have embraced the future and the production has been officially labelled as organic wine. This was therefore one of my first proper tastings of an organic wine but in all honesty it didn’t taste any different to any other good Italian white, I simply found it to be a very pleasant and refreshing wine. The wine is a blend of grapes from an ancient mixture of Trebbiano, Passerina and Pecorino. It is fresh

and slightly citrus in style, I found it to have an almost sauvignon blanc-like taste. Unlike the modern preference for heavily flavoured whites, the wine was simple, not in a bad way, but it opened up as it warmed slightly so that the sharpness mellowed into more rounded flavours. It is a wine I’d happily enjoy on a warm English summer’s evening. However, at the beginning of winter it complemented the pan-fried haddock my wife had prepared. As a philistine who adheres to the old adage that white wine is simply something you drink before you start on the red, I actually enjoyed it and would definitely drink it again. n The white Saladini Pilastri, Falerio 2013 is £8.99 and the red Trilogie, Weingut Wieninger 2011 is £15.99. Wines were kindly donated by Connolly’s Wine Merchants and can be brought from stores: Dovehouse, Connolly’s Wine Merchants Ltd, 379 – 381 Warwick Road, Olton, Solihull, B91 1BQ. Tel: 0121 709 3734 Connolly’s Wine Merchants Ltd, Birmingham Livery Street, Birmingham, B3 1EU. Tel: 0121 236 3837 www.connollyswine.co.uk

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COMPANY VIEWPOINT

EY ITEM Club forecasts UK growth to slow in the face of political risks at home and abroad Political uncertainty at home and abroad now tops the worry list and is set to dampen business investment and slow the pace of UK growth, says EY ITEM Club’s Autumn Forecast. However, falling commodity prices provide a silver lining that will support activity in the UK’s major export markets and keep inflation very low. Uncertainty around constitutional reforms in the UK, an imminent general election and the prospect of an EU referendum in 2017 risk undermining the strides that investment made over the past year, when it made up more than half of the growth in demand. The report also points to the growing geopolitical risks, in particular those stemming from the situation in Ukraine, which has dented business confidence in the UK’s key European markets. The EY ITEM Club’s Autumn Forecast says business investment will grow by 9% in 2014, before tempering to 5.8% in 2015. With the consumer also pausing for breath, GDP growth is predicted to slow to 2.4% in 2015, down from the 3.1% expected this year. Peter Spencer, chief economic advisor to the EY ITEM Club comments: “Let’s be clear, the forecast for GDP growth is still relatively good. What has changed is the global risks surrounding the forecast and the headwinds facing investment by firms. Looming political uncertainty risks denting corporate confidence, the question now is how will these risks play out? “I expect caution to become the order of the day. Mortgage lenders and borrowers have already shown greater restraint following the Mortgage Market Review and the prospective increase in interest rates. Given the weakness of commodity

Chris Voogd, Partner Sponsor for EY ITEM Club in the Midlands

prices and wages I doubt that the MPC will be in any hurry to raise interest rates.” Chris Voogd, partner sponsor for EY ITEM Club in the Midlands adds: “The first wave of investment is now well under way, but on the ground businesses in the Midlands are becoming nervous. They are faced with an uncertain domestic political situation, while there are renewed concerns about their key export markets. They haven’t pulled on the reins just yet, but there is a definite sense of caution. This is a time for cool heads.” LOW INFLATION PERIOD TO PROVIDE LIFELINE TO UK ECONOMY The UK has been enjoying the longest period of below target inflation since the financial crisis and EY ITEM Club says this is set to continue, providing some solace to UK consumers and supporting spending. Falling commodity prices, driven by an

I expect caution to become the order of the day. Mortgage lenders and borrowers have already shown greater restraint following the Mortgage Market Review and the prospective increase in interest rates. Given the weakness of commodity prices and wages I doubt that the MPC will be in any hurry to raise interest rates

economic slowdown in key commodity importing countries, will see CPI inflation averaging just 1.3% in 2015. According to the forecast this low inflationary environment will also keep interest rates on hold until at least spring 2015, if not later. Spencer adds: “Inflation is no longer hitting spending power as it was two years ago. Food prices are falling and, with oil down by about 20% since the summer, prices at the petrol pumps are coming down too. There are a lot of winds blowing inflation lower and there is even a risk that inflation could fall below 1%, which would force Mark Carney to write his first letter of explanation to the Chancellor.” EXPORTS AND TRADE – UK FACES DOUBLE WHAMMY FROM THE EUROZONE The stalling European recovery and the devaluation of the euro at the expense of the UK pound are adding to the problems faced by UK exporters, according to the EY ITEM Club. Spencer continues: “The UK’s export outlook continues to look dreadful. The glimpse of economic rebalancing that we saw in the early part of this year has turned out to be a false dawn. Manufacturing data is weakening and it looks unlikely that net trade will make any positive contribution to GDP growth before 2017. However, at least the domestic economy is in a better position than before to help the UK ride out the storm.”

Chris Voogd can be contacted on 0121 535 2064 www.ey.com/uk/economics @EY_ITEMClub #EYITEM

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MOTORING

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in a league of its own Former England and Wolves footballer and Cure Leukaemia patron Geoff Thomas is wowed by the new Aston Martin Rapide S Coupe

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

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I received a phone call followed by a detailed email asking if I would be available to drive an Aston Martin Rapide S Coupe for the day then write about my experience for BQ Magazine. At 9 o’clock sharp I turned up at Gaydon, the headquarters of Aston Martin, with my wife Julie to keep me company for the day. After a 15 minute introduction to the workings of the car we were let loose. We sat there for a while looking at the quality of the interior. Suede and leather from head to toe made you realise straight away the quality of this machine. The instrument panel was very well laid out. The first surprise was the room in the back. Two seats, full size with plenty of head and leg room. So is this really a sports car? We got that answer when I put the key into the ignition. Straight away there was a scream from the exhaust that just made us both smile with excitement. Carefully, we left the car park and drove through the security gates heading towards the Cotswolds. After a few miles of driving like Miss Daisy we joined the M40. Inside lane, middle, outside lane then wow. Pressure on the right peddle threw both our heads into the headrests, with each gear change (of which there are eight) there was a little jolt taking you to the next level of power. There was plenty left but that was enough

to let us know that this is without doubt a sports car. Time to take to the country lanes through the land of Shakespeare. With a press of a button you had the choice of different driving experiences and surfaces. We just had it set to a comfortable drive. This still gave you the confidence on bends but also allowed the car to drive over rougher roads without you or the passenger feeling any discomfort at all. Everything felt first class. We stopped for lunch at the beautiful Dormy House Hotel near Broadway. First test, parking! Visibility is not great out of the back window but this is rectified by a screen that pops up out of the dashboard as soon as you go into reverse (this also doubles up as your SatNav screen). A clear picture with guide lines then guides you safely to your stop. After lunch we drove up and down Fish Hill, a climb that looks and feels like a road in the Alps. I just can’t imagine anyone ever getting bored with that growl from the engine as you escape each turn. We went through Stowon-the-Wold where the car turned a number of heads. Time was flying by. It was nearly time to return to Gaydon but not before one final check of the car. We parked on a nice quiet country lane to look around and admire the inside and out. A Bang & Olufsen sound

MOTORING

I just can’t imagine anyone ever getting bored with that growl from the engine as you escape each turn system with speakers that appeared from the dashboard just added to the whole experience. I could go on and on. Before handing the car back I had a few pictures taken with the car. Only now did I ask how much the car was worth. £162,785.00! No wonder I felt a little sad my time was up but I’ve got to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of driving such an iconic car. n BQ West Midlands would like to thank Aston Martin for kindly donating an Aston Martin Rapide S Coupe. The on the road price is £147,950.00 to include options £162,785.00. For more information please visit www.astonmartin.com

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

FASHION The best quality check is the knowledge of the person who makes the boot – it’s a very manual, very human process so of course mistakes can be made, but we try not to make too many

the home of the world’s best wellies Not everyone would happily part with £700 for a pair of rubber boots, but then not all rubber boots are made like Le Chameau’s. Josh Sims caught up with the firm’s MD to find out more Beverley Williams certainly had second thoughts about moving to France to take charge of a manufacturer of rubber boots. As for many people, for the retail supremo – who has been a senior executive under the likes of Richard Branson and Philip Green – the prospect seemed decidedly unsexy. Until she saw the boots. “What we have here is a hidden gem that I want to put on a global stage,” says Williams, who took over as managing director at Le Chameau,

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based in Paris, Pont D’Ouilly in Normandy and Casablanca, 18 months ago. “These are not just rubber boots. In France they are iconic. And they are, I think, the best in class.” This perhaps explains not only why Le Chameau are the go to rubber boot maker for French farmers, sailors, fishermen, equestrian types and those with country estates, but has also been so for the likes of Louis Vuitton. When Chanel wanted a rubber boot made – of all things one might not associate with the

fashion house – it went to Le Chameau. And the reason is simple. The €25m company, established in 1927 by one Claude Chamot and now making some 350,000 pairs a year – half of which, however, are bought by the French alone, who happily wear them around town – places an unusual emphasis on materials. It uses a secret recipe of the highest concentration of natural rubber in the market (no boot can be 100% rubber and be durable), meaning the footwear is that

FASHION

much more pliable and comfortable. But to those materials it then applies the principles of classic hand-made leather boot-making. Indeed, the Normandy factory, where the company’s more premium models are made – yours for up to £700, which could get you a nice pair of bespoke shoes – has just four ‘maitres bottiers’, each of whom makes each pair of boots from start to finish. Each comprises the careful application of some 20 to 30 rubber parts, cut much as those for a pair of leather boots are, over an aluminium last. And since each boot is available made-tomeasure in eight calf-fittings – resulting in a more fitted, streamlined style – that means a lot of lasts. The naturally sticky rubber parts then hold their shape while the proto-boot undergoes Vulcanisation in giant ovens at around 140C, which effectively makes these parts molecularly of a piece – or, in other words, means

there are no seams through which water might enter the boots. Just to make sure, each pair is pumped full of air underwater – with a single rogue bubble causing them to be rejected. More unnervingly, a high voltage is also passed through the water to ensure the boots are non-conductive of electricity. “But the best quality check is the knowledge of the person who makes the boot – it’s a very manual, very human process, so of course mistakes can be made, but we try not to make too many,” jokes Marc Longuet, one-time bespoke boot-maker and now Le Chameau’s product director, whose father was also a director at the company from 1955. “But making rubber boots is actually a very complex business. The recipe for the rubber has to keep evolving – the right amount of sulphur, the right amount of dye and so on, but even buying the raw material can be tricky. Rubber is a commodity, after

all, so we buy supplies at least a year in advance and have to be conscious of fluctuating prices.” If that makes the product sound all too workaday, note that the top of the range styles are also leather-lined, an idea revolutionary to the rubber boot market back in the 1950s when Le Chameau introduced it. Fortunately for the customer, only the best leathers – those that might be suitable for the uppers of a decent pair of shoes – are able to survive the Vulcanisation process unscathed. These are, if you like, the John Lobb of wellies, with styles the likes of the Saint-Hubert, Vierzon and Chasseur Le Chameau’s very own classics. “I’m very much fixated with product. That’s what it comes down to in the end – whether the boots are any good,” says Williams. “I’ve spent a lifetime working in fashion retail and I think that is what the customers want more and more now. That’s what I love about the story of Claude Chamot – that he started the company after going out and actually speaking to farmers, hunters and fishermen about what they wanted in a boot. And then he decided to do something about making it.” n

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COMPANY PROFILE

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Rudells partnership with leading global brands “We genuinely enjoy sharing the special moments in life that are important to our clients”. This is reflected in our collective vision of; Quality, service and value” Jon Weston ( Managing Director of Rudells) Established in Wolverhampton in 1938, Rudells passion for excellence is as strong today as it ever was. This is plain to see when you visit either of their stylish showrooms that are located in High Street, Harborne and Darlington Street, Wolverhampton. The luxurious surroundings are the perfect showcase for the most prestigious, Internationally renowned, jewellery and Watch houses. Not only is the client spoilt for choice with dazzlings collections from luxury brands which include Patek Philiipe, Rolex, Cartier, Mikimoto, Chopard and Fope on offer but Rudells also provide a superb “Centre of Excellence” jewellery and timepiece repair/servicing facilities. Each store has its own very highly qualified and accredited watchmaker and both undertake regular training updates with all of the watch houses. The Harborne store is also home to their jewellery workshop where they undertake all of types of repair, design, bespoke client projects and remodelling. Rudells are fiercely proud of the level of expertise that is present in their showrooms and they actively encourage all employees to further their

Why not visit one of the Rudells showrooms and immerse yourself in a world filled with the finest diamonds and the best watch brands

Jon Weston (Managing Director of Rudells)

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COMPANY PROFILE

The Harborne showroom is pleased to announce the recent installation of Omega and IWC dedicated area’s. Bespoke “shop within shop

knowledge with trade education and qualifications. Currently, Rudells have 3 FGA’s (Fellow of the Gemological Association of Great Britain) 4 DGA’s (diamond members of the Gemological Association) and many members of staff who hold the Retail Jewellers Diploma or the Professional Jewellers Diploma. Each member of staff is actively encouraged to play a part in the development and future success of the company and this is particularly evident with Rudells exclusive in-house jewellery collections which were all designed by staff

members. The latest addition to these is ‘Wheel’ which was designed by a member of the Rudells Wolverhampton team. Rudells Fine Diamonds are another recent addition to the fantastic jewellery collections to be found in-store and each piece is accompanied with a diamond grading certificate to provide piece of mind when choosing one of Rudells stunning creations. The Harborne showroom is pleased to announce the recent installation of Omega and IWC dedicated area’s. Bespoke “shop within shop“

showcases to compliment the wonderfully furnished showroom and provide a sense of calm in which clients can view the latest creations while sipping on Champagne. Rudells really care about the future development of their company and they understand the importance of protecting the skills of master craftsmen for the jewellery and watch trade as a whole. Rudells Managing Director, Jon Weston, is very focused on the future, his forward vision has driven him to a role on the board for the British School of Watchmaking. A privately funded organisation set up and supported by Retailers and the major watch houses to provide the next generation of skilled watchmakers. Jon says “It’s really important that we have very highly trained and skilled watchmakers for the future. So many watch brands are now making large collections of mechanical pieces, so it’s vitally important that we have trained craftsmen who will be able to service and repair watches in the years to come. Our clients spend considerable sums of money on quality watches and by being involved in the training and development of watchmakers for the future, I feel as though I’m playing my part in protecting our clients investment” Why not visit one of the Rudells showrooms and immerse yourself in a world filled with the finest diamonds and the best watch brands. I guarantee you will not be disappointed with the quality of products on display and the level of customer service you receive. Rudells really are an “oasis” for quality service.

89A High Street, Harborne, Birmingham, B17 9NR Tel: 0121 427 1904 97 Darlington Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 4HB Tel: 01902 423 308/427 199 W: www.rudells.com E: info@rudells.com

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EQUIPMENT How we made it big time

The iconic – and unashamedly macho – Panerai brand of oversized wrist watches have become ultra cool almost by accident, as Josh Sims discovers talking to the company’s enthusiastic CEO, Angelo Bonati Whichever way you look at it, Panerai is big – culturally, horologically, but, above all, literally. Size has become its calling card. While other companies use gold or diamonds, heft is the factor that gets a Panerai watch noticed on the wrist – that and the fact that its wearer, finding few shirt cuffs will button up over their chunk of metal, will doubtless have no choice but to wear it nicely exposed. Among its bigger wristwatches is one that sizes up at an impressive 60mm diameter. Its smallest is 42mm, still enough for Panerai to lay claim to having pioneered the trend for out-sized timepieces which, over a decade on, is still with us. “Size is what made Panerai feel very new. Panerai’s personality is about being large. And it’s still working that way for us. Big matters and makes us stand out,” says Angelo Bonati, the dapper don who was appointed CEO of the company 14 years ago, when, frankly, mostly only Loope-wielding nerds had really ever heard of it. “Of course, big is not for everybody, and it means we’re not going to do ladies’ watches any time soon, even though around 15% of all our sales are to women buying for themselves. I’m not sure what the appeal is to them. Maybe they think of these watches as being protective, like wearing a good piece of armour.” You could certainly do a lot of damage with

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a Luminor 1950 Left-Handed 3 Days (47mm), a Radiomir 1940 Chronograph (45mm) or a Luminor Base 8 Days (44mm), among the company’s 2014 models. For each, almost inevitably, demand has been enthusiastic. But why? Panerai, after all, was the brand from nowhere, largely invisible until the 1990s and now a powerhouse watch label owned by the Richemont luxury goods group. It had history

on its side – it had been founded way back in 1860 by one Giovanni Panerai, putting it on a par with many other esteemed watch companies. But for decades its output had been minuscule, verging on non-existent. Geography arguably offered a point of distinction: the re-born Panerai may have been made in Neuchatel, one of Switzerland’s watchmaking centres, but it hailed from Florence and, tellingly, was headquartered in fashion hub Milan. Certainly Bonati argues that this made Panerai memorable, but it is hardly the makings of a cult. “When people buy Panerai they buy history – and then a watch. So that Italian background is 100% important to the success of the company I think. The best way that we have built the brand is by putting that Italian element first,” he says. “It even helped that originally Panerai was from Florence, of course, because that is one of the best cities in the world for art and culture, so there is always that stress on the beautiful and aesthetic, which is very Italian.” Not that beauty was high on the agenda of Panerai’s only customer come its last glory days, during the 1930s, when it was making diving watches, as well as compasses and depth gauges for the Italian Navy, and more specifically – and more exotically and marketably – for its commando units, those

EQUIPMENT

heroes of national survival during World War Two, once the British fleet had won control of the Mediterranean. In this, in its distinctive lever bridge device, and in its size – which Bonati chose to retain, even exacerbate, when Panerai was relaunched – the brand clearly had a certain appealing machismo, which Bonati doesn’t deny. “I suppose that, yes, you would have to call Panerai a rather macho brand – it’s just part of its heritage,” he says. “It’s not so macho these days perhaps. As every other brand went through a phase of adopting Panerai sizing, to extremes in some cases, we learned to be more balanced. But sure, an Italian masculinity still comes out. And that tends to be on the particularly macho side – though I like to think it’s nicely rounded too.” But is a Boys’ Own tale and what some might call the gimmick of scale really enough to explain Panerai’s revival? After all, not only is Panerai one of the most sought-after watches – in part a product of carefully and cleverly controlled supply, from a company that could make and sell many more watches – but it has also become one of the most collectible. And not just to the militaria buffs who favour its Marina Militare and Radiomir models (with its innovative radium-based luminosity), nor the Rolex fanatics who knew that their brand of

choice had supplied a version of its Cortebert pocket watch movement for the Panerais of the wartime era. Rather, it has become a Patek Philippe for the 21st century young gun, and an investor favourite: a pre-1990 Panerai could once be bought for $1,000 or less. The same would now cost you well over $50,000. “For some 60 years of its history Panerai only produced perhaps 300 units a year – and we continue to keep the quantities low in order to keep that exclusivity. And now there are a lot of people who can afford a lot of watches – so they want something very exclusive,” argues Bonati. This was something recognised early on, when Richemont, celebrating the Radiomir’s 60th birthday, conveniently uncovered 60 dead-stock examples of the original Rolex movements, fitted them in a platinum replica and promptly made back its

money; one of these too would now be worth at least 15 times its original price. “I know we could sell a lot more watches than we do, but we’re careful to keep it rare, so to speak. We want to expand more by upgrading what we do rather than by selling more of what we already do. We’re not really into just building market share.” Although the ingredients are all there, how they so successfully mixed seems a mystery, and that’s even to Bonati – the watch industry veteran who can be credited with reinventing Panerai after Johann Rupert, executive chairman of the Richemont group of swanky brands, bought it in 1997 for next to nothing; the veteran who, for the first six months following, ran the company by himself – that is, literally, on his own. “Sometimes things happen in your life and you really don’t know how. You can make an assessment of it in retrospect but sometimes you still can’t look at a luxury brand and know how it became luxury,” says Bonati, looking genuinely perplexed by it all, but also rather pleased. “There’s no mathematical equation to it. There’s an element of process you can manage. You have to be careful to see luxury status when it comes and work on it – so if being Italian is fundamental to the brand, you have to make sure you keep it there. Yet even so not all luxury brands are successful and that’s not to say the people running them are stupid at all. It’s just a very complex happening. “The fact is, if you can’t manufacture cool, which you can’t – or at least, not very easily. From a business point of view, all you can do is make sure you make good watches and that the watches aren’t everywhere. You can follow the cool rules but, really, coolness just comes from the market.” n

I know we could sell a lot more watches than we do, but we’re careful to keep it rare, so to speak. We want to expand more by upgrading what we do. We’re not really into just building market share

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ENTREPRENEUR

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ENTREPRENEUR

driven to achieve Richard Taffinder was born into a life of abject cruelty. But he survived, and today leads a business heading for turnovers of £50m a year. Ros Dodd reports It’s hard to imagine a childhood more blighted by violence, tragedy and dysfunction than Richard Taffinder’s. When he was just three-and-a-half, his father murdered one of his sisters. In the wake of this horror, Richard was put into care. When he returned home, his mother – who gave birth to 12 children – had met her fourth husband, and his new stepdad, like his natural father, was a brutal man who subjected the family to regular abuse. Yet Richard, now managing director of Birmingham-based Hills Number Plates, the UK’s largest number plate manufacturer, is one of the most positive people you will ever meet. “I am obsessively, annoyingly positive,” he says with a smile. “Some people say I’m too positive, but in my book there’s no such thing. I am also very disciplined. I took up body-building at 17 as a result of the abuse I suffered, and that taught me self-discipline.” It was this positivity and self-discipline, coupled with the kind of fierce drive often born of trauma, which steered Hills from the brink of bankruptcy seven years ago into the thriving, accelerating business it is today. Richard’s determination and tenacity helped to turn a £800,000 loss in 2007 into £1.1m profit last year. Now his sights are set on achieving a turnover of £50m as the company continues to expand its export market and diversifies into signage for the healthcare industry. Hills, which produces more than three million pairs of number plates a year from its custombuilt factory adjacent to the M6 in Aston, has gone through a raft of changes since it was

founded in London in 1927 by Kenneth Garle. Throughout the peaks and troughs, the focus has been on innovation. From the days when number plates were made from metal plates embossed with letters to today’s UltraTek, an environmentally-friendly aluminium plate with raised letters, the company has been at the vanguard of design and technology. Ironically, over-investment in technology was one reason Hills nearly crumbled, but now – with the business back on track – technology is helping it to grow. The future looks bright, but for the company and for Manchester-born Richard, it’s been a bumpy ride. “I left school early, at 15, and left home at 16 because the abuse was horrendous,” Richard remembers. “I once caught my sister beating the crap out of another sister, and I stopped it. It was a turning point for me: until then I’d been a victim, but suddenly I wasn’t anymore. What I experienced during my childhood and adolescence was off the scale and, effectively, that’s been my driver. That’s why I’m resilient and how I’ve coped.” One of Richard’s siblings saw a newspaper advertisement for a workshop assistant and tea-boy in north London and he applied and

got the job. “It was a motor spares shop called Brakeco that made number plates upstairs. Pretty early on I saw ways to improve how they made the plates and started messing around with ideas to speed up the process. By the time I was 19 I was workshop supervisor.” In 1988, the firm was bought by a small consortium and, then aged 27, Richard was made operations director. Four years later, Brakeco bought Hills from then-owners 3M. “They were four times our size and by amalgamating we became the biggest number plate manufacturer in Britain.” To make the company more cost-effective, its four sites were replaced with one centralised hub, in Birmingham, and Richard moved up from London. But by 2001, although the biggest of its kind in Britain “by a long way”, Hills was struggling to balance the books. As well as having made a series of bad investments, the cost of materials had soared and the competition was fierce. “Despite being a legal entity product, anyone could set up a business in a garage somewhere and this diluted the mainstream market to the point that from the late 1990s until 2007, the market halved. We went from having 8,000 >>

What I experienced during my childhood was off the scale and, effectively, that’s been my driver. That’s why I’m resilient and how I’ve coped

Andrew whiting weAlth ConsultAnCy llP Senior Partner Practice of St. James’s Place Wealth Management tel: 0121 215 0926 Email: andrew.whiting@sjpp.co.uk Web: www.andrewwhiting.co.uk

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ENTREPRENEUR mixed-value customers to 2,000 wholesalebased ones, which was of relatively low margin. By 2007 we were, in effect, insolvent.” But just as it looked as if Hills had come to the end of the road, Richard executed a threepoint turn. Taking sole leadership in 2008, he struck deals with customers and suppliers, carried out a pricing restructure, made some redundancies, negotiated new funding lines and refocused on the core business. Within four years he was able to pay off Hills’ £1.8m debt to take the company not only back into the black, but also to its best net growth in the firm’s modern history – an achievement that led to him being named Ernst & Young’s Midlands Entrepreneur of the Year 2013 in the “turnaround” category. Even while fighting to save the company from going under, Richard was still investing in its expansion, especially overseas. Hills already supplied plates to France, and Richard could see more opportunity there. In 2010, the company entered the Spanish market – even getting the law changed to allow UK-style plates. “Spain is now our largest export market after France and we think by 2016 it will be our biggest,” says Richard, who is chairman of the British Number Plate Manufacturers’ Association. Two years ago, Hills opened a subsidiary in Malaysia. The company’s branching out too, producing, for example, Braille signs, for the healthcare market. This growth has been helped in 2014 by a £4m finance facility from HSBC, with ‘invoice finance’ forming a major part of a solution that covers their domestic and export funding requirements. Richard is now looking at key acquisition opportunities, which, if successful, will give Hills the leverage to truly compete as a global player. “I want to take Hills to 2027, which will be its 100th anniversary,” says Richard. “Within the next four to seven years, I want it to have a £50m turnover with a 15% return. I started with minus 1% return and we’re now at 9%. “In my view, all this stuff about needing to

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Richard’s top tips for business success • Don’t always go for the conventional option: Unorthodox solutions often work. Innovation and change are the way forward. • Put yourself in a win-win position: Always do what you say you’re going to do. This credibility will help you go far. • Value your team: People often say, “it’s not me, it’s the team I work with,” and that’s absolutely true. However, leadership is about setting an example. If you set a good example, people will want to work with you; if you don’t, they won’t. Each year, I sit down for an hour with all my 77 employees for one-to-one conversations. And I tell them about me – I use what I went through to mentor people – which in turn helps me to scratch beneath the surface of who they are – their personality, where they’ve come from. By so doing, I’ve created a Hills culture of ‘can do’. • You don’t need talent: Talent counts for very little when it comes to being successful in business. Most things you can learn. Most things are about trial and error. Being prepared to work hard and having good self-discipline are much more important than talent. • Build layer upon layer upon layer: Having too much too soon is wrong; you have to learn values, getting the foundations right before you start to build on them. If you grow a company too quickly, you run a very high risk of the foundations being shaky. A long-term strategy is much better than trying to make short-term jumps. • Don’t blame other people for your lack of success: While it’s crucial to have a great team round you, you have to take responsibility for your own decisions.

have talent is nonsense; it’s about discipline. Sir Chris Hoy has been quoted as saying the reason for his success wasn’t talent but the fact he had massive support and trained harder than anyone else. No-one’s special. If you have sufficient discipline, you can do anything. I couldn’t read properly until I was 23.” His self-help approach is probably why he’s not needed counselling: “When you’ve gone through it and learned to manage it, it’s amazing what you can do.” He was, however, “very unemotional for a long time. I was scared because I had the same temper – I knew what it was like to see red mist before your eyes. I didn’t have my first child until I was 45 because I was so scared.” Now 49, he is the proud father of two children, aged four and three. They have greatly enriched his life, he says. “I don’t find it easy to relax; I can’t just sit. But the kids have made a massive difference. Sundays are dedicated to being with them. They have brought a lot

to my life.” Making peace with his mother before she died also helped to heal scars: “My mother died when I was 27 – just before I was made a director, so she never got to see that. By the end of her life, we were reconciled, and I was with her when she died: she had a heart attack in front of me. She was only 59, but after 12 children and all she’d gone through, I guess her body couldn’t take any more.” Work aside, Richard’s an adrenaline junkie. He set up Hills VIP track days in 2006 and started racing Aston Martins in 2011 – even competing against Rowan Atkinson at Le Mans. He’s also done Britain’s highest bungee jump – 300 feet – and has parachuted out of a plane. Although family life has tempered his urge to work 100-hour weeks, Richard’s as driven as ever: “It’s busy, but I like to be busy. Doing things you like doing isn’t work; you just do it. And I think what my story shows is that you can achieve anything you want.” n

Andrew whiting weAlth ConsultAnCy llP Senior Partner Practice of St. James’s Place Wealth Management tel: 0121 215 0926 Email: andrew.whiting@sjpp.co.uk Web: www.andrewwhiting.co.uk

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

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BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

WINTER 14

insight

Recent examples of reshoring reflect new confidence in West Midlands manufacturing – but better local skills and services are still needed. Leading business academics David Bailey and Lisa De Propris reports

Bringing it home Birmingham and the wider region took the biggest output and employment hit of any UK region in the last recession, in part because of a collapse in world trade (Birmingham is, after all, the ‘city of a thousand trades’ – including as a major exporter). But since then the region has powered back more quickly than elsewhere in the UK. This bounce back has been seen in improved performance across many sectors but manufacturing activity in particular has spurred growth. Sectors such as automotive, aerospace and the production of specialised precision components are all driving ahead. The performance and flexibility of the region’s automotive industry in particular sets a great example for other sectors. The sector has seen more than £7 billion of investment over the past three years, with much of that here via Jaguar Land Rover and supply chain firms such as GKN. There is a real sense of confidence in several manufacturing sectors including automotive and aerospace. Order books extend several years ahead. “There’s never been a better time to be a manufacturer,” one chief executive of a major local manufacturing firm told a BQ West Midlands recently. This confidence is reflected in the nascent trend

of reshoring, which is seeing manufacturing activity come back to the region. Top of the list of drivers for local firms in ‘bringing it home’ are transport costs and quality issues overseas, followed by supply chain resilience, exchange rate shifts, rising wages overseas, the need for rapid turnaround, as well as the need to offer a service alongside manufacturing. There are, of course, barriers to further repatriation. It’s the skills issue, along with access to finance (especially for smaller firms down the supply chain) and high energy costs which provide some of the biggest barriers to an even faster manufacturing upturn and a boost to growth locally. Tackling these would also help local firms export more. Rapid lead times are critical in sectors such as clothing, textiles and high design content items, where fashions can change quickly and retailers try to avoid having stock in transit for long periods. Indeed, the increased variety and speed of change associated with ‘fast fashion’ have tilted the balance of competitive advantage towards firms nearer ‘home’. For such reasons, the firm Bathrooms.com, an online retailer of bathroom furniture, is bringing back around half of the contracts currently awarded to Chinese manufacturers to

Midlands’ firms, reducing the time from design to production from six months to six weeks. Another example sees RDM Group, the Coventry-based engineering and automotive specialist, starting production at a new Coventry factory. It is bringing back production of aluminium rechargeable torches for Jaguar Land Rover back from China. Meanwhile, Birmingham-based Brandauer has successfully won work that had previously been subcontracted to Europe and China, across a range of sectors including the medical, space, safety and auto sectors. And just like with the fashion industry, rising costs overseas are not the only driver. Turn around is becoming critical, especially for premium automotive products where the consumer helps to design the final product and doesn’t want to wait months for the car to be delivered. That means more opportunity for local suppliers. So, the good news is that manufacturing is indeed reshoring, but maybe on less of a scale than had been hoped for, and policymakers at all levels need to think about how they can push this along. Experience from the United States is instructive in this sense. Just like here, in the US, shrinking cost gaps and the desire of firms to assemble nearer to their customers are making reshoring a fertile opportunity. However, conditions on the ground are sometimes pretty hostile. For example, both General Electric and Google Motorola Mobility faced huge difficulties in hiring skilled people with experience in modern precision manufacturing when they tried to reshore to the United States, and the firms struggled to source local supply chains. In the Google Motorola case most of the parts had to come from China, while GE struggled to source locally. GE has of late made a success of its Louisville operations, but Google Motorola is closing its Fort Worth plant in part because of high shipping costs. >>

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

INSIGHT

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Business champions David Bailey is Professor of Industrial Strategy in the Economics and Strategy Group at Aston Business School (ABS), recognised worldwide as a leading centre of business education. From humble beginnings as a training centre for the industrial community to today, when graduates are sought out for their employability based on ABS’s placement model and work-based learning, the faculty are sought out for their understanding of what creates successful growth in companies. ABS provides a practical and contextual business education with a strong commercial focus. It also concentrates on relevant research for business, and especially small and medium-sized firms, where it has a proven track record, with the aim of making business more effective. Dr Lisa De Propris is a Reader in Regional Economic Development at Birmingham Business School. Her main research interests are small firms and clusters, regional competitiveness, governance, innovation and inward investment. Birmingham Business School has been a major player in business education for more than a century, with expertise spanning accounting and finance, economics, leadership development, management and marketing. It works with private and public sector organisations, and companies engage with its students.

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

This US experience shows us that reshoring is indeed a real opportunity, but not a foregone conclusion. And like the US case, while a range of economic fundamentals have shifted, the actual logistics of bringing production back to the West Midlands can be hard going. So whether reshoring benefits the West Midlands depends on the availability of skills, innovation capacity, the supply chain base, support services and institutional ‘thickness’. In many ways the West Midlands is well placed to make the most of these trends. Major firms like JLR, JCB and BMW (via its world class Hams Hall engine plant) have all located here to access the region’s rich assets. These include excellent skills, a flexible workforce, a strong innovation environment built around local universities and consultancy firms, a superb design base and low costs. Only a handful of regions in Europe have the capability to completely design, develop and build a whole car, including its powertrain. The West Midlands region is one of them. Moreover, the region can compete with anywhere in Europe on the basis of high productivity, high quality and low labour costs. But local actors still have to work hard to drive reshoring. The government’s £245m Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative (AMSCI), for example, grew out of an earlier auto-focused Regional Growth Fund bid by several Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). While a welcome move, the overall amount of funding on offer (£245m across manufacturing nationally by 2015) is limited. Extending the scheme so that smaller firms can directly access the support available is critical, especially when the lack of access to finance is a major issue for such firms. On the latter, ‘tooling up’ in the automotive supply chain is still a big challenge given uncertainty over future vehicle volumes, the asset specificity of the tool (which means that lenders are reluctant to accept it as collateral), and a lack of knowledge in the banking system over how to evaluate proposals. In tackling such issues, we need to see a ‘step change’ in the engagement of the UK’s financial sector with the automotive industry. At some point a dedicated automotive (and manufacturing) loan fund may be required to overcome failures in the financial system.

Dr Lisa De Propris

On this, in mid-2014 the government launched a £24m National Tooling Fund to assist toolmakers and component manufacturers to fund the design, development and manufacturing of tools following a firm order from a major assembler. So far we have seen a great effort locally by local LEPs, suppliers, unions, assemblers and support agencies such as the MAS to work together to support the local mini-renaissance of manufacturing, especially in autotomotive. The cooperation between some of the local LEPs over inward investment, for example, has been genuinely excellent. But that needs to go further – for example in terms of more cooperation between local authorities – particularly in the form of a combined authority Manchester-style. Local authorities need to seize the devolution opportunity so that the region can develop a wider array of policies to boost the local availability of skills, foster the region’s innovation capacity, support the supply chain base, and provide effective support services. There is a big opportunity here. The UK economy hasn’t rebalanced in quite the way that the government hoped for. But manufacturing and business services in this region really are doing the ‘heavy lifting’ of reshoring, exporting the economy out of recession, and driving growth. Let’s make the most of it. n

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BIT OF A CHAT

with Bill Borde

WINTER 14

event, featuring cricket stars Jonathan Trott and Ashley Giles. The email was sent out at 5.27pm on 3 September, only to receive an all-round reply at 5.34pm from Alun Thorne, at the time the editor of the Coventry Telegraph, that read: “If only the event hadn’t just been cancelled!” But PR Esh Capelo’s quick-as-a-flash reply at 5.39pm – also sent all-round – was a fine bit of smooth talking: “I know. Have just found out myself. Thanks Alun. Appreciate your help with getting the message out :)” It’s all good learning for Alun, who’s now left the Telegraph to join Birmingham-based spin-doctors Barques PR.

>> The Blake brothers Football fans will be interested to learn that social impact guru Joel Blake – who features as the ‘Success story’ in this edition of BQ – is the half-brother of Noel Blake. Defender Noel played for Aston Villa and Birmingham City in the late 1970s and early 1980s before becoming head coach of the England Under-19s. He’s now first team coach at Blackpool.

>> Give a lag a job Former BBC TV presenter and jailbird Ashley Blake hosted a business breakfast in Solihull to highlight the benefits of offering jobs to ex-offenders. Dennis Phillips, from The Timpson Foundation, told delegates about its work within prisons to prepare offenders for a new life in the retail sector on release. He said: “10% of Timpsons’ workforce have previous convictions, 75% have stayed with the company after 12 months and 10 are now branch managers. “It’s a huge commitment to give people, who have such barriers from employment, but you can make it work, especially with the support of the Employers Forum for Reducing Reoffending.” Ashley, who served a two-year prison sentence in 2009 for wounding a teenager, said: “If I can combine my experience and business skills to encourage businesses to employ an ex-offender it’s well worth doing.”

>> Longbridge lights up After years of busy demolition and development following the closure of MG Rover, it was a delight to see 7,000 visitors at the first ever Longbridge Light Festival in Birmingham. The international arts festival in October saw dozens of renowned artists from cities including Lyon, Rotterdam, Berlin, Paris and Birmingham deliver specially commissioned light art. The festival was organised to highlight the £1bn redevelopment of the 468-acre former car factory site into a housing and business village by developers St Modwen.

>> Smooth PR lessons There were red faces at the Ed James Group for sending out a press release about a Birmingham Airport-sponsored lunch

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

>> Mini Italian job Graduates and apprentices from the Manufacturing Technology Centre recreated scenes from the classic Michael Caine film The Italian Job. The team restored three classic Minis – one a 1965 vintage model – for a 16-day drive across Italy, from Turin to Trento, including the mountain roads of Piedmont and Trentino, and the famous Monza circuit. It was all in celebration of the 25th year of The Italian Job Mini Car Rally, in which hundreds of Minis drive across Italy to raise money for Variety, the children’s charity. Dr Clive Hickman, chief executive of the MTC – an £18m Advanced Manufacturing Training Centre in Coventry – said: “This was a great experience for the trainees, and also developed valuable skills in engineering, problem-solving and fundraising. I’m very proud of them.”

A MAJOR EVENT TO INSPIRE, MOTIVATE & SHARE BUSINESS SUCCESS

Emerging Entrepreneur Dinner 2015 West Midlands: 19th March, Birmingham BQ Magazine continues to support and encourage entrepreneurship across the UK. Our mission is to recognise and celebrate the contribution that entrepreneurs make to our economy, whilst encouraging and motivating others to succeed in business. The BQ West Midlands Emerging Entrepreneur Dinner is being held in conjunction with MADE: The Entrepreneur Festival 2015, the UKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest annual festival of entrepreneurship. Be inspired, gain practical advice and celebrate as our successful entrepreneurs and emerging talent tell their story. BBC Home News Editor Mark Easton for an evening of chat, celebration and recognition on Thursday 19th March.

Winning BQ Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year 2014 was an incredible honour that reflects the hard work we have been doing at Geco Industries. The award significantly raises the profile of Geco Industries and being presented at the MADE festival adds to this. LEWIS BOWEN, GECO INDUSTRIES

Entrepreneur MADE The Festival: Sheffield

Join us for an inspiring evening in celebration of entrepreneurship

www.bqlive.co.uk/eedinner/wm Book your place now by contacting bryan@room501.co.uk or call Bryan Hoare on 0191 426 6300

Nominations for 2015 NOW OPEN Visit www.bqlive.co.uk/eedinner/wm

EVENTS

WINTER 14

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 steve.dysonmedia@gmail. com, with ‘BQ events page’ in the email subject heading

NOVEMBER

21 GBCC Business Breakfast with Sir Albert Bore, leader of Birmingham City Council, 7.30-10am, venue TBC. £15 members, £22.50 non-members. 0121 607 1772, events@birmingham-chamber.com

25 CBI West Midlands Autumn Dinner with John Cridland, CBI director-general, 7-11pm, Hilton Birmingham Metropole, National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, B40 1PP. £65 members, £75 non-members. Anne Cullom 01638 242404, anne.cullom@cbi.org.uk

21 BBBC, speaker tbc, 7-9am, Hotel du Vin, 25 Church St, Birmingham, West Midlands B3 2NR. £20. Book at www.bbbc.biz 28 Chase Chamber Business Breakfast – Show me the Money, 8.30-10am, Premier Suite, Danilo Road, Cannock, WS11 1BJ. £10. 08450 710 191, c.plant@chase-chamber.com

25 IoD West Midlands: Getting Results Through People, 6.30-9pm, LT001 Ashley Building, Staffordshire University, Leek Road, Stoke on Trent, ST4 2DF. Free. Sue Hurrell 0121 643 1868, sue.hurrell@iod.com 26 GBCC Business Engagement Breakfast with Birmingham City Council, 8-10am, Council House, Victoria Square, Birmingham, B1 1BB. £15 members, £22.50 non-members. 0121 607 1772, events@birmingham-chamber.com 26 GBCC Enterprise European Network: International Agency & Distribution Agreements, 9am-1pm, Birmingham Chamber Of Commerce, 75 Harborne Rd, Birmingham, B15 3DH. Free. 0121 455 0268, een@birmingham-chamber.com 27 University of Birmingham Business School, Lord Heseltine – Changing the role of Whitehall, 5.30-7pm, University of Birmingham Business School, Main Lecture Theatre, Edgbaston Park Road, Birmingham B15 2TY. For details see www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/business/events 27 GBCC Doing Business with Birmingham City Council: Workshop on The Birmingham Business Charter For Social Responsibility, PwC, Cornwall Court, Birmingham, B3 2DT. Free. 0121 607 1772, events@birmingham-chamber.com 29 Institute of Asian Businesses Annual Dinner and Awards, 6pm-12am, The ICC, Broad Street, Birmingham, B1 2EA. £80. 0121 450 4223, k.jagdev@birmingham-chamber.com

december

february 4 Solihull Chamber, Breakfast with Business, 7.30-9.30am, Devere Village Urban Resort Solihull, The Green Business Park, Shirley, Solihull, B90 4GW. £5.83 members, £8.33 non-members. 0121 781 7384, solevents@solihull-chamber.com 4 GBCC Discover the formula for sales success in 2015, 9.30-11.30am, Rodbaston Hall, Penkridge, Staffordshire, ST19 5PH. £10. 08450 710 191, c.plant@chase-chamber.com 6 Solihull Chamber, Enterprising Women, 12-2.30pm, Devere Village Urban Resort Solihull, The Green Business Park, Stratford Road, Solihull, B90 4GW. £20 members, £33.33 non-members. 0121 781 7384, solevents@solihull-chamber.com 12 GBCC Business Breakfast with Paul Kehoe, CEO, Birmingham Airport, 7.30-10am, venue TBC. £15 members, £22.50 non-members. 0121 607 1772, events@birmingham-chamber.com 18 BBBC, speaker tbc, 7-9am, Hotel du Vin, 25 Church St, Birmingham, West Midlands B3 2NR. £20. Book at www.bbbc.biz 25 IoD/BESST/Metnet Environmental Technologies Conference/Exhibition at University of Wolverhampton Telford Campus, 8.30am-12pm. Further details from sue.hurrell@iod.com

3 IoD West Midlands: Annual Christmas Drinks, 6-8pm, Eleven Brindleyplace, 2 Brunswick Square, Birmingham, B1 2LP. Free. Carly Clyne 0121 643 1868 4 IoD West Midlands: Young IoD Christmas Drinks, 6-8pm, The Red Lion, 95 Warstone Lane, B18 6NG. Free. Carly Clyne 0121 643 1868

march

4 GBCC Women in Business – How to be the Christmas ‘Queen of Serene’, 10-12am, Hoar Cross Hall Spa & Resort, Makers Lane, Burton on Trent, DE13 8QS. £12.95. 01283 535 640, c.plant@chase-chamber.com

4 IoD West Midlands: The Business of Being the Stafford Railway Building Society, 7.30-8.45am, Staffordshire University, Beaconside, ST18 0AD. £10 members, £15 non-members. Sue Hurrell 0121 643 1868, sue.hurrell@iod.com

4 Solihull Chamber, Solihull President’s Drinks Reception, 4.30-7.30pm, Monarch Hanger, Birmingham Cargo Airport, Birmingham, B26 3QJ. Free. 0121 781 7384, solevents@solihull-chamber.com

6 Headz Up Business, International Women’s Day, 9am-3pm, Walsall Football Club, Bescot Stadium, Walsall, WS1 4SA. £25. 07772 045 850, enquiries@headzupbusiness.co.uk

5 Solihull Chamber, Enterprising Women, 12-2.30pm, Hogarths Hotel, Four Ashes Road, Dorridge

18 BBBC, speaker Rob Groves, senior project director, Argent, 7-9am, Hotel du Vin, 25 Church St, Birmingham, West Midlands B3 2NR. £20. Book at www.bbbc.biz

Solihull, B93 8QE. £20 members, £33.33 non-members. 0121 781 7384, solevents@solihull-chamber.com 9 UBBC Breakfast, The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement and the Implications for Business, 7.30-9.30am, The BizzInn, Birmingham Research Park, 97 Vincent Drive, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2SQ. businessteam@bham.ac.uk 12 Lichfield Rugby Chamber Business Connect Breakfast, 7-9.30am, Lichfield Rugby Club, Cooke Fields, Tamworth Road, Lichfield, WS14 9JE. £10. 08450 710 191, c.plant@chase-chamber.com 12 GBCC A Christmas Presence, 7.30-9am, Carousel Bar, Drayton Manor Hotel, Drayton Manor Theme Park, Tamworth, B78 3TW. £12.50 members, £15 non-members. 08450 710 191, c.plant@chase-chamber.com 17 GBCC Future Faces Christmas Social, 6-9pm, Revolution, Five Ways, Broad Street, Birmingham, B15 1AY. 0121 607 1836, k.evans@birmingham-chamber.com 17 BBBC, speaker Phil Innes, founder and director at Loki Wines Ltd, 7-9am, Hotel du Vin, 25 Church St, Birmingham, West Midlands B3 2NR. £20. Book at www.bbbc.biz

19 IoD West Midlands: How Private is Social Media in the Workplace? 8-9.45am, Abbey Lawn Shrewsbury, Shropshire SY2 5DE. Free. Carly Clyne 0121 643 1868 19 Solihull Chamber, Need to Know... Budget Seminar, 5-7pm, with Prime Accountants Group, Corner Oak, 1 Homer Road, Solihull, B91 3QG. Free. 0121 781 7384, solevents@solihull-chamber.com 20 Solihull Chamber, Annual General Meeting & Networking Lunch, 11am-3pm, Holiday Inn Birmingham Airport, Coventry Road, Birmingham, B26 3QW. £25 members, £33.33 non-members. 0121 781 7384, solevents@solihull-chamber.com

The diary is updated daily online at www.bqlive.co.uk

january

Please check with contacts beforehand that arrangements have not changed. Event organisers are also asked to notify us at the above email address of any changes or cancellations as soon as they are known.

13 GBCC How to make the most of your membership, 9.30-11.30am, Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, 75 Harborne Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 3DH. Free for members, £10 non-members. 0121 607 1772, events@birmingham-chamber.com

KEY: BBBC, Birmingham Business Breakfast Club. CBI, Confederation of British Industry. GBCC, Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce. IoD, Institute of Directors. UBBC, University of Birmingham Breakfast Club

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 14

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