BQ YORKSHIRE issue 11

www.bq-magazine.co.uk

ISSUE ELEVEN: WINTER 2011

access to finance Banks aren’t lending. Yes they are. A BQ special report 2

kitchen for more Simplistic manufacturing and continual improvement worth an investment Downturn? What downturn? Shopfloor opinion says

Yorkshire business is tough but healthy – and ready

good for the long term The care home sector could do with friends like Philip Burgan

a clear view ISSUE ELEVEN: WINTER 2011: YORKSHIRE EDITION

Mark J Nelson has developed the art of keeping focus – in more ways than one – and intends to make a clean sweep BUSINESS NEWS: COMMERCE: FASHION: INTERVIEWS: MOTORS: EVENTS

YORKSHIRE EDITION

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BUSINESS QUARTER: WINTER 11: issue ELEVEN There’s a bit of a departure this issue, as we thought the ongoing uncertainty among many small businesses about whether and how they can access finance was worth us doing an investigation of our own. Hence our special feature this month on access to finance.

Speaking to bankers, private equity people, business advisers and one or two businesses themselves, we hope we have been able to provide a rounded and accurate picture of the true state of the funding environment right at the end of 2011.

We also take a look at the future of manufacturing in Leeds. It was a subject Marketing Leeds took up in a special conference in November. We extend it a bit more by seeing how Communisis, once one of the largest printers in the UK, now one of the UK’s largest “marketing service providers”, has had to adapt to change.

Two of our entrepreneurs this month have a background in motor racing. Mark Nelson raced in Moto GP up until the mid-1990s, and still has many connections with the sport in his current businesses. Philip Burgan took time off at the end of that decade to have a go at being a motor rally driver. He says a couple of years of that was enough to sate his appetite.

But the experience must have done something for both men, because they have gone on to be serial entrepreneurs.

Our third entrepreneur, Paul Rose, comes fresh from his success at this year’s Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards, which recognised his achievement in building up Rixonway Kitchens. He makes what he does sound all so simple. I am sure it’s not.

We also look at what is to become now of St James Securities, one of Yorkshire’s best-

known property development companies, now that it has dropped its trans-Pennine joint venture with CTP, a similarly successful developer in Manchester.

And we consider Physiomed, a 650-strong network of physiotherapists which has been growing organically over the past few years to be a real fighting force in occupational health.

Our business lunch is with Adeeba Malik, a former board director of Yorkshire Forward who still believes passionately in social integration being the key to social economic development.

And don’t miss either Leeds College of Building principal Ian Billyard’s plea to give young people a better start in life through construction. With youth unemployment figures currently reaching record highs, it is an important message. And as you can see, even Nick Clegg has been listening.

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YORKSHIRE EDITION

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BQ Magazine is published quarterly by room501 Ltd.

BUSINESS QUARTER |WINTER 11

CONTE BUSINESS QUARTER: WINTER 11 clear view

38 deep treatment

Features

Physios do it over the phone – then get down to the hands-on approach

64 long term assets The care home sector at the moment could do with friends like Philip Burgan

20 entrepreneur Mark J Nelson has a clear view of the road ahead – and he’s keeping focus

26 success story Manufacturing and Leeds – believe it or not, the words go naturally together

34 kitchen for more A streamlined operation built on continual improvement and simplicity

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 11

70 after the split

20 special report

One joint venture goes but another appears, as Paul Morris discovers

74 snapshot A group of business leaders suggests Yorkshire is a tough but healthy place

81 bq2 special report Banks aren’t lending. Yes they are. How companies can get access to finance

04

81

TENTS YORKSHIRE EDITION

30 COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

BUSINESS LUNCH

The landmark developments creating our trade-rich landscape

42 BUSINESS LUNCH Adeeba Malik on ethnic minorities and mainstream business – and food

Regulars

48 WINE Linda Pollard samples Spanish sunshine

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50 MOTORS The Maserati Granturismo S growls, roars and accelerates like a racing car

6 ON THE RECORD Doing the positives in business

8 NEWS Who’s doing what, when, where and why, here in Yorkshire

18 AS I SEE IT Ian Billyard builds hope for youngsters

cool utility

54 FASHION Utility is so cool – and does the job on the slopes or waiting for a train

60 equipment The challenge of the Lotus position

78 FRANK TOCK Gripping gossip from our backroom boy

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54 BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 11

ON THE RECORD

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Leeds promotion is a capital appointment and the new Humber LEP board has been revealed, but business confidence is low and Comet sells for an awful lot less than New Covent Garden Soup >> Confidence drops in surveys

Leeds lure: Lurene Joseph

>> Lda head moves to Marketing Leeds Marketing Leeds, the organisation responsible for promoting the city nationally and internationally, has succeeded in recruiting Lurene Joseph, currently chief executive of the London Development Agency (LDA), to be its new chief executive.

At the LDA, Joseph has rebuilt and reshaped the organisation’s brand and is currently leading the delivery of a range of regeneration, skills and business projects.

She works closely with the Mayor of London, the Greater London Authority, London’s business leaders and local authorities.

Joseph will take charge of an expanded Marketing Leeds, bringing together a range of functions previously provided by Locate in Leeds, Visit Leeds, Conference Leeds and Marketing Leeds itself.

Before joining the LDA, Joseph was responsible for brand and communications across Shell’s European business. She has also held a vice-president position at American electricity corporation TXU. She started her career as a research associate in financial services and marketing at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.

Joseph said: “I am delighted to be offered the post of chief executive of the new Marketing Leeds. The city is moving forward with a great ambition and there is huge potential here for investment and growth.”

Leeds City Council leader Keith Wakefield said: “It is a great coup for us to have someone with Lurene’s vast experience. She is the ideal person to have at the helm of the city’s inward investment strategy as we pursue our aim of being the best city in the UK.” Andy Clarke, chairman of Marketing Leeds and chief executive of Asda, said: “Lurene is joining Marketing Leeds to lead it through an important phase as it becomes a broader body for attracting new jobs, investment and visitors to our city. With a proven track record of delivery in large organisations within both the public and private sector, I’m sure she will bring a wealth of new ideas and highly relevant experience to this important role.”

Jean Dent will continue acting as chief executive until Joseph takes up her post in April 2012.

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Three surveys published in November suggest a growing lack of confidence among Yorkshire business leaders, even if statistics themselves paint a brighter picture.

According to the latest Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAEW)/Grant Thornton Business Confidence Monitor, confidence in Yorkshire and Humberside has slipped back to negative territory for the first time since autumn 2009.

The survey of senior business professionals in the region recorded a confidence index score of -3.4.

ICAEW regional director Chris Manners said: “Confidence has been declining since Quarter 2 this year and recent performance in key financial indicators looks to have plateaued for firms in Yorkshire and Humberside. But expectations for future growth among firms in the region are largely unchanged from the start of 2010 and many businesses do seem to be making progress – especially some in the top end of the manufacturing sector.”

Grant Thornton’s own quarterly International Report also suggested that business optimism across the UK as a whole had dropped by 22% since July, making it one of the least optimistic countries in Europe, even if more than a quarter of businesses in the North see opportunities ahead with 26% expecting exports to grow over the next year.

Jonathan Riley, senior partner at Grant Thornton in Yorkshire, said that many businesses that were now experiencing a drop in consumer confidence on top of problems they themselves were having in getting access to finance might be feeling that “the light at the end of the tunnel is not getting any closer”.

“However, businesses in the North have remained resilient with these latest figures showing that they do see opportunities in the years ahead,” he said. “In particular, the confidence of UK manufacturers to explore new markets for export is crucial and it is very

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encouraging to see more than a quarter of northern businesses expecting to increase sales overseas in 2012.”

At the same time Lloyds TSB’s survey of purchasing managers in the region signalled a third consecutive monthly rise in output during November, at a rate that was the strongest among all 12 UK regions.

However, the PMI data also suggested that business volumes fell during the latest survey period, ending the period of growth that began in July 2009. Manufacturers and service providers recorded an increase in output during November, according to the survey, and private sector employment actually increased.

However Martyn Kendrick, area director for Lloyds TSB Commercial in Yorkshire, pointed out that the survey also showed that new business had fallen for the first time since June 2009, with companies generally citing weaker global economic conditions.

>> Soup company sold S Daniels, the Leeds-based manufacturer of New Covent Garden Soup, has been sold to the American owner of the Linda McCartney range of vegetarian food as part of a deal that could in the end be worth £164m.

SATS, the Singapore-based owners of the company, has agreed to sell it and County Durham-based International Cuisine to Hain Celestial for an initial consideration of £151m, rising by £13m in the next two years if certain targets are met.

SATS acting chief executive officer Tan Chuan Lye said that while his company had invested in S Daniels since 2009 it made more sense for the company to be part of a branded foods group.

KPMG in Leeds provided due diligence for SATS on the deal. Partner Chris Stott said the deal “helps northern companies demonstrate why they are an attractive acquisition in a challenged sector”.

“The strength of these companies’ brands, such as New Covent Garden Soup, and their robust cost base management, including commodity pricing issues, were critical to this deal,” he said.

ON THE RECORD

>> Pace loses head Bradford-based Pace has parted company with its chief executive Neil Gaydon and brought in the man who currently runs operations in America to lead the struggling set-top box supplier.

The company said Gaydon, who has been with the company – based in Salt’s Mill for 16 years, – with the last five of them as chief executive, has decided to leave to look for a fresh challenge. In November the company warned that ongoing issues it has been having with the supply of its hard disk drive were likely to have a $9.5m impact on full-year profits.

Chairman Alan Leighton said Mike Pulli, previously president of Pace Americas, “has developed a hugely successful business for Pace in the Americas, and his background and gravitas in the industry make him the right leader to succeed Neil and deliver our strategic plan”.

Shares in the company, which have been falling all year, rose by 5p on the announcement, but subsequently dropped back.

>> Comet deal defended Lawyers who advised the management of Hull-based Comet on its widely publicised sale to a turnaround specialist for just £2 with a £50m sweetener have defended the deal, saying it is similar to deals that have been agreed with other struggling retailers.

The sale of the loss-making retailer, once part of the mighty Kingfisher empire, was initially greeted with derision by some commentators, and even managed to trend on Twitter.

Many pointed out either that the £2 was substantially less than anything on offer in the store itself, or that the £50m “dowry” previous owner Kesa is offering purchaser Hailey Holdings sounded remarkably similar to the extended warranties that the store often tries to sell to customers.

However, Andrew Wingfield, a corporate lawyer at S J Berwin who advised Comet management, said: “Dowry transactions for nominal consideration are not

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uncommon. Other companies that have sold operations for nominal consideration include MFI, Laura Ashley, Barings, Dan-Air and Sportingbet’s US operations.”

>> Humber board formed The final make-up of the board of the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has been revealed.

Chairman Lord Haskins, who was appointed in October, will be joined on the private sector side by David Kilburn, managing director of MKM Building Supplies; Peter Stephenson executive chairman of Able UK, and Alan Platt, managing director of John Good Shipping.

Public sector board members are Councillors Steven Bayes, Stephen Parnaby, Chris Shaw and Liz Redfern from, respectively, Hull City Council, East Riding of Yorkshire Council, North East Lincolnshire Council and North Lincolnshire Council, plus Calie Pistorius, vice chancellor of the University of Hull.

The establishment of the Humber LEP was delayed longer than the other Yorkshire LEPs because of a protracted wrangle over whether it should cover both banks of the Humber.

>> Premier Farnell gets the money Premier Farnell has completed a £200m refinancing which it says will give the group the “medium-term funding security to execute its strategy with confidence”.

The five-multicurrency funding package has been put together by a club of banks including Barclays, Bank of America, RBS, Santander and HSBC. The Leeds-based electrical distributor has also placed $235m worth of private placement notes of between and five years standing.

The announcement came after the end of its third quarter, where pre-profits were subsequently shown to have taken a 7% drop to £21.1m on a 1.4% drop in turnover to £241.8m.

However, the company claims its operating profit of £25.8m (down 5.8% on the year before) gives it an industry leading return on sales of 11.7%.

BUSINESS QUARTER |WINTER 11

NEWS

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Partnership is a sweet business, Barratts’ shoes slip, there’s life after Business Link, the Grand gets its five stars, Lloyds looks for student business and Jacuzzi directors’ buyout deal takes off >> Fast growing Add looks to youth Harrogate-based Advanced Digital Dynamics (ADD) has seen turnover nearly double year-on-year in the last two financial years.

The company which moved to Harrogate from Selby in February 2010, specialises in the distribution of servers, storage and parts for maintenance and upgrade.

It has just taken on a new apprentice as part of the Government Apprenticeship scheme.

Eighteen-year-old Tom Weets will follow a work-based training programme which takes around 12 months to complete and leads to nationally-recognised qualifications.

Julie Pickersgill, operations director at ADD, said: “Unlike many other organisations we are continuing to invest in training staff in the difficult current economic climate, having substantially increased our turnover in the last couple of years.”

>> Kickstart helps vacuum man A father-of-three who had been out of work for 18 months has successfully launched a vacuum repairs and sales business thanks to support from Bradford Council.

Simon Owen, from Fagley, is now the only approved service agent for Bissell in Bradford and Leeds and an approved dealer for Numatic International.

He has even had to take on a second member of staff to work at Vacs4Spares.

The 48-year-old operates from the GRID enterprise centre in Low Moor, Bradford, having received support from Bradford Council’s Kickstart service which helps people become self-employed. The GRID is run by Incommunities.

Having previously repaired vacuum cleaners for an electrical contractor and working as a supermarket night manager, Owen decided to

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 11

Topping deal: Paul Ackroyd, managing director, FDP Fine Foods, taking delivery of cakes from James O’Dwyer, managing director, Just Desserts

>> Just Desserts goes wholesale Shipley-based bakery firm Just Desserts has signed a wholesale deal with a Chorley-based speciality food distributor as part of its strategy to increase its distribution beyond Yorkshire.

FDP Fine Foods will introduce a selection of high quality, handmade cakes from Just Desserts into the North West across a range of sectors.

Just Desserts managing director, James O’Dwyer, said: “We looked to partner with a wholesaler that is as passionate about our desserts as we are and who works with high-end, discerning customers. We run our own fleet of temperature-controlled vehicles which is growing, but currently services only the Yorkshire region, so this partnership will support our expansion plans.”

Paul Ackroyd, managing director of FDP Fine Foods said: “Just Desserts has a 26-year track record and an enviable reputation for producing the highest quality desserts. This collaboration brings our customers greater product choice and provides them with beautiful handmade cakes that they can be proud to call their own.”

become self employed after struggling to find a new job after 18 months.

He said: “As a supermarket manager you’ve got 100 people to look after, but that is totally different to running your own business because you face everything yourself head-on.

That’s why Kickstart was so useful – it gave me the support and knowledge I was missing. The enterprise coaches helped me find suitable premises and supported me with marketing

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and finding investment. Everything has built from there but the coaches stay in touch to check on my progress.”

Councillor David Green, Bradford Council’s executive member for regeneration and economy, said: “Simon’s success creates a virtuous circle because he is now looking to take on another member of staff as his business grows which provides a further fillip for the local economy.”

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In the past five years, Bradford Council’s enterprise programme, which is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) has supported more than 1,500 new businesses and helped to create more than 5,000 jobs.

>> Chamber rail plan gets backing Harrogate Chamber of Trade & Commerce has succeeded in getting all local councils affected to support its plan for an electrification of the railway line between Leeds, Harrogate and York.

Under the plan, which still has to gain funding, two options would be explored – either conventional overhead electrification, as currently exists on the Wharfedale line to Skipton, or “third rail”

electrification. Under the second scheme, the line would be able to take on disused rolling stock from London’s District Line underground operation.

The Chamber says that if neither of these options proves possible in the short-term, then at the very least upgraded diesel rolling stock should be introduced.

Mark Leving, a former managing director of Hull Trains who has been taken on as project director for the Harrogate Line Development Company, an organisation set up by the chamber to promote the project, said: “We have been able to pull the previously disengaged parties together to form a unanimous single voice in favour of common-sense electrification of the line, thereby unlocking both service level improvements and development potential for additional stations.

NEWS

“This represents a long awaited and much needed first step in being able to establish the necessary business case and funding. There is much work still to do, but we now need to ensure that impetus is maintained.”

>> 18 To promote Yorkshire Some 18 companies, including Grand Central Trains, Grant Thornton and Yorkshire Water, have so far signed up to a new Welcome to Yorkshire scheme aimed at getting Yorkshire companies to promote the county on a global scale.

The tourism organisation hopes that by April 2012 at least 30 companies will have signed up to the Y 30 scheme, a corporate collective of businesses committed to improving the perception of Yorkshire and helping develop its economy. >>

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BUSINESS QUARTER |WINTER 11

NEWS

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Welcome to Yorkshire chief executive Gary Verity said: “It is great to be working with some of the most successful and wellrecognised names in Yorkshire business. The county has so much to offer and by working with our Y 30 partners we can make Yorkshire the destination of choice for business and leisure tourism.”

Jonathan Riley, senior partner of Grant Thornton in Yorkshire, said: “Over the last few years, Welcome to Yorkshire really has put the county on the map. It has been hugely effective at raising Yorkshire’s profile both within the UK and overseas to the benefit of everyone who works and does business in the region. As an international firm, operating in more than 100 countries, we know the importance of supporting and understanding local communities and are proud to be one of the firms leading the way in Yorkshire.”

>> Deal is parked Car park operator Q-Park, which has its UK headquarters in Leeds, has won a €1.1billion credit facility that will help the company grow significantly across the UK and Europe.

Dutch-based Q-Park operates and manages parking facilities across ten European countries with a portfolio spanning the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Norway and Britain, and it is hoped that the refinancing deal will help the group realise its long-term international investment plans.

The credit facility has been provided by an international bank syndicate of 11 European Banks.

Adam Bidder, managing director of Q-Park Great Britain, said: “This package will help encourage a sustained period of growth, allowing us to improve customer care even further.

“By refinancing we can concentrate our efforts on generating momentum for domestic and international expansion.”

Law firm DWF advised Q-Park on the English aspects of the transaction. Earlier this year, the law firm also advised the company in its successful bid to take over 14 car parks in central London from Westminster Council on 25-year leases.

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Under new ownership: Mark Prince, front right, and Dave Tutton, third row back, extreme left, with workers at the Silverdale Bathrooms factory in Newcastle-under-Lyme.

Pictured front left is Surjit Kooner, investment director with Birmingham-based commercial fund manager Midven, which supported the buyout

>> Jacuzzi factory changes hands Two Bradford-based directors of Jacuzzi UK have bought part of the firm’s UK manufacturing business in a management buyout which has helped safeguard the future of a worldrenowned ceramic sanitaryware factory.

Jacuzzi UK’s managing director Mark Prince and marketing director Dave Tutton have bought the manufacturing business, based in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, under licence from the company’s parent group for an undisclosed sum with backing from Skipton Business Finance and fund manager Midven.

The business now operating from the premises has been named Silverdale Bathrooms and both owners are in the process of leaving Jacuzzi UK. Included in the purchase is the luxury BC Sanitan brand, which will be sold directly by Silverdale.

The new company will also manufacture Jacuzzi-branded products under licence and supply them to the market via Jacuzzi UK. The factory, which has a workforce of 50 and will continue to be managed by its previous team, is one of the few remaining ceramic producers in the UK. Jacuzzi’s manufacturing plant in Bradford, which makes acrylic baths and kitchen sinks, remains with the company.

Richard Brier, corporate manager at Skipton Business Finance, said: “We were delighted to assist the management team at Silverdale with a revolving invoice discounting facility and term loan against the plant and machinery. We have enjoyed great success working with UK businesses that, when given access to additional working capital, go on to flourish and reach their true potential.”

Jonathan Asquez, from law firm Gordons, who advised on the deal, said: “Silverdale has a great platform from which to continue and grow its strong tradition of highly skilled manufacturing.”

Skipton Business Finance was advised by Schofield Sweeney. Latham & Watkins advised Jacuzzi Group.

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NEWS

WINTER 11

Great (h)effort: David Moss, cottages4you regional manager Sharon Webster, and waitress Carly Thompson

>> Win for West Witton restaurant The Wensleydale Heifer restaurant in West Witton has been named Best Local Restaurant in the UK in a poll run by holiday cottage lettings agency cottages4you.

Throughout the year, cottages4you has called on holidaymakers and locals to nominate the best independent businesses across the UK for its Go Local guide, which is now in its second year.

Winning a £1,000 grant from cottages4you, Wensleydale Heifer was chosen for its original Thai cuisine, use of quality produce and for having become Guinness World Record holders this summer for producing the biggest recorded serving of fish and chips in the world.

David Moss, head chef and proprietor said: “It’s a real testament to the hard work and passion of all our staff. The Heifer has won several regional and national awards this year and this accolade from cottages4you tops off a great year.”

>> Congregational takes on new man Bradford-based Congregational & General Insurance (CGI) has appointed Andy Squires as head of underwriting as the company

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 11

undergoes a period of unprecedented growth.

He has more than 25 years’ experience in the insurance industry, having formerly been household underwriting manager at Ageas Insurance.

His appointment comes at a time when the company looks to grow its share of the intermediary home market to £100m through its managing general agent (MGA) Integra Insurance Solutions, and is part of a wider strategic plan by the company to expand its business and workforce over the next five years.

Squires said: “CGI has ambitious plans for the coming years and I look forward to supporting this growth through the development of market-leading products that will be attractive to existing and future policy holders.”

>> Building on funding Filey-based Pinder Landscapes has been able to acquire and develop five housing plots in East Yorkshire for £200,000 thanks to a £70,000 corporate finance deal arranged by York-based accountancy firm Hunter Gee Holroyd (HGH).

The plots in Burton Fleming, were purchased from the administrators of a building company which had gone into liquidation.

HGH was able to negotiate the extra funds from Manchester-based Bridging Finance through its membership of the Corporate Finance Network – a grouping of similar business advisory firms which has HGH as its only Yorkshire member. The rest of the purchase price came from Pinder’s existing funds.

Mark Grewer, HGH’s head of corporate finance, said: “For Pinder Landscapes, we knew that securing finance for a small business in today’s economic climate would be challenging, especially for a speculative housing development.

“Add into the mix complex legal and administrative issues, and it really presented quite a challenge. However, by using our expertise, our positive relationships with other professional

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services and our contacts through the Corporate Finance Network, we were able to provide an effective solution which is already having a positive impact on their business.”

Dave Pinder, managing director of Pinder Landscapes said: “We are already building on the site and hope to have the first house ready for sale in January.”

>> Carpet firm wins national award Halifax-based carpet manufacturers InterfaceFLOR has won a national award commending is sustainable practices.

The company, whose UK office is in Shelf, won the ICAEW Sustainability Award at this year’s National Business Awards in London.

The company has a target to become the carpet industry’s first sustainable business by 2020.

But the competition was tough – nearly 100 experts from different sectors were involved in judging 150 organisations from the public, private and third sectors. The process culminated in Dragon Den-style presentations.

The judges said: “InterfaceFLOR is one of the leading innovators in business and it is good to see such a strong candidate in this category.”

Steve Hamilton, UK and Ireland sales director for InterfaceFLOR, said: “The award is a great recognition for the company’s achievements as we continue to embed sustainability within the business as part of our Mission Zero goal. It is also testament to all of our employees who over the past 17 years have made a valuable contribution and helped us get to where we are today.”

>> Animalcare loses cfo Peter Warner, the former financial controller of York-based veterinary medicine supplier Animalcare Group, who became its chief financial officer in October last year, has left the AIM-listed company.

The company is in the process of finding his replacement.

At the same time, Raymond Harding, the

WINTER 11

former owner of veterinary and pharmaceutical consultancy Cyton Bioscience, has become a non-executive director.

Harding has been both chairman of the Association of Veterinarians in Industry and president of the Federation of European Veterinarians in Industry and Research. He has held positions at Glaxo Animal Health in the UK and Rhône Mérieux in France.

Animalcare Group chief executive Stephen Wildridge said: “Raymond’s credentials in the veterinary world speak for themselves and we are very pleased to have attracted someone of his calibre to our business. In addition, I would like to express thanks to Peter for his contribution to the growth and development of Animalcare over the last few years.”

>> Yorkshire firms net two awards Two Yorkshire businesses were among the winners at the North of England Excellence Awards this year.

Rail operator East Coast was a double winner, collecting special awards for both customer service and learning and development.

And the Insurance Partnership, based in Leeds, won the Special Award for Innovation in recognition of its innovative business model which aims to reduce the cost of insurance for corporate clients.

Around 400 business people came to the awards ceremony at Lancashire County Cricket Club.

David Teale, chief executive of North of England Excellence, said: “Our winners demonstrate the strength of business practice across the North. These awards quite rightly highlight and celebrate the success of businesses committed to continual improvement and innovation, with management and staff at all levels working together to deliver outstanding results

>> Hr team moves in HR outsourcing company Direct Law & Personnel has opened a new office in

Leeds. The 10-year-old Manchester company offers outsourced HR support to companies that do not have the resources to operate an in-house HR department. It also offers an insurance service on each employee.

The company was set up by Judith Fiddler, an employment lawyer who became frustrated with other service and HR companies.

The company has recruited HR and training expert Juliet Cox to head the Leeds team, although Fiddle herself has also personally relocated across the Pennines, as she believes you have to put your “heart and soul” into a new office opening.

Before the office opened it has already been doing work for DeliciousYorkshire and Leeds Citizens Advice.

Fiddler said: “We have already established a reputation nationally from our Manchester office and have grown organically. With some big Yorkshire companies on our books it was the right time to open an office in Leeds.”

NEWS

ago and still be in your first year of trading. To find out more, visit www.lloydstsb/ enerpriseawards.

Martyn Kendrick, area director for Lloyds TSB Commercial in Yorkshire, said: “Britain has a proud history of enterprise and for generations our universities have played a fundamental role in promoting business talent. We want to ensure that the talent emerging from our universities does not go unrecognised, and play our part in nurturing and supporting entrepreneurs, to give them the best chance of future growth.”

Demand: Declan Grogan

>> Lloyds looks for student businesses The Lloyds Banking Group has launched a new nationwide awards programme aimed at encouraging entrepreneurs who are currently studying at university or college or who have recently left.

The overall winners of the Lloyds TSB Enterprise Awards will receive £50,000 in cash to invest in their business and a two-year mentoring programme run by senior executives within the bank.

The bank has joined forces with the National Consortium of University Entrepreneurs and Ndash, a charity that aims to promote enterprise at university, to run the awards.

They will consist of initial heats – which for Yorkshire take place in Leeds on February 29 – before a grand finale in March which will decide who should win the Best Start-Up and Best Enterprise awards.

Estimates suggest there are currently 55,000 businesses run by students in Britain. To enter, they have to be either studying at the moment or have to have graduated less than five years

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>> Software house does it for students Software House NDL is taking on a group of University of York undergraduates in a scheme designed to provide students with valuable workplace experience while the company benefits from fresh ideas.

The students will initially join NDL for a year with the possibility of returning once they have completed their degrees.

NDL develops integration and mobile working software which is used in a third of local authorities and a growing number of NHS trusts and housing associations across the UK from its office in Wetherby.

Managing director Declan Grogan said: “While times are undeniably tough, the software we develop helps public sector organisations deliver the savings they desperately need, while in many cases improving the service the public experiences. This means that there is >>

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both a significant demand for our current services and a real impetus for us to carry on developing new technology.

“As one of the leading computer science departments in the UK, we feel University of York undergraduates can really help us in both of these areas and, as a business with its headquarters in Yorkshire, it’s great to be able to develop and nurture young talent.”

The company is also looking to increase its headcount significantly over the next year, with new developers and sales people.

Grogan said: “Historically, it’s been tough to find people with the right skill set so it makes sense to tap into the talent at local universities and prove there are great opportunities available in Yorkshire.”

Accelerating: Georgina Slack

>> Contis takes on fd Prepaid card provider Contis Group has appointed Andi Lonnen, formerly group financial controller of the Private Health Partnership (PH), as its new finance director.

During her time at Baildon-based PHP, Lonnen played a key role in doubling its turnover over a seven-year period and in PHP purchasing two companies.

She said: “I was seeking to add value to a business with dynamic and ambitious targets and was impressed by the speed at which Contis is becoming a trailblazer in the prepaid financial services provision sector – and a major force to be reckoned with.”

Contis managing director Mike Fromant said: “Andi will be a great asset as we continue to innovate and expand organically and by acquisition. The prepaid sector is forecast to continue growing until at least 2017, with the UK expected to clinch a 25% share of the European market.

“Andi will play a substantial role in helping us to cement our position as the only true end-to-end service provider in the prepaid card industry.”

>> Oakapple not bowed by tariff reduction A Leeds-based renewable energy company says it is determined to forge ahead with its planned £100m investment in the sector,

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>> Car fanatic wins dream apprenticeship An 18-year-old currently working for JCT600 Ferrari in Leeds has become one of just 11 apprentices across the UK to be chosen by Ferrari to enrol on its prestigious three-year apprenticeship programme.

Georgina Slack has been interested in mechanics since she was a child and recently completed a two-year automotive course.

She will train with JCT600 Ferrari at its Brooklands dealership and, along with the other 10 successful candidates, will go through 24 weeks of dedicated training at Ferrari North Europe’s new apprentice facilities in London where she will be taught skills in science, engineering and technology.

“To have been chosen from more than 1,000 school-leavers is an exceptional achievement and one that Georgina richly deserves,” said Craig Walton, service manager at JCT600 Ferrari. “It was a rigorous selection process with aptitude tests, interviews and a two-day work placement, but Georgina’s potential and enthusiasm stood out.”

Georgina Slack said: “For me, like many other young people, the opportunity to join one of the world’s most prestigious sports car brands is a dream come true.”

despite the Government’s halving of feed-in tariff (FIT) payments for solar installations.

Although the cuts will adversely affect returns, Oakapple Renewable Energy says it remains confident that solar PV installations still represent a viable long-term commercial investment.

It even believes the reduction in the tariff could actually prove to be a benefit to the industry in the long term as it causes fewer professional operators to exit the industry, leading to higher quality installations.

Oakapple also believes that the free solar

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panel model and roof leasing arrangements it is introducing will become even more attractive for commercial and domestic property owners. With a significantly lower return on their investments, many potential customers may now decide not to incur the financial outlay required to invest fully in the systems themselves.

Oakapple managing director Philip Taylor said the FIT reduction is great news for those opting for free solar panels. “It is of paramount importance to those fitting free solar panels to ensure the system performs at

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Plain thinking: Pilot and Ardent director Gary O’Brien with fellow Ardent directors Michael Oglesby, Stuart Keith and Mark Fisher

>> Finance firm goes for fees Financial planning consultancy Ardent has restructured and renamed itself Ardent Financial Planning after its directors decided the traditional model of financial advice was outdated.

The restructure, which sees two divisions of the company brought together, also sees the company move away from a commission-based model to charging customers a fee instead.

“We wanted to move away from the piecemeal nature of much financial advice, where someone is sold a one-off mortgage or savings product to generate a commission for the adviser,” said Ardent director, Gary O’Brien.

“Our fresh approach replaces the quick-fix with long-term financial planning. Now we develop a working relationship with clients to help them achieve their life goals.”

The company, based in Stillington, near York, was formed 12 years ago, and now has an 11-strong team.

its optimum level over the next 25 years in order to maximise the return from the FITs, as well as the generation of free electricity for the building owner.

“This is in contrast to installers who have no financial interest in the system after the paid installation is complete.”

Oakapple also predicts the tariff reduction will lead to greater research and development in improving solar PV efficiency and the development of alternative technologies.

“We believe the ultimate beneficiary will be the end user,” said Taylor, “as it will encourage those within the industry to adopt a more forward-thinking and innovative approach to renewable energy technology.”

>> Leeds trials new material Engineering specialists at a Leeds company are pioneering the use of PolyBilt, a material new to the UK, for manufacturing fire engine bodies that are safer, lighter, stronger and more durable.

Barkston Plastics engineers was chosen by Guildford-based coach builders John Dennis to co-operate on the production of the bodies in the new co-polymer material, in preference to the more traditional glass fibre and aluminium materials.

The Surrey company is the UK market leader in fire and rescue vehicle coach building. It also supplies fire services across the world and has exclusive UK rights for the material, which

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improves impact-resistance and makes repairs easier and less costly than with the traditional materials.

Barkston has already supplied some 80 fire engine bodies and still has a full order book.

“John Dennis is the recognised leader in the field of fire and rescue vehicle coach-building and we’re delighted to be co-operating on this exciting new development,” said Barkston operations director, Mark Carter. “The co-polymer used in PolyBilt has a unique combination of compressive strength and flexibility giving it superb impact resistance.

This translates to little or no vehicle damage when impacting street furniture and walls.

Even in a high-speed collision, there is no shock transfer through the body, keeping damage to a minimum.”

Leeds City Council chief economic services officer, Paul Stephens, said: “This new venture with the UK’s leading fire engine manufacturer is testimony to Barkston’s impressive track record in developing new materials and uses for plastic fabrication.”

Starring roles: Cedar Court Grand Hotel and Spa’s general manager Maria Florou with company founder George Demetriou, centre, and senior AA inspector Andrew Ford

>> Cedar Court Grand gets its plaque The Cedar Court Grand Hotel’s status as York’s first five-star hotel has been confirmed with a senior inspector from the AA presenting the hotel with its plaque in an official ceremony.

In addition, senior inspector Andrew Ford presented The Grill Room at The Grand restaurant with a special platter to mark >>

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NEWS

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Linked up: The Advisers4U team, left to right: Charles Clayton, Charlie Parker, Nick Russell, Iain Kilner, Charles Ward, Darrell Smith, Jane Whitehead, John Nixon and Paul Carter

>> Business group steps in A group of nine Yorkshire business men and women have reacted to the phasing out of Business Link by forming a team with specialist business skills which they hope will be able to provide relatively low-price valuable help and advice to SMEs in the region.

Operating under the banner of Advisers4U, most of the team run their own businesses and each has different skills to help with the typical day-to-day challenges many companies face when getting started or trying to grow, such as reducing bank charges, needing legal advice, finding new customers while looking after existing ones, developing online sales, getting the right IT system in place or sorting out a contractual or HR issue. Clients can “pick and mix” what type of advisers they need.

Advisers4U founder Paul Carter said: “Now that funding is being removed from agencies like Business Link, the private sector should step up and provide the kind of one-to-one support needed to develop the outstanding potential we have in small, medium-size and owner-managed businesses across Yorkshire.”

The service has won the backing of Leeds North West MP Greg Mulholland. He said: “The private sector has an important role in leading the country out of difficult times, and Advisers4U will provide small and medium size businesses with real and practical support, which is vital to expanding and diversifying the economy in Yorkshire.”

The move comes as one Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) is urging businesses to join a networking group to ensure they receive help and support now that Business Link has become a website-only service.

The York, North Yorkshire and East Riding LEP is developing a searchable database of the region’s business networks, which will be launched on its new website in January. The site will also be an essential resource for business events, news and intelligence. In addition, the LEP is working on behalf of the business networks to channel other business support services through the web of existing networks.

Shaun Watts, director of the Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce and LEP board member, said: “There are at least 50 business forums in our area, including my Chamber, the Institute of Directors, the Federation of Small Businesses, Forward Ladies and many more.

Between them they provide a huge range of services.

“The LEP aims to support the networks that businesses themselves are choosing, to ensure that our business community is fantastically networked. By doing so we’re creating a robust and resilient business support network”.

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its being awarded two prestigious AA rosettes. There are just 90 other AA five-star hotels in the UK and only 23 others outside London.

Ford said: “The Grand has achieved one of the highest accolades awarded by the AA. Five black stars are a symbol of excellence achieved through dedication, high levels of investment and a passion to be the best.”

The £25m hotel opened in May 2010 following extensive refurbishment of the former North Eastern Railway headquarters.

General manager Maria Florou, said: “When The Grand opened its doors last year, it was with the stated ambition of becoming York’s first AA five-star hotel.

Our guest feedback tells us that we have always delivered a five-star experience, but it will now feel extra special.”

The AA awards two rosettes to restaurants that demonstrate “innovation, greater technical skill and consistency and judgement in combining and balancing ingredients”.

Head chef Martin Henley said: “The two AA rosettes put us firmly on Yorkshire’s culinary map. Food lovers know that they are a guaranteed seal of quality and so lots of people who have not yet dined at The Grill Room will be eager to do so in the coming months.”

>> Shoe shops go under again Some 3,800 jobs have been put at risk nationwide after Bradford-based shoe store chain Barratts Priceless was put into administration. The move comes only two-and-a-half years after owner Michael Ziff bought 160 stores from administrators in a restructuring deal after Stylo, the company he ran that used to operate the stores, also went into administration.

Daniel Butters, joint administrator at Deloitte, said the company had been hit both by the economic downturn and the mild autumn, which had led to slow sales of winter shoes.

Butters said the stores would continue to trade while a buyer was sought. But retail analysts were unconvinced that many offers for the value chain would come forward.

Real world solutions for testing times.

At Grant Thornton, we’ve always gone about our business in a very different way. Delivering a bespoke service to all our clients is our primary concern and we won’t offer you or your clients an ‘off the shelf’ financial and tax solution. Far from it. Our advisers take the time to understand a client’s individual circumstances and aspirations. We believe it’s important to provide flexibility to meet our clients’ needs, to tailor our solutions accordingly and to dedicate the right people to the job in hand.

For further information on our services or to arrange an initial consultation, please contact: Jonathan Riley Office Senior Partner T 0113 200 1542 E jonathan.c.riley@uk.gt.com

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AS I SEE IT

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Yes, young people can build a future

Construction may be in the doldrums at the moment, but it still offers great opportunities for young people whose futures should be nurtured, says Ian Billyard from Leeds College of Building

While it may be a cliché to talk about young people being the future, there’s no denying that without great training, education and job opportunities for young people the world – and in particular the UK – will quickly become a shadow of its former self.

Youth unemployment is currently soaring, and unemployment figures for 16 to 24-year-olds recently hit the one million mark, so it’s no surprise that young people are now looking at more options before deciding what to do when they leave school.

On top of that, while many school and college leavers would previously have seen university as the natural next step, with costly tuition fees that prospect doesn’t appeal so much now, so they are exploring every alternative option.

The good news in all of this is that the Government has been forced to come up with new ways of encouraging employers to recruit.

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg recently chose Leeds College of Building as the venue to unveil a £1bn Youth Contract scheme to tackle the surge in youth unemployment.

The scheme is designed to get 500,000 young people aged between 16 and 24 into training, work experience or apprenticeships and will pay employers £2,275 towards the wages of

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each young person they recruit. In total, 160,000 places will be available and the money will also pay for 250,000 work experience placements.

There’s no doubt these plans sound positive.

We support any moves that encourage and promote job creation and work experience.

As increasing numbers of new and existing students say they no longer plan to go to university these types of schemes are vitally important for the future of young people.

As the UK’s only specialist construction college, we’re delighted that the deputy prime minister chose to make this announcement here and also took time to have breakfast with some of the region’s leading employers in the construction industry.

His visit follows that of The Duke of Gloucester who visited earlier in the month. He had requested a tour of the college having read about our students’ successes at numerous skills competitions both in the UK and on an international level.

As well as proving to be a major PR coup for Leeds College of Building, both these visits are good for the region and its construction industry as a whole because they convey the message that Yorkshire is a key player in the

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construction industry. The fact that Nick Clegg sat down with employers in the region gave the industry a fantastic platform to voice its opinions at the highest level.

In order for Yorkshire to maintain this reputation and increase its competitiveness, employers and education providers have to work together in order to ensure the best possible young people are entering the industry. For Leeds College of Building this means looking carefully at everything we do and asking ourselves what else we can offer.

There’s plenty of demand for work-based learning at a higher level that offers a viable alternative to full-time university study, so this is an area that we’re focusing heavily on.

These visits are good for the region and its construction industry as a whole

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The industry still accounts for almost 10% of UK GDP, employs around two million people, and recruits around 44,000 entrants every year We’re now looking at how we can create a route through to higher education and degree level across every apprenticeship model that we run for students who want the opportunity to go further. We’re also expanding the number of apprenticeships that we offer and working with industry trade bodies and organisations such as the University Vocational Awards Council (UVAC). As a result apprentices can now achieve HNDs, first degrees and honours degrees.

Leeds College of Building is also the only college in Yorkshire – and just one of six in the whole of the UK – that has been selected to receive Government funding for 19,000 new higher apprenticeships.

Business secretary Vince Cable announced that £18.7m from the Higher Apprenticeship Fund (HAF) will be used to pay for degree equivalent apprenticeships in sectors including advanced engineering and construction.

Some might question whether we can offer the same standard of education as a university but we are confident that we can match the

Visit: Ian Billyard, left, Nick Clegg, centre, and deputy principal Derek Whitehead quality. In a recent integrated quality and enhancement review (IQER) – the equivalent of an Ofsted inspection for higher education providers – we were given full marks in nearly every area. So there’s no doubt our quality is just as good, if not better, than a lot of universities.

In addition we can also deliver better value for money. The latest figures show that, nationally, apprentices who are 19 years old and over generate £40 for each £1 of Government investment.

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AS I SEE IT

Yes, the construction industry may have been hit hard by the recession, but the industry still offers great job prospects. Although tales about plumbers earning six-figure salaries may be in the past, it’s likely that when the economy picks up we will once again experience a skills shortage.

The industry still accounts for almost 10% of UK GDP, employs around two million people, and has to recruit around 44,000 new entrants every year.

There are also some big growth areas such as the renewables and sustainable market as well as in their infrastructure. We work with lots of employers in these areas who are actively recruiting people with the right qualifications.

In addition, 50% spend in the construction industry is on repair and maintenance, so this requirement is always there regardless of other external factors.

There’s no doubt that a lot is riding on the upturn of the economy, but at least if we offer the best possible training – training that is on an equal footing with academic study – then our students have a great chance of enjoying long and successful careers. n Ian Billyard is principal of Leeds College of Building.

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ENTREPRENEUR

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ENTREPRENEUR

Would you take on running another firm if your existing one was struggling? Mark J Nelson has, with great success, as he tells Peter Baber

The art of keeping focus

Airedale is my baby and it always will be.

It supports a lot of people, including my family

If you are wont to take the dog for a walk anywhere around Blubberhouses Moor this winter you might just come across a solitary runner, pacing hard, keeping his focus on the road ahead, no matter how foggy or chilly the weather.

Mark J Nelson, aged 44, says he still manages six-mile runs like this most nights. He uses the running time to think.

“I always go,” he says, “even if it’s a foggy night. I live in the country and run four miles over the moor with a torch. My friends and family think I’m crazy, but it is a really good way of thinking. I keep a scratchpad in my bag and note everything down that I have thought about at the end of the run so I don’t forget it.”

These aren’t just random thoughts either – a good many of them are likely to be winning business ideas. This is a man who, after a spell in motorbike racing, joined the family firm at the age of 16 and helped grow it from a turnover of £350,000 to one nearing £70m.

Five years ago he also set up another business – pilot training firm CRM Aviation Europe– two thirds of which he successfully sold on to a management team earlier this year.

His latest focus, however, is on Heatshot, a Yeadon-based start-up manufacturing what it claims is a revolutionary windscreen-clearing device. Nelson’s co-investor in this latest

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venture is none other than Gordon Black, the entrepreneur behind Peter Black, the fashion logistics company he helped turn around.

Although Nelson won’t say how much they have invested, he insists he and Black have now contributed equally – although unlike Black, he is taking an active role in running the business, working there two to three days a week.

Having initially been appointed as nonexecutive chairman, he has subsequently become executive chairman and attends all meetings with the sales director.

He says the benefits of the Heatshot system are clear. It is easy to retrofit to any vehicle, comes in 12v and 24v versions (the latter used mainly in the logistic truck haulage and bus sector), and does not need to be connected to the vehicle’s internal wiring. Yet, within 30 seconds it can heat the fluid in your screenwash holder up to 60°C; hot enough to penetrate even thick frost and ice. Although it can be used with any screen-wash fluid, the company has also specifically designed its own iClear liquid that comes with a citrus scent and is effective at temperatures as low as -46°C. Although Heatshot is primarily marketing the device as something car dealers can offer their customers as part of a winter service, Nelson insists that it is easy to fit.

“I installed it on my car myself,” he says. >>

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ENTREPRENEUR

Up until now, perhaps the best known innovation in car windscreen cleaning systems was the front windscreen heating wires Ford patented and introduced on many of its models. That patent is due to run out in 2014, but Nelson says Heatshot has been proven to be more effective anyway.

“There’s a huge difference in efficiency,” he says.

The company trialled both systems at a special test centre in the UK. “In our first test, the vehicle was soaked for 12 hours at a temperature of -19°C, then we tried to clear the windscreen at a temperature of -16°C,” he says. “With Heatshot it took eight minutes to do. The heated screen, by comparison, took 21 minutes. We were a bit apprehensive, but the test clearly worked. And we brought our American partners over to witness it.”

Heatshot is more economical too, says Nelson.

“The heated screen runs at 70A per hour. Our system uses 50A for the first 30 seconds, then

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We have 16 units on trial with Tesco in Inverness. If that trial succeeds they intend to roll it out into their fleet – which is potentially thousands of vehicles

1.5A per hour thereafter. The system will easily pay for itself within 45 days if you run a truck, when you consider the time you spend idling and wasting fuel. And remember that diesel engines are not meant to be left idling.”

There’s another hidden advantage to the product, he says – it can kill off the legionella virus. Windscreen systems that deliver their wash at a lukewarm temperature have in the past been identified as a key culprit for spreading this potentially fatal respiratory virus, but Nelson claims 60°C is hot enough to

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kill off any bugs that may be in there.

The feedback so far, he admits, has been overwhelming.

“We have the unit on trial with various bus companies and police forces,” he says. “We have 16 units installed as a trial with Tesco Home Delivery in Inverness. If that trial succeeds, they intend to roll out into their fleet – which is potentially thousands of vehicles.

The Ambulance Service in the North West has taken 180 units from our distributor VUE CCTV for some new Mercedes Sprinter >>

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ENTREPRENEUR ambulances. We also have the system on trial in South Africa, Mexico, Canada, Australia and Asia. The American division I created is currently trialling units, for example, with the Colorado Department of Transport and the Nebraska Sheriff’s Department. We are also speaking to a specialist company that transports US missiles, and to the kinds of delivery drivers you might see featured on Ice Road Truckers on the TV. In fact, we are speaking to a gas company in the US with more than 76,000 vehicles.”

Dealers and middle men have seen the advantages too – so much so, in fact, that Nelson claims that for the next year Heatshot does not need to sell any more units within the UK, because it has already well surpassed its target.

“But I have companies fighting over territories in Europe,” he says. “We have three companies which want Scandinavia, two which want Germany, and another one that wants Poland. I even have two distributors in Italy.”

The product is equally good at wiping away bugs and screen glare during the summer months – something Nelson has witnessed when driving near Geneva in the summer.

Such enthusiasm has, says Nelson, meant it is “now time to take a step back and think about the most appropriate route to market which will benefit the product”. At the moment, sponsorship deals are something he is working on. Heatshot has just signed a three-year sponsorship with Leeds Rhinos.

“We held a Heatshot festive challenge on Boxing Day,” he says. And the company is taking on sponsorship with the San Carlo Honda Gresini Moto GP team – people Nelson knows very well – in the new year.

Such growth is very similar to the success Nelson had with CRM Aviation, building it up to be one of the UK’s largest providers of Jet Orientation Course (JOC) and Multi-Crew Co-operation (MCC) training – essentially the first steps in becoming a commercial pilot.

Nelson developed a cockpit simulator based on the A319 Airbus in conjunction with Alsim, an aerospace manufacturer based in Nantes in France. But he says it took “four years of pain” to get the simulator approved by UK authorities.

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The investment attitude is not good. The coalition government has drastically cut back on public spending. Further and higher education projects have dried up “Our courses are now fully booked until March 2012,” he says.

But it is amazing to think that all this has been achieved while Nelson is still running another company. He is still managing director of Airedale Mechanical & Electrical, the family-owned mechanical and electrical contractor he helped to grow over the past 29 years. And he has no intention of stepping down.

“Airedale is my baby and it always will be, he says. “It supports a lot of people, including my family.”

However, parts of Airedale are not exactly

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performing well in the current climate, although the maintenance division, which looks after building services requirements of such places as The Light shopping centre in Leeds, is doing very well – but it adds only £3.6m to the company’s total turnover figure.

The main contracting business has been struggling in a market that Nelson says is "extremely stressed" everywhere in the UK except London.

“The investment attitude is not good,” he says. “Most of our clients cannot get funding in place. The coalition government has drastically cut back on public spending. Further

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and higher education projects have dried up, and Building Schools for the Future stopped overnight. There are some signs of life, but everybody is chasing the same work at negative margins.”

The company’s 175-odd workforce is currently going through the second tier of redundancies.

“We have tried to cut back on everything we can think of as a way of reducing the overheads,” he says.

It was such issues at his main company that first caused him to turn down an offer to invest and assist in Heatshot when Gordon Black approached him through a mutual acquaintance in January. He changed his mind when he was approached again in March, because by that time the really crucial issues at Airedale had been resolved, he says.

But most people would run away aghast at the idea of such multi-tasking. How does he do it?

“I just plan myself well,” he says. “I open a drawer up and it’s Airedale, and I spend four to five hours on that, then I shut the door and do Heatshot. I will not be interrupted by one when I am busy with the other. I have three separate email accounts.”

He is glad he did decide to go into Heatshot, he says, because like all start-up companies, it too had issues.

“Initially it had no backbone to it. You knew you had to sell, but who to? But we went to our first trade show and came back buzzing.”

And now the experience has opened up yet another opportunity. On a trip to Malaysia in October he was introduced to one of the production crew for Dorna, a Spanish company which has broadcast rights for Moto GP all around the world. Subsequently, he met the TV production director for the same company at a trade show in Valencia. He also met representatives from a company that is developing first person vision (FPV) technology that uses a tiny camera in, for example, a rider’s helmet to relay back to an audience – with only a 0.3 second delay – HD footage of what the rider can see. He is now helping in negotiations to roll this technology out.

“NASCAR (the organisation behind stock car racing in the US) has already signed a contract

ENTREPRENEUR

Multi-tasker: Mark J Nelson has the rare ability to concentrate on one business at a time to roll out FPV from March 2012,” he says. “A colleague is also talking to representatives from Formula 1 and to NBC Baseball. The potential is huge.”

He admits that being able to “see” what a rider or driver can see with such a short time delay might lead to distasteful footage of fatal accidents. But he insists FPV can have a role improving safety too. And he should know: the San Carlo Honda Gresini team’s riders included Marco Simoncelli, who was killed in race in October at the tragically young age of 24.

“When we have been talking to Dorna, we

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discovered that when Moto GP riders are set to go around a track where Formula 1 has been, sometimes race organisers have to review and change parts of track in the off-season for rider safety. At the moment they can only find out what to do through forums with the riders. But if they had FPV, they would be able to see what the riders mean.”

So, turning a company around, selling another off, launching a new product and helping improve motorbike racer safety at the same time, does Mark J Nelson never feel he is doing enough? It seems not. n

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SUCCESS STORY

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in association with

Manufacturing a way forward Manufacturing and Leeds have had strong connections in the past, as companies like Communisis can still show today. But a conference on the issue in November threw up many issues that need to be addressed if the city is to forge ahead in the future. Peter Baber reports Here’s a good business success story. An entrepreneur comes up with an idea for a product – a high-end consumer product. It is pretty much hand-made at the start, but following investment in machinery, the business manages to move from producing 50 such products per minute to producing 150 a minute. This brings much more cash into the business, which in turn leads to more investment, and more growth.

It is, as, this entrepreneur says, a virtuous circle; one where a great product idea to start with is combined with better automation, leading to higher margins and thus more investment. That, in essence, is what manufacturing should be like.

The trouble is, the business in question – Gü Puddings – is not based in Yorkshire. Its founder James Averdieck may have been born in Yorkshire, but he chose to locate his business, which he founded in 2003, in west London.

Nevertheless, his case history was one Marketing Leeds was keen to promote in a conference it held in November on The Business of Manufacturing. It is easy to see why.

As Averdieck himself said: “When I sold the business last year the turnover was £40m, and we were exporting 40% of our product. We are even now selling soufflés to the French, and chocolate to the Belgians.”

A real entrepreneurial success story, but what

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can be done to encourage such entrepreneurial flair up in the Leeds city region? That was one of the questions the event sought to address by bringing together a panel that included Averdieck and a group of local business and manufacturing leaders, and an audience of more than 200.

The event was one of a series Marketing Leeds has been running with the theme of “The Business of”, but manufacturing seems a particularly pertinent subject to cover. After all, there was a time when Leeds would have been considered the manufacturing hotspot of the world – but there are few who would be prepared to make such a claim now. The city has not lost its manufacturing base completely, but some of the big manufacturing names of the past have long gone, and even Tetley’s Bitter is now no longer brewed in Leeds.

So what can be done? Introducing the conference, Tom Riordan, chief executive of Leeds City Council and former chief executive of Yorkshire Forward, pointed out the

landscape the audience could see straight out of the windows at the conference venue, the Elllington Building at Leeds Valley Business Park. It was right there, he said, that the new Aire Valley Enterprize Zone, a Government scheme offering businesses tax concessions and faster broadband, would be located.

“Manufacturing is crucial to Leeds’ economy,” he said, “showing 28% better productivity than average for the city’s economy, and generating 11% of our £17.8bn output. But we do need a better voice from the north to campaign on things like better transport to make this even more of a success.”

As the conference got under way, it seemed a number of other issues are also at the front of manufacturers’ minds, chief among them being the old issues of skills.

Juergen Meier, managing director of Siemens UK Industry Sector, said he was particularly concerned about the lack of support for apprenticeship schemes. His company, which has recently invested £1.2m in new

As an employer, I find it almost impossible to recruit female staff with engineering skills. As a country, we need to do something about this

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SUCCESS STORY

Delegates: Graham Bowland, James Averdieck and Juergen Maier, Siemens mechanical drives operation in Leeds, is the third biggest employer of apprentices in the country. Such training was crucial because an ageing workforce profile across the industry could lead to a skills shortage in the future.

“But in the UK, vocational skills have been neglected for 20 years,” he said. “We are in catch-up mode at the moment but it will be a long time until the UK has the quantity and calibre of apprentices that it needs.”

He added that the reputation of apprenticeships as a way into a career in the UK – where he has lived since 1974 – was in marked contrast to his home country of Germany.

“In Germany if you are an apprentice, that is a highly respected way of training, whereas here the social standing of apprentices is generally poor,” he said. “That must change.”

Mark Ridgway, managing director of Group Rhodes, a Wakefield-based machinery manufacturer, was more concerned about the proportion of women in manufacturing.

“We’re right at the bottom of the European scale for the numbers of women in our industry,” he said. “In Sweden, 25% of engineers are female, while in Eastern Europe it can reach 40%. Here in the UK though, only 6% of engineers are women. As an employer, I find it is almost impossible to recruit female staff with engineering skills. As a country, we need to do something about this.”

It wasn’t just shopfloor workers who were felt to be hard to get hold of. Many on the panel and in the audience felt graduates left something to be desired. Audience member Alan Hunter asked the panel if they would

agree that “the quality of people coming out of universities is appalling”. Graham Bowland, chief executive of Surgical Innovations, said that while his Leeds company did employ local graduates, he was surprised to discover at a recent meeting of health businesses in Leeds that no-one else there did.

For Ridgway, even universities elsewhere in the UK weren’t always the obvious places to look for skilled future employees.

“We do have problems with some universities here,” he said. “Our last three graduates all came from the University of Chennai, but they are worth it even if I am told by the UK Border Agency that I have to pay them at least £30,000 a year to justify having them.”

He felt the lack of enthusiasm for engineering among students in the UK was particularly puzzling, given that surveys had consistently shown that “the degrees that earn most money over the course of your career are medicine, followed by engineering”.

Maier felt the issue with universities was more to do with how effectively they commercialised research. “We are good at R&D in the UK,” he said, “but not good at collaborative R&D. There is also a culture issue here too.

Engineers are proud to keep parts moving when people in other countries would probably let them go.”

Bowland took issue with such a gloomy prognosis, talking about how the work he was doing with the 140 health-related companies located within Leeds was helping to create a “health hub”.

“Leeds is a great city to be in the health sector,” he said.

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But he admitted that some smaller companies might find the cost of participating in the knowledge transfer partnerships (KTPs) that some univiersities offer – cost which can sometimes amount to £24,000 a year for research that might lead to nothing – was too high.

There were also differing opinions among the panel and in the audience about whether such R&D should be publicly funded by, for example, greater use of R&D tax credits.

Averdieck was firmly against any Government support in this area. Conference compere Peter March, manufacturing correspondent for the Financial Times, also pointed out that Britain’s industrial pioneers such as Joseph Arkwright never relied on Government funding.

But Maier said that was a different time, and Government-backed research taking place in Europe was just the sort of collaborative R&D he had been referring to. Siemens’ Leeds plant is, among other things, manufacturing components for offshore windfarms.

“Large-scale investment in the new technology demanded by the renewables industry is exactly what the German and Danish governments are doing and have been doing for some time,” he said. “If Britain doesn’t follow suit it will simply miss out.”

Surprisingly, given the current economic conditions and the state of the banks, getting proper access to finance was not a particularly hot issue at the event. Bowland, whose company was one of the initial beneficiaries of the Government’s Regional Growth Fund, praised the way the Leeds Local Enterprise >>

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SUCCESS STORY Partnership (LEP) had grouped smaller companies together so that they could make a joint bid for a fund which will only consider bids of more than £1m.

But access to markets was a clearly contentious issue. Bowland said his company is currently exporting 85% of what it produces, mainly because of the tortuous NHS procurement process which he felt was weighted in favour of larger companies. That was a particularly thorny issue for his fellow health companies in Leeds.

“We have the largest teaching hospital in Europe in the city,” he said, “but we can’t sell to it. Government procurement is a problem.”

From the audience Alan Hunter, who is a director of Walker Brothers in Elland, went even further. He suggested that instead of extolling the virtues of exporting, events like this and UK business in general should concentrate more on showing the benefits of buying locally.

“I would far rather that larger companies in the UK saw us as a natural source of product, not Mr Wu in China who I can actually compete with across most levels,” he said.

Maier was dead set against any “Buy British” scheme, pointing out how such protectionism had damaged British Leyland in the 1970s.

But Bowland felt there was a half-way house.

The US government, he said, along with giving preferential treatment on contracts to firms run by war veterans or only by women, had also introduced a set-aside scheme “where 15% of Government business has to be sourced locally”. That could be introduced in the UK. But closing the event, March urged businesses not to fall for the gloomy reports about British manufacturing being dead. Britain was still the 10th largest manufacturer in the world, he said. Its ranking as the largest 100 years ago was probably just a historical anomaly, given the country’s size.

Certainly Maier was feeling upbeat. After 25 years of working in manufacturing in the UK, he said, he was broadly optimistic about the future.

“Manufacturing is given greater recognition now than it has been over the last 25 years,” he said. “Government and industry are talking about the right sorts of things at last.” n

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SUCCESS STORY Attitude and agility

Evolving success There are, of course, plenty of manufacturers within Leeds that can be said to have consistently evolved to keep ahead of what today’s industry demands. But Communisis is surely one of them.

In fact, the way the company operates has changed so much in recent years that much of what it does is outside manufacturing, even if making communications is still at the company’s heart.

Communisis today is the result of the coming together of a range of different companies in the past few decades. Chief of these was probably Leeds printing company Waddingtons, famous for being the UK manufacturers of the Monopoly board game.

But the £193m turnover company is much more than a printer now, the company is positioned as a marketing services provider with operations right across the UK involved in data, creative, print and online and transactional communication disciplines.

The 400 staff at the company’s Manston Lane site in Leeds are involved in producing marketing communications for clients that can be personalised down to the minutest detail. Individual mailings that have been produced on-site can be added to or adapted to suit what Communisis’ and the client’s own data suggests the customer may be interested in. Even such sophistication as being able to produce a map which shows how to get from the customer’s house to the company’s nearest branch is possible.

Operations director Paul Jubbs says these developments have largely come about because more and more clients are realising that mass mailings with no personalisation are becoming less and less effective in today’s world. But the company’s ability to offer such services has also been achieved by multi-million pound investment, which has included installing two HP T300 colour inkjet web presses. When the first of these was installed in 2010, Communisis was the first company in the UK to have such technology.

Nevertheless, in order for such a business to succeed, Jubbs says adhering to some traditional rules about manufacturing is important, and first among these is a focus on quality control. “There are too many businesses where you push production at the expense of quality,” he says.

That certainly doesn’t happen at Manston Lane, where Jubbs and his managers focus on the idea of overall equipment effectiveness – taking a regular and systematic look at every step in the process of producing communications so that issues are anticipated possibly even before they arise.

Nowhere is this more evident than in a control room at the site where all such investigations are discussed. The walls of the room are plastered with A3-size charts about continuous improvement – all of which are handwritten. Jubbs says this gives individual managers much more of a sense of ownership in what they do than a quickly whipped together Powerpoint presentation would ever do.

“It’s a targeted approach, not a scattergun,” he says. Such work is also what attracts him personally to the job in hand.

“My passion is for manufacturing and the people, the machines and the materials. It is about using the right drive to achieve real business improvement, and that is certainly happening on the site at Leeds.”

In control: Paul Jubbs is focused on business improvement throughout Communisis

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Our specialist manufacturing team can provide a real understanding of the industry and tailor funding solutions that are a perfect fit to Liam Kane: your business.

Commercial Indeed our Banking,Yorkshire experience of and Derbyshire working with customers across the region highlights that many are embracing new opportunities for growth through areas such as export activity.

UK manufacturing is closely interconnected with the global economy and those who are able to develop an export capability, can limit the decline in growth of their local market but can also benefit from any potential weakness in sterling relative to both the euro and the US dollar. It is this attitude and agility that is part of the inherent strength of UK manufacturing.

For more information contact: Liam Kane, Regional Director, Commercial Banking,Yorkshire Tel: 07833 664597, liam.kane@rbs.co.uk, ahead.natwest.com

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COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

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Bibby takes off, a plastics firm reforms, Bettys tees up the right premises, Bradford gains a new hotel, Halifax changes its look, a tram shed develops into quality retail, and Sterling hits a new high >> Factory takes on opera Opera North has acquired the former Polestar Jowetts factory at Evanston Avenue in Leeds from Scottish Widows Investment Partnership for just under £2m.

The 73,374sq ft property, originally a purpose-built printing facility, will become Opera North’s new storage unit for sets, props and scenery.

The company will also be using the property to house its own vehicle workshop to service its fleet of tour vehicles.

Andrew Gent from Gent Visick, who acted for Scottish Widows Investment Partnership on the deal, said: “Opera North had been looking for some time for a new facility in which to undertake these operations.

“Evanston Avenue offered exactly the right mix of accommodation and the location, and was within three miles of the Grand Theatre.”

AWS acted on behalf of Opera North.

>> Oakwood Park speeds up Oakwood Park Business Centre near Harrogate is converting a 2,000sq ft building specifically for start-ups and SMEs. The development, which will hold units of 200sq ft and upwards, comes as owner Alan Cryer claims to have benefited from an increase in enquiries after a new high speed broadband service was installed at the 19,000sq ft park.

The installation is the latest development in the Smart Parks project, an initiative set up as part of a partnership between two public

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sector bodies, NYnet and York & North Yorkshire. To date the initiative has connected five business parks across the region.

Cryer said: “When I heard about the Smart Park initiative, I immediately seized the opportunity to bring high speed fibre optic broadband to Oakwood Park as I could see the enormous potential for the park and its tenants.”

One of Oakwood Park’s original tenants, Take That, relies heavily on a high speed broadband connection. Technical manager Matthew Swift said the speed of the park’s old bonded ADSL network meant downloading large files had to be scheduled outside working hours.

“Now that we have access to a more robust and reliable high speed fibre optic connection these tasks can be run on demand,” he said.

“It’s also reassuring to know we can easily increase the bandwidth to grow with us.”

As a result of the Smart Park initiative Oakwood Park has also been able to connect surrounding businesses with high speed broadband via wireless technology. Hob Green Hotel, a country house in neighbouring Markington, now enjoys high speed broadband and another business, Patricia Dawson Clothes, will be connected shortly.

>> Charity eyes up bigger space A charity which specialises in producing information in accessible formats for visually-impaired people and those with poor English and literacy skills has moved into bigger premises after buying space at Eldon Place in Bradford for £175,000.

Bradford Talking Media (BTM) will occupy

two storeys within the 9,000sq ft space and rent the third storey out to Bradford Youth Development Partnership, with whom it is working on future schemes.

BTM, established in 1982, previously had a cramped 2,000sq ft base in the city’s Forster Community College.

The organisation was able to make the move thanks to a £410,000 grant from the Social Enterprise Investment Fund (SEIF), which is also financing extensive refurbishment work at the new site. It was the second time BTM had applied for funding from SEIF. BTM managing editor Sue Crowe said: “We’d been happy at the college for many years but had outgrown the space. We’re now in a location which will enable us to build on our past successes and record even greater achievements in the future.”

Simon Mydlowski, commercial property solicitor at Gordons, who advised BTM on the site’s purchase from the Ancient Order of Foresters Society, said: “The move puts the organisation in an ideal position to continue helping disadvantaged people into the future.”

>> Bibby flies to airport Bibby Leasing has become the latest company to relocate to new offices at Airport West Business Park at Leeds Bradford Airport.

The Leeds-based company, which is the leasing finance arm of Bibby Financial Services, has taken a five-year lease on 3,000sq ft of offices on the first floor of 7 Airport West, relocating from older premises nearby in Yeadon.

Jones Lang LaSalle, acting for owner business

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development agency Nunwood, advised on the deal.

Developed by Leeds-based Rushbond, 7 Airport West includes a delicatessen and video conferencing facilities among its amenities. A total of 1,796sq ft remains available in the building.

Jones Lang LaSalle senior surveyor Simon Dove, said: “Bibby Leasing forms part of a historic family-run business and a thriving enterprise to add to the tenant mix at Airport West Business Park.”

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wide range of customers in the food and drink and retail industries.

The Tenbury-based firm acquired Leeds-based Pet Plas Packaging in 2005.

Esterform finance director Simon Hartley said: “By releasing equity from this property and redeploying the capital into expanding the core business, we can take advantage of current growth opportunities and develop new product lines.”

Matthew Hopkins from Gent Visick, who advised Esterform on the deal, said: “With capital from traditional funding sources being hard to come by, there is still merit in considering a sale and leaseback where the equity released is reinvested in the business and due consideration has been given to the lease commitment.”

BNP Paribas represented the purchaser.

>> More room for tea

Ready to invest: Simon Hartley, Esterform Packaging Ltd, left, and Matthew Hopkins, Gent Visick

>> Plastics firm in sale and leaseback Plastics manufacturing firm Esterform Packaging has completed the sale and leaseback of its 100,000sq ft Leeds manufacturing premises to a private investor.

The sale of the property on Beeston Royds Industrial Estate will help the company invest further in new plant and machinery to expand its production capacity.

Esterform manufactures and distributes plastic containers and PET preforms for a

Bettys & Taylors has leased 70,000sq ft of warehouse space and 3,000sq ft of office space at St James Business Park in Harrogate.

The deal, advised by Carter Jonas, includes a new-build, bespoke facility which was delivered on time.

John Webster, partner at Carter Jonas, said the search for premises had been a hard one.

“One would think that acquiring commercial premises in a market that suits occupiers rather than landlords and developers would be relatively easy, as favourable terms are on offer from the outset,” he said.

“But getting the right property in the right location, such as with Bettys & Taylors, is not necessarily that easy. In some circumstances, the right property does not exist in the right location.”

Carter Jonas has also been appointed by the Medical Protection Society to sell its existing offices in Granary Wharf House in Leeds and to find 60,000sq ft of new office premises elsewhere in the city to house more than 300 employees.

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>> New hotel for Bradford Gregory Property Group has completed its transformation of Broadacre House in Bradford – the former Yorkshire Water offices – into a new, 118-bed hotel for Premier Inn with adjoining offices.

The Leeds company acquired the site earlier this year from Keyland Developments, the property arm of Yorkshire Water, and has since invested more than £5m to redevelop the 10-storey tower. The 50,000sq ft building, situated on Vicar Lane on the eastern side of the city centre, was built by Yorkshire Water in the 1970s to provide customer service and technology space.

Richard Tovey at Gregory Property Group said: “An 118-bed hotel will be a major boost for the city’s economy and we were able to retain 9,200sq ft of adjacent office space which we have pre-let to Foundation Housing on a 15-year lease. We forwardsold the hotel, but will retain ownership of the office space.”

Premier Inn has already taken possession of the site and hosted a soft launch of the hotel in the run up to Christmas.

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COMMERCIAL PROPERTY >> Tenant buys up Fountain Court, an 18,000sq ft office building in Morley in south Leeds, has been bought by one of its tenants.

TP Orthodontics Europe has bought the building from Berkshire Asset Management.

Deborah Lindsay, general manager for TPO Europe, said: “Fountain Court has been our home for over 20 years, and it feels great to finally own it. In spite of the current economic landscape, we have seen tremendous market growth, so investing in our own facilities will help us expand further.”

Ed Harrowsmith of Knight Frank in Leeds, who advised TPO Europe, said: “This is a very significant acquisition for TP Orthodontics, underlining their growth within the orthodontic industry.”

regional and national companies and includes a Village Hotel.

Andrew Wright, director of Liverpool-based James Latham, said: “Having outgrown our existing Ossett site, the new James Latham Leeds facility will provide the modern infrastructure required to continue the successful development of the business across the region.”

Knight Frank partner Alex Munro, who advised on the deal, said: “Only 17,000sq ft of quality office space remains available at Capitol Park in three different buildings.

About half of this space is in Tomlinson House, named after the inspirational Jane Tomlinson from Leeds.”

Sterling Capitol chief executive Martin Croxen said: “We are extremely proud of what we have achieved here. Job creation is at the heart of our plans at Capitol Park and we are delighted that there are now 1,500 people already employed on site.

Ultimately, once further phases begin, there is potential for a total of 2,500 jobs with 230,000sq ft of office space to be developed over the next few years.”

>> New developer takes up tram shed

>> Capitol Park reaches target Property developer Sterling Capitol is claiming it has reached its target of creating 1,500 new jobs at Capitol Park in south Leeds following wooden panel distributor James Latham’s decision to locate there.

The new site, which will lead to the creation of 50 jobs, extends to 66,000sq ft and will include a new two-storey office and warehouse extension. It should be fully operational by next spring.

Capitol Park, just off junction 28 of the M62 at Tingley, already houses a range of

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Retail developer Roadside Retail has acquired the Old Tram Sheds on Leeds Road in Bradford for £2.5m and aims to redevelop the 230,000sq ft site into a bespoke, high quality retail space.

The acquisition is the largest so far for a developer which has recently acquired four other sites nationwide – including 6,000sq ft space on Thornton Road in Bradford – which it intends to market in a similar way.

The company aims to have acquired 40 sites within six months, and will be targeting the likes of Tesco Express and the Co-operative as possible tenants.

Director Aqeel Khan said: “The rental costs at Roadside Retail sites will be kept strategically

low with long-term commitment being the driving force. I am looking at a return on investment over 10 to 15 years, which gives me the advantage over developers who are looking for shorter gains.”

>> Headhunter hunts its own office Specialist recruitment business Resource Management International (RMI) is relocating in Leeds city centre by taking a five-year lease on No 10 Park Place.

The company, which has 26 staff in Leeds, specialises in executive search and targeted headhunting across Europe. The business, which has particular expertise in IT, PR, sales and marketing posts, was previously based in offices at West One, Wellington Street, Leeds.

Georgian-built No 10 Park Place, a Grade II-listed building, provides 3,400sq ft of office space which has just been refurbished.

RMI Recruitment managing director Nick Phipps said: “We’ve relocated to bigger premises so we can continue to expand as we were too big for the serviced offices we occupied previously. We wanted an entire building so we could brand it and make it a bit special as a head office.”

Jones Lang LaSalle, who are joint agents on the building with Carter Towler, acted for landlord ATC Properties.

>> Union moves in The University and College Union (UCU), a union for college lecturers and employees, has taken 2,697sq ft offices at 49 St Paul’s Street in Leeds. UCU has taken the groundfloor offices on a ten-year lease. Other tenants in the property include recruitment specialist Mortimer Spinks and IT business Trend Micro.

The deal was brokered by Jones Lang LaSalle, acting for landlord, Patrick G Kelly.

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Senior surveyor Tom Brammeld said: “UCU is an important addition to the tenant mix for this well-established Leeds city centre office location which offers very good quality space close to local amenities.”

Some 1,000sq ft of refurbished space on the second floor and the entire third floor of 2,500sq ft remains available. The building, which was refurbished three years ago, features 12,000sq ft of office space on five floors.

The London office of Keningtons acted for UCU.

Centre move: Iain Taylor of Highcross, left; Sarah Johnson of Towry; Alex Hailey of CB Richard Ellis, and Ed Harrowsmith of Knight Frank, right

>> Towry to Toronto Towry is relocating its Leeds office to Toronto Square, the £10m development

by Highcross.

The financial advice firm is taking 11,000sq ft on the fifth floor of Toronto Square on a 10-year lease. The company was previously based in St Paul’s Street.

Sarah Johnson, property and facilities manager at Towry, said: “The move brings the team right into the centre of the Leeds business district. The new premises will provide a high quality environment for both our clients and professional contacts and demonstrates our commitment to growing our business in Leeds.”

Iain Taylor, senior asset manager at Highcross’ northern office, said: “This is the largest single letting at Toronto Square

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so far, and takes the total space let since the beginning of the year to nearly 30,000sq ft. The city centre location, high quality office space and award-winning environmental credentials, continue to be key factors in Toronto Square’s success.”

>> Longcross moves into Halifax Longcross Investment Fund has bought a prime retail investment in the heart of Halifax for £1.78m.

The property at 26-30 Southgate was bought from a private seller in a deal managed by Harrogate-based Ripley Asset Management.

Tenants at the property, which comprises 5,000sq ft of retail space, include Sports Direct and the Banana Beach Tanning Company. The headline rent is £55 per sq ft, providing a yield of 8.45%.

Ripley’s Michael Hardman said: “The property is in the heart of the pedestrianised area of Halifax town centre and close to the new Broadgate office and leisure development.

Sports Direct is a very popular retailer and have signed a long-term lease, while the initial yield is very attractive

>> Highest building has new tenant A national charity which helps thousands of people manage their debt problems has expanded its presence in Leeds city centre.

The Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS) is leasing an additional 4,000sq ft of offices at Tower North Central, Merrion Way – the highest office building in Leeds – following a deal brokered by Jones Lang LaSalle acting for landlord, LaSalle Investment Management.

The CCCS, which helps 500,000 people a year with debt problems, has expanded

into the 14th floor at Tower North Central. The charity, which also has space in nearby Wade House, has also renewed its lease on the 12th and 13th floors of the building, where it has been based for five years. All three floors have been taken on a ten-year lease with a five-year break clause and give the charity a total of 12,000sq ft in the property.

All refurbished office space at the 18-storey office building is now fully let, although LaSalle Investment Management is planning a major refurbishment of the lower eight floors.

Jones Lang LaSalle senior surveyor Tom Brammeld, said: “We are expecting an increase in demand for office space in this area with the development of Leeds Arena which will become a catalyst for regenerating this part of the city.”

>> New shopping centre in sight Plans for a major 123,000sq ft retail scheme in Halifax centre have been submitted for outline approval by architecture firm The Harris Partnership.

The plans involved knocking down and rebuilding the existing Pennine Shopping Centre, to the south of the town centre.

The new scheme, which includes 500 parking spaces, aims to regenerate the area while pedestrian links will give direct access to key areas such as Market Street, The Piece Hall and key transport hubs.

Submission of the planning application by the Wakefield-based practice follows two years of working closely with the developer, Royal London Asset Management, as well as Calderdale Council.

Harris Partnership managing director Michael Schorah, said: “Our client has identified a need to redevelop a site which will radically enhance this part of Halifax while complementing the existing shopping facilities.”

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ENTREPRENEUR

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kitchens think of customer service An enviably streamlined operation and a willingness for constant improvement have formed the backbone of Rixonway Kitchens. But it’s only simplistic manufacturing, its chief executive tells Peter Baber Paul Rose is chief executive of Rixonway Kitchens, a kitchen manufacturer supplying mostly to the social housing sector that, with 450 employees at its factory in Dewsbury, is one of the largest private sector employees in Kirklees.

He was also winner of the manufacturing category at this year Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards for the North and Midlands. And when you see what he has done to the company it is not hard to see why.

Since he took over control in a £27m management buyout backed by August Equity, he has helped increase its turnover from £16m to £30m – even through a time when the continuing economic uncertainty and the threat of cuts in public sector funding have caused many competitors to stutter. In fact, his old company Moores, which he left to join Rixonway as sales director in 1992, has seen its turnover more than halve in that time.

Back in 2006 a number of people were shocked at the amount August was prepared to take on the company. Even Rose himself admits it was a “frothy” time – a period that continued into the next year when his friend Terry Bramall’s social housing company Keepmoat was sold for just under £800m in

one of the largest private equity deals the UK has seen. “We were quite extensively leveraged,” he says, “but the one thing this business is good at is generating cash.”

So, while the wheels came off the Keepmoat deal pretty speedily following the demise of its backer HBOs – even if, as Rose himself says, it was “a good deal for Terry, and couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy” – Rixonway’s backers must surely remain contented.

And yet the secret to his success lies in no great technology, he says – except for the fact that by sticking to rigid construction, Rixonway has kept itself away from losing any potential competitors in the Far East, as they manufacture exclusively for flatpack distribution. Nor is there any revolutionary material involved in the production.

“This isn’t rocket science,” he says. “It’s fairly simplistic manufacturing. Unless someone comes up with a fantastic new material, we will be making our kitchens out of chipboard for ever and a day.”

In fact, he clearly believes too much is made of how you can become successful at business.

“People tend to make business complicated, and it really isn’t that complicated,” he says.

“It’s a case of looking at your cash coming in,

looking that your suppliers are being paid going out, and generating sales. There’s nothing complicated about that.”

In fact, his company’s success is probably down to three things.

The first is incredibly lean manufacturing. The Dewsbury factory may be 177,000sq ft, but it is incredibly streamlined. It is essentially split into three sections – machine shop, assembly, and despatch, with finished cabinets taken straight off the shopfloor into backed-up lorries at the end. But walking around the factory floor, what you notice, apart from the absence of sawdust (most of which is sucked out by ducts to be used later by Yorskhire Water) is the relative absence of stock left lying about. There is a reason for that; by the time the product has reached the assembly stage, it is already organised according to where it is going to be delivered to, and which route it will take to get to that destination.

“We produce 1,000 kitchens a week, but we don’t store much here,” says Rose. “We order panels on a weekly basis and bring them in.

As a result, hardly any of our capital is tied up in stock.”

That clearly means that, for example, the factory can be insured for less than you >>

On time, in full: Paul Rose is a tough operator in a tough business environment

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ENTREPRENEUR would expect for such a sizeable establishment. But it keeps suppliers happy too.

“We have a select number of suppliers that we use all the time,” says Rose. “They like dealing with Rixonway because they like the consistency in volumes they get from us.”

The second ingredient to success is that old adage of customer service. Rose says the way to get ahead in a fairly convetional industry like his is to “look constantly for differentiators in your business” and focusing on customer service is one sure way to do that.

“Where can you add value?” he says. “I bang on to people about no matter what you buy in life, you want a decent experience. You want to feel that you are a customer, and you want to get what you want delivered in the way you want and the price is right.

“Our market is complicated in that you have lots of people making decisions. There are often three or four different customers. In some cases it is the client and the resident you are dealing with, although discussions can include the contractor, sub-contractor and even the procurement consultant. But they all want the same thing essentially, which is for you to deliver a kitchen on time, in full.”

This provides opportunities for a fast-moving company like Rixonway.

“We are constantly looking for ways to improve service and take away the heat from customers,” he says. “If you say, ‘I can deliver in three to four weeks’ but actually deliver in five, that is a problem.

“On top of that, more and more of the sites we deal with at the moment have little storage, so if you can deliver in smaller batches but more quickly it stops everyone thinking about how to store it. So we focus on having a short lead-time, delivering on time, and being flexible.

“For sites in London, for example, where there really is virtually no space for storage, we deliver every couple of days, although perhaps there is a price the customer has to pay for that. We will, after all, have introduced a lot of IT infrastructure to make such deliveries possible.”

Which brings us onto the third point in Rixonway’s favour. By engaging with the customer in such a way, by including IT

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infrastructure in what they offer, the company can do more to ensure that the customer will find it harder to look elsewhere.

“We have programs that run for three, four or five years where people are locked in,” says Rose.

At the same time, he says, he runs a very “structured” business where “everybody is on the bus going the same direction”, particularly when it comes to getting through the various hoops and hurdles that most public sector clients insist tendering companies need to jump through first before they are offered any work.

“Our staff understand that to put a good PQQ in place you have to have all these things in line,” he says. “You need the audit trail, the environmental stuff, and your policy on diversity. All that is already in place with us and is part of structure of business. But it is a big barrier to entry for others. Small business would find it difficult to get in on the market now, whereas in early 1990s the barriers weren’t as great. Now they are, there is much more process required.”

As someone who came into what was a relatively small business back then, does he

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not think this new situation is unfair? After all, just because the company has a diversity policy doesn’t necessarily mean it has a particularly diverse workforce. Rose says they are still having discussions about how to attract more ethnic minority workers when they advertise in the local Jobcentre. All that matters for the client organisation is that such policies are in place. But small companies would usually not have the resources to put such policies together.

“Is it unfair?” says Rose. “If you look at it from the customer’s side, you are now getting more consistency of quality as a result of some of these new challenges. But I am not saying small businesses can’t do it. If they have a will they can, but they’ve got to put the finance in.

I suppose that is unfair, but it is down to the individual company to show that they can achieve this objective or that they are working towards it. A lot of this is Government-fuelled anyway, and is out of our control.”

Rose says the company hasn’t as yet been particularly affected by any cuts in public sector funding. Even so, and even though he says it is “better to do what you know and do that better”, he is looking to

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ENTREPRENEUR

We are constantly looking at ways to improve service. If you say ‘I can deliver in three to four weeks’ but actually deliver in five, that is a problem broaden out its customer base.

In recent years, the company has once again started selling to the private sector through independent merchants such as MKM. “That business has gone from a soft standing to having a turnover of £5m in two-and-a-half years with independent merchants,” he says.

“We are providing the same product to a different market where independent merchants previously didn’t have a rigid construction offer. When I joined the company in 1992 it was split 50/50 between private and social housing. But as private development got more complicated, it became complicated for Rixonway to handle, so we focused on social housing, and that paid dividends through the recession of the early 1990s.

“One thing about social housing is that you do

get paid. In the 1990s, payment was less secure in private development. At one point we were pretty much 99% into social housing, but after the buyout, it was clear you couldn’t do that forever. So I appointed a sales director whose background had been in the independent sector.”

That is perhaps one other aspect of Rose’s character which has served him well. He says he has an ability to weigh up people very quickly.

“The first year after a leveraged buyout is always very tough,” he says. “Once you are in with private equity, the requirements of reporting are much greater.”

A further sign of Rose’s toughness happened while the MBO deal itself was going through – his then eight-year-old daughter had a brain

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haemorrhage and while the lawyers were busy dotting the Is and crossing the Ts, Rose, in his words, was “living at the LGI”.

“We really didn’t know what would be left with our daughter, although thankfully now she is much better,” he says.

“One day during that time I met someone coming back on the train from London and they said: ‘I don’t know how you have done this.’ I said: ’I am not sure how I have done it.’

“In the end, she had a brain haemorrhage on April 19, and we completed deal on May 26. It was a really trying period, but I have always been a believer in dealing with whatever life throws at you.”

Given all that, it is surprising how modest he is about his and the company’s achievements.

When you win the regional award at the Ernst & Young Awards you go on to a national final.

Rose didn’t win there, but he says he wasn’t expecting to.

“We are not in a sophisticated sector,” he says. “But to make the final was fantastic.”

Sophistication, however, doesn’t always mean success, and that, at least, is something Rixonway certainly has achieved. n

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SUCCESS STORY

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Slow but steady treatment A company that has moved into a landmark Leeds pub is leading the way in offering physiotherapy in the workplace, says Peter Baber

Back in the days when Leeds United were a successful Premiership side, eager fans happy to slake their thirst before or after a match would never have to walk far. Even if they didn’t fancy what Elland Road itself had to offer, the Wheatsheaf pub on nearby Gelderd Road was always open for business and became a regular hangout.

In the years since then, just as the club has been languishing in the Championship – and sometimes even lower – so the fortunes of the pub itself have declined. Indeed, for much of the past two years it has been boarded up, echoing only to the sound of traffic rushing past. If the dip in the club’s fortunes and the drift away of fans didn’t kill it off, then the smoking ban probably did.

Those with a reason for driving past in recent months, however, might have noticed new activity. In fact, on a typically drizzly October

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Leeds day this year, the building reopened.

Not, it has to be said, as a pub once again providing a base for football fans, but as the headquarters of a company that is really going places in physiotherapy – not usually the most thrusting, talked about industry.

You could say the new owners have kept up the sporting links with the venue – one of the directors was a physiotherapist for the Bradford Bulls during the management of Matthew Elliott and Brian Noble. But what is perhaps more interesting for the business reader is that this company has managed to fund its expansion, unlike Leeds United, without accumulating any debt.

Physiomed, as the company is called, is now one of the country’s major providers of physiotherapy in the workplace. It has contracts with more than 50 organisations nationwide, including Carlsberg-Tetley, and the

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SUCCESS STORY

Expansion in mind: Jake Fletcher, sales director, Phil Clayton, managing director and clinical director Mark Fletcher Royal Mail. Postal workers and beer barrel delivery people all around the country are just some of those who have benefited from its services to get them back to work. And it has saved their employers money too by not requiring their employees to take days off to visit the physio for a consultation – most initial assessments are carried out over the phone.

Only if the problem is serious is the patient booked in to see one of the 650 practices currently part of the Physiomed nationwide network. The contracts are all managed by a staff of around 16 at the Leeds headquarters.

The company now has ambitious expansion plans, too.

“Between now and 2016 we plan to take turnover to £5m,” says managing director, Phil Clayton. “Last year it was £1.9m. This year we are aiming at £2.3m.”

As has already been said that will be a

Employers want to know whether their person is unwell and how long they can expect them to be off work for. We treat the ones who do need to be treated

turnover that is growing on a balance sheet that is free of debt. But for those reasons it is a vision that has taken some time to achieve.

Clayton, who is not a physiotherapist himself, joined the company as long ago as 2002.

Before that he had been a London-based recruitment consultant who was moved up to Yorkshire to turn around a regional office that had been losing money for five years. He did

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that successfully, and in the meantime met one Jake Fletcher, whose older brother Mark is very much the physiotherapy brains behind the business. The three of them decided that they could start to grow the private physiotherapy practice Mark had already been running for the best part of a decade to be something much more extensive. But Jake Fletcher and Phil Clayton only transferred over to join >>

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SUCCESS STORY the company when it had grown sufficiently.

But neither regret that they never chose the option of trying to bring in a private equity firm to speed up that growth, even during the years when such people would probably have been banging on their door.

“We weren’t looking for a five-minute wonder,” says Clayton, “This was always going to be a long-term project. Were all young guys, still are.” (Both men are in their mid-40s.) “In fact,” he says, “how can you be sorry when you are sat in a lovely building like this, running a company with great profits, and an excellent team?”

You can possibly see what he means about the building. All traces of its past as a pub have been completely obliterated – it was stripped right back to the brick walls. But in its place is a sleek modern office that even comes complete with a roof terrace for the staff – albeit one with a not exactly inspiring view of the Leeds Ring Road.

“We wanted to be solely responsible for everything we do, right or wrong,” Clayton concludes.

And Fletcher echoes him. “It’s very easy to borrow money,” he says. “We still have people knocking on our door even now, wanting to lend us some.”

Fletcher says he came to want to expand into the kind of physiotherapy service the company is providing now through the many different aspects of the profession he witnessed in the early part of his career. After graduating from Newcastle University in 1988 he came to work initially at the Leeds General Infirmary (LGI).

“I started a clinic in Guiseley,” he says, “and always worked part-time there, mainly out of financial necessity. The basic grade physio’s salary then was only around £600 a month.

But I also loved doing orthopaedic physiotherapy, and you don’t always do that in the NHS.” Nevertheless, he says, the NHS was a great grounding for a young graduate to hone their skills, and to learn about looking at the whole patient, rather than the particular problem – something that has stood him in good stead with Physiomed.

“It’s a wonderful environment,” he says. “I did 10 years in many different areas – outpatients, GPs surgeries, and community centres.”

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The years he spent being a phsyiotherapist for the Bradford Bulls were a glamorous extra, he says – and even now, nearly a decade after he left the club, he still gets people asking him about it. Both he and Clayton say such a connection was good PR in the early years of Physiomed too – even if rugby league is really only of interest to people in the north of England.

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But they always knew that they wanted to take the company onto more of an occupational health focus, so eventually the Bulls had to go.

The big break really came when the practice was doing work for Carlsberg-Tetley in 2001.

“We had been working with Carlsberg for a year or so,” says Fletcher. “They were very happy with what we did. They felt we solved

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SUCCESS STORY

Diagnosis is not at the end of the physio’s fingertips. It’s the questions and answers you give. Questions we ask over the phone are exactly the ones we we would ask face to face

issues quickly for them, reported back to the company with our findings quickly, and worked closely with their managers. In short, we had really brought absenteeism down. So they then decided they wanted to set up similar arrangements with other practices at Carlsberg depots all around the country. I pointed out that it would be very difficult if they were non-physiotherapists to find clinics that might suit their needs – in particular physiotherapists with the right skills within occupational health. So why didn’t they let me find the clinics for them?”

And so the Physiomed network was born.

Fletcher and the team sourced practices which would want to be part of a network that could honestly serve a client anywhere in the country.

“We are in effect their marketing team now,” says Clayton, although Fletcher still works as a physiotherapist in the Leeds office. “Physios are good at treating people, but not necessarily good at business.”

The opportunities that such a network would bring were so compelling, in fact, when Clayton joined in 2002 the company had just started the contract with Royal Mail as a pilot.

“But we always thought we would take it into full contract,” he says. And they did.

But the two of them both insist that the initial offer to Carlsberg was not just a way of keeping business in-house. It was really important that if the company wanted to maintain the success it had been having with physiotherapy treatments elsewhere in the country, somebody with an inside knowledge of how physiotherapy practices work would need to find suitable practices for them.

“Their skills in occupational health was actually one of 20 factors,” says Fletcher. “We also looked at things like opening hours, location, parking, and accessibility. There would be no point in having a person with all the right qualifications but who was only prepared to be open one evening a week for two hours.

And did those practices want to work with us?

With the arrangement we offer comes commitment – the person has to be booked in within two days of the initial call, and they have to report back to the company in a similar time.”

Sometimes, he concedes, it could be hard to buy into what they wanted.

“We also have to work to very strict guidelines on clinical governance,” says Clayton. “Unless you understand those, as we do, you can’t probe enough to make sure someone isn’t just saying that they will be able to do what you want. We turned down many practices who applied, but we also had some saying to us: ‘I don’t want to be told I have to do a report within 24 hours.’ In which case we would say, ‘You’re just not right in our environment.’”

The results of all this rigour, they say, is a service that may not be unique but is certainly starting to pull away from the competition.

“We have just won a contract away from a major competitor just as they were about to sign, because our online tools and our outcomes could be proven to have a 30% better success rate,” says Clayton.

Fletcher insists that the fact that employees are initially consulted over the phone is no handicap.

“Diagnosis is not at the end of the physio’s fingertips,” he says. “It’s the questions and

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answers you give. So questions we ask over the phone are exactly the ones we would ask face to face with a few alterations. We still get to ‘see’ the individual, because we still get them to do movements. And the ‘hands on’ side is still always there, but they only get it if they need it. If you told me your story about a tennis elbow, it wouldn’t take me long to realise you had a tennis elbow. At the end of the talking part, a physiotherapist should have 90% of the diagnosis.”

It’s one of the reasons, he says, why, rather like dyslexic people having a tendency towards architecture, there is a trend for blind people to go into physiotherapy. Physiomed employs some of them.

Now the company has evolved to offer more online services as well. Clayton says this makes even greater savings for its customers.

“The return on investment for using our network is one in five,” he says. “For the PAL online service, which is pay per click, it’s one in 10. Every pound you spend you save £10.”

Fletcher says the educational material they have brought onto the site is also reaping dividends. Patients can go onto the site to find out more about their condition and how it should be treated through exercise and other treatments.

They are currently planning new innovations to the site as well. Could these include providing assessments by online video feeds?

“Watch this space,” is all they will say.

In the end, says Clayton, while they put great emphasis on customer service, with complaints being dealt with swiftly and professionally, there is something of a double-edged sword in their relationship with patients.

“Employers want to know whether their person is unwell and how long they can expect them to be off for,” he says. “We treat the ones who do need to be treated, but we also stop the ones who used to go off with a bad back whenever the World Cup was on.”

With Euro 2012, this is an issue more employers are likely to be finding important.

Clayton was thrilled to see an HR decisionmaker from Waitrose come up for the new office opening – even if her train times meant she could only stay for 20 minutes.

“She knows what we are doing is that important,” he says. n

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Similarity wins through

Adeeba Malik believes passionately in bringing ethnic minorities into the mainstream business community, she tells Peter Baber

I am sitting having lunch with a lady who tells me that when she was 13, her main ambition in life was to be Debbie Harry. Nothing unusual about that. After all, in 1979, when this lady was 13, probably half the female teenage population of Britain wanted to be the singer from Blondie.

A fair few less of them, it has to be said, would have matched this lady’s other ambition, which was to be a wrestler. But what makes such ambitions stand out is that the lady in question here is Adeeba Malik, whose father only came to Britain from

Pakistan in 1959. Conventional wisdom would have it that such immigrant communities back then were not interested in western culture.

What Malik has gone on to become is rather different from her teenage ambitions, although no less grand. She was a founding board member of Yorkshire Forward, a role she earned through open competition, not a nod and a wink appointment, and is now deputy director of QED, an Asian support network and business and training consultancy. She is also on the board of governors at Sheffield Hallam University. >>

If Asian businessmen know you are serious about what you are doing and doing it for the benefit of society as a whole, they will see that

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BUSINESS LUNCH

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BUSINESS LUNCH But she talks about her past experience of growing up to emphasise a point that has clearly been one of her motivating beliefs throughout her life – that people from different ethnic backgrounds have much more in common than they have separate. At a time when many supposedly influential people, right up to the Archbishop of Canterbury, have been suggesting that multiculturalism now means the development of separate societies in the UK, it is a refreshingly old-fashioned approach.

There again, QED is not a new organisation.

This year it had its 21st birthday, and to celebrate that fact Malik commissioned Making Britain, a series of portraits of Asian people who have made it in this country by photojournalist Tim Smith.

“I thought it would be better than a posh grand dinner,” Malik says with a characteristic hearty chuckle. “It would get more people in as well.”

The exhibition, which launched at the National Media Museum in Bradford but which Malik hopes to take to other venues early in 2012, includes famous faces such as comedienne Shazia Mirza and Coronation Street actress Shobna Gulati. But there are other less well known faces as well.

“We have a woman who happens to be a rugby player,” says Malik, “and an aeronautical engineer with British Aerospace.

She wears the headscarf, but designs aeroplanes. Then there is Naresh Sohal, who is a classical composer, but just happens to have an Indian background. When you have people from the Asian community doing those things, it shows that they are gradually integrating.”

This desire to intermingle is very much where Malik herself is coming from. She is a Muslim, and doesn’t drink alcohol as a result, but she doesn’t wear a headscarf, and when you ask her – for a sense of journalistic completeness, of course – whether she is married, she says, “Not yet”.

“I don’t drink, and never have done, and that is for the ethics and my religion,” she says.

“There are things about my heritage that are important, that are as much part of my life as being a Yorkshire person. But that doesn’t mean I can’t go into a place where there is alcohol.”

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Commendable vision: Adeeba Malik has always been keen to work in challenging areas That is one of the reasons why she has chosen to hold the interview at the Aagrah, one of West Yorkshire’s most successful Indian restaurant chains. Malik believes the restaurant sector has been the most successful at promoting interracial mingling, and on a weekday lunchtime in December, you can see what she means – apart from Malik herself,

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the only other Asian people in the restaurant are the waiters. All the customers are white.

Malik, however, is only in Leeds for the day for a conference, and would normally be more used to her hometown of Bradford, where Aagrah also has a large branch.

“Bradford is the best city in the country to eat,” she says. “I am not just saying that

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because I live there. When you look at the quality of the restaurants and the food, it’s on a different level. It’s also really the only place where you get all the different communities mixing under one roof. The restaurants have done really well on that.

Obviously its very popular food, and it’s a good night out for people.”

She gained her passion for promoting community mixing when she first left home to train to be a teacher.

“I was probably the first Asian woman in Bradford who left home to go and do a teaching degree elsewhere,” she says. “Dad was supportive about it, but mum would cry all the time.”

Her mum might have had good reason – the city she chose to do her degree in was Hull where even today some of the estates where she did her teaching practice are 98% white.

Not surprisingly perhaps, she says she ended up “as a novelty and a focus for attack”.

But she quickly found a curious thing. Instead of giving way to such abuse and cowering down; if she stood up to it and rose above it people soon started developing a deep respect for her. And this applied both in Hull and when she came back to teach in Bradford, where she positively chose to go and work in schools that were mostly white to give children a chance of understanding diversity. After a while, the children came to tell her when one of their classmates had been making racist comments. And parents who at the beginning of the year were reluctant to meet their child’s new Asian teacher came to thank her in person at the end.

“I even had one child whose father was doing time,” she says. “He met me before he went in and when he came out he came to see me and gave me a pat on the back. I realised that you have got to go beyond the hostility.

“I decided early on that either it is going to break me and make me lose sleep, or I am going to do something about it.”

In the end she gave up teaching, because she felt the national curriculum was stifling creativity, and joined QED. “But I can’t tell you how much that experience has benefited me,” she says, “because I know I can go anywhere, and sit with anyone.”

Her experience helped her when she joined

BUSINESS LUNCH

Yorkshire Forward when the regional development agencies first came into being in December 1998.

“I was very young, and it was my first big role,” she says. “I was sat on a table with Lord Haskins and Graham Hall, who were both leaders of industry. I was thinking, ‘What am I doing here?’ But it was about confidence. I was extremely scared, but outside of QED it was real on-the-job training that you can’t get anywhere else.”

Confidence has even helped her in dealing with the more conservative elements of her own Asian community – Muslim businessmen who might not take kindly to being lectured to by an unmarried woman who is not in hijab.

“I can stand in a room with 600 businessmen from the Asian community and feel very safe,

and they are very good to me,” she says. “If they know you are serious about what you are doing and doing it for the benefit of society as a whole, they see that. I have a number of men from there who have come up and said: ‘I would love my daughter to be like you.’ When a man from that community says that, I take it as a huge compliment.”

Even still, she thinks many people exaggerate how conservative and insular the Asian business community is. She joined QED 18 years ago to help train Asian immigrants who had lost their jobs in the textile mills to find suitable work elsewhere, but quickly moved up to managing the contacts the organisation was making with other organisations elsewhere, and in advising professional services on how they should interact with the >>

Aagrah Momammed Sabir opened his first Aagrah restaurant in Shipley in 1977.

Since then, the family-run Kashmiri restaurant chain has expanded to 15 locations around West and South Yorkshire, including a special banqueting and conference centre located midway between Leeds and Bradford.

The Leeds city centre branch opened five years ago, right next to Leeds College of Music, the BBC’s Yorkshire headquarters and the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Over the Christmas period, when we interviewed Adeeba Malik, it was offering a sumptious three-course buffet at £13.95 a head which we both went for. It included a choice of starters, salads, and nan bread, a selection of different main dishes including tikka masala and a fruit dessert. With a bar to sit and have a drink in before your meal while you are waiting for your guests to arrive, it could not be more relaxing, particularly with the winter storms outside.

Aagrah Leeds City, St Peter’s Square, Quarry Hill, Leeds, LS9 8AH 0113 2455 667, www.aagrah.com

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BUSINESS LUNCH Asian business community. But she has noticed a big change in the third generation of Asian businesses she now sees coming forward.

“They don’t want to be seen as Asian business,” she says. “They want to be seen as just a business. We have got a confident younger generation of business people coming out who want to succeed as businesses, who just happen to have a brown skin.”

It is important that those involved in trying to develop Yorkshire economically pay attention to this, she says, because she thinks this new generation is where a huge amount of entrepreneurial thinking is coming from.

“I believe that in a place like Bradford, with a population of perhaps half-a-million, it is the Asian community that will create the wealth. I can’t see it coming in new starts from the white community there.”

That is why, as you expect, she laments the passing of Yorkshire Forward, even if she stood down as a board member some years ago. The organisation, she thinks, would have taken this development on as a strategic mission.

“Some people still loathe the whole idea of RDAs, but I do believe that what they were able to do was have a very strategic view of what was happening in the region that no one had before,” she says.

“The legacy they have left is that leadership is crucial if you are looking at economic development. So is a partnership approach.

Economic development is not going to sit with any one agency, whether it is public or private.

It is also being clear about what your vision is.

There will come a point where people will say they miss the RDAs, because things will be done differently. They had the freedom to be risky and creative.

“Just think of that glass company that came to Goole (referring to Guardian Industries, which relocated in 2003 with Yorkshire Forward support and currently employs 280 people.)

“Who would have done that if Yorkshire Forward hadn’t existed?”

More recently QED has won EU funding to go to Pakistan to train women who may be considering emigrating to Britain. Malik says this is not just to teach them better English, but also “to have an understanding of what life is like in the UK, to teach them appropriate behaviour, and give them an understanding of

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I believe that in a place like Bradford, with a population of perhaps half-amillion, it is the Asian community that will create the wealth the health and legal system, so they won’t be like my mum who still to this day struggles to speak perfect English”.

Does she not worry that this might be feeding the argument of those who claim that immigration has gone far enough? She insists it will not.

“They are going to come anyway, because they have married someone,” she says.

In fact, she thinks the business community in general ought to be more outspoken in saying how much it relies on such immigrant labour to do the jobs no local person would do. This applies just as much to Eastern Europeans, she says, with whom QED has also been working.

“I do know that the business community has valued their contribution,” she says, “so it needs to do more to counteract the argument about them coming in. Cynics might say it’s about cheap labour, but there is a minimum wage at the end of the day, and no employer is going to want to take on people who aren’t

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going to produce results, especially at a time like this.”

Nevertheless, she admits she has seen a growing lack of trust between communities since 9/11, and in particular since the London bombings in 2005. In a curious twist of fate, she was actually in Kings Cross station on her way to a meeting when the bombs went off.

“I was there and I experienced the chaos,” she says. “I remember a white man selling books stopped me and said: ‘What are you doing love?’ I told him I needed to get to a hotel in Victoria. ‘Get in my car, ‘I will take you there.’ he said.

“And I did. It was only afterwards that I thought about whether that might have been risky.”

Considering the feelings that were running that day, it may well have been. But it is an illustration of the kind of mutual help that she clearly wishes would remain among all communities. n

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POLLARD ON WINE

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ribera ticklers Linda Pollard OBE is lord lieutenant of West Yorkshire which, combined with her huge cluster of other titles and job descriptions, makes her remarkably well qualified to pass an opinion or two. Wine is no exception As we settled down to a traditional Spanish dish of ox cheek cooked slowly in wine with finely chopped shallots and a little chorizo, we looked forward to our Ribera del Ribera wine from Dominio de Pingus, and the renowned Danish, award-winning winemaker Peter Sisseck who is known by wine aficionados as the Dane in Spain, with a justly deserved reputation as a star winemaker.

Don’t be in a hurry as you open this wine and allow plenty of time before you taste it, and you will be well rewarded by its stylish and complex structure which has soft tannins that will not disappoint.

You can taste the fruits and the burning sunshine of this region, but the wine has softer overtones than those of its sister region Rioja.

You will taste the refinements from this Tempranillo grape that has been in French oak barrels and Peter has to be congratulated for creating something unusual and exceedingly drinkable.

He is clearly a wine innovator for making a very stylish wine that is full of personality and was the perfect accompaniment for our Spanish-styled evening at home – but it would equally accompany any traditional British meat dish.

I was first introduced to fine Sauvignon Blanc wines from Marlborough on New Zealand’s South Island in the late Eighties when a friend of mine was an investor in the small consortium which first imported

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 11

He had no idea that Wairau River ran into Cloudy Bay, a wine which even then was highly sought-after. He soon discovered that he seemed to have many more friends than he had thought.

The secret which not many people know that the Awatere Valley is the southern sister of the Wairau Valley, where Marlborough’s Sauvignon Blanc legacy began.

Since 2006, Eradus from the Awatere Valley has won top accolades from wine critics and show judges every year. Amongst a raft of ordinary Sauvignon Blanc, this one stands out.

The nose is a harmonious array of grass, passion fruit, melon, floral notes and more.

This carries through to the palate, backed by fresh acidity; the taste has power and lingers.

Gorgeous! n

Well connected: Linda Pollard has friends in all the right places – ie, wine merchants Wairau River wine into the UK. When the wine was halfway to the UK he was startled to receive offers for his share of the consignment; the offers were double that he had paid, and he had not yet seen or tasted it.

It appears that whilst being shipped, the wine had won numerous awards and medals, so being a shrewd Yorkshireman he sold half of his consignment and retained the rest to sell to friends, etc. I was fortunate to be one of those friends.

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Psi, Dominio de Pingus and Sauvignon Blanc, Eradus Wines, Awatere Valley, Marlborough, New Zealand are available exclusively form Corney & Barrow.

For a 10% discount and free delivery on your first order you can quote the following code when contacting our office: BQCB10 Both wines are available from Corney & Barrow, Sedbury Hall Stables, Sedbury, Richmond, North Yorks DL10 5LQ T: 01748 828640 E: sedburyorders@corneyandbarrow.com W: www.corneyandbarrow.com

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POLLARD ON WINE

When the wine was halfway to the UK, he was startled to receive offers for his share of the consignment that were double what he had paid

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MOTORING

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MOTORING

racing on the exhaust bypass

Richard Butterfield, senior business development manager at LTSB Commercial, takes a Maserati Granturismo S out on the road. He discovered a roaring monster simply waiting to be unleashed 10.25am, JCT600 Brooklands rang to say they were on the way with the car. 10.27 there was a rumble she had arrived.

I’d been really looking forward to seeing and driving this car and – first impression – you just want to give it a cuddle, it’s just so beautiful. It doesn’t stop there – climb inside, its breathtaking; the yards of leather coupled

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with the Titan Tex trim, sheer elegance.

The Granturismo has been styled by Pininfarina, who has been responsible for some of the world’s most beautiful cars and this is up there among the best – quite possibly the prettiest car I have ever seen.

With a price tag of almost £100,000, Nick Burke of JCT quite rightly wanted to give >>

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me a practical demonstration to ensure this beauty was in safe hands. The engine fired and like a whirlwind the divine sound hit me…. Wow. We managed a short circuit of the one-way loop before Nick handed me the keys, but before he waved me on my way he kindly offered to tune the radio to my favourite station. Most considerate of him. However I was quick to reply, Nick are you mad – with that exhaust note I don’t need any tunes, the sound of that 4.7 litre engine was bliss enough.

It didn’t stop there; select the sport mode and according to the brochure the exhaust bypass valves open above 3,000 rpm to allow the full power and sound of the engine to be truly appreciated. Well yes, but it also turns the car into a roaring monster waiting to be unleashed, a top speed of 183mph and 0-62mph in 4.9 seconds. This is some car.

Once on the road, I found the car reassuringly stable and once I’d got used to the paddleshift manual gearbox, an absolute dream to drive. The handling is superb and the brakes very responsive – reassuring with so much power under the bonnet.

I’m sure all the dials you’ll ever need are there but to be honest I didn’t have time to look; you just can’t keep your attention way from the roar of that engine.

My five-year-old son summed this up nicely – “it sounds like a racing car”. It is a racing car but a practical one. It has proper rear seats and can comfortably accommodate four adults and although you’d expect a harsh ride, its unique Skyhook system provides automatic and continuous control of the damping, absorbing every irregularity of the road. It drives really smoothly; I could have driven this to the Moon and back and you would have still needed to prise me out, I just didn’t want to leave it.

The Granturismo is a fantastic sports car, but with four seats it’s also a great family car. OK, it’s a few quid more than a Focus, but if you have the wallet this car has got to be on the shortlist. Unfortunately, the options don’t extend to a towbar so if you are a caravaner look elsewhere. I even liked the go-faster stripe, but to be honest it doesn’t need it.

The only problem I had with this car – I had to give it back... n

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FASHION

utility is so cool We may not have just conquered the Eiger but we want to appear as if we have – while still looking good on the train, as Josh Sims reports >>

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Image courtesy of Berghaus

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There is no question that the market is developing an appreciation that a technical garment should look as good as it possibly can “Look at the way water breaks on it into beads and runs off,” says Donrad Duncan.

“That’s an example of how nature provides ideas that we try to emulate. It requires a lot of research and development.”

Duncan, however, is no fruiterer but the designer of a new Italian clothing company called Ma.Strum.

“Most industries apply the latest technologies wherever they can, but that’s much less so in the clothing business,” he says. “The object of clothing design needs to be much more about benefitting the user – and I say user rather than customer.”

The approach is, however, catching on. Ma. Strum is, of course, not the first brand to look at fashion with a more functional approach – clothing as tool rather than trend. Ma.Strum itself is co-created with the Massimo Osti Studio in Italy, revered among menswear aficionados for its pioneering fabric technologies and creating the Stone Island brand. Duncan’s previous job was designing advanced clothing for Swiss Army knife-maker Victorinox, which is moving increasingly into the lifestyle market. Indeed, such is the demand for smart clothing – in the sense of utilitarian design as much as style – that it is increasingly seeing the same market open up for its originators; those brands that have long developed it for specialist use, but which have found customers keen to wear the kit as much to the mall as the moors. According to Paul

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Raw material: Working on colour and print with rolls of fabric in the design studio at Patagonia headquarters in Ventura, California. Image courtesy of Jeff Johnson

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Nature study: Donrad Duncan, designer at new Italian clothing company Ma.Strum

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Anderton, European merchandising manager for Patagonia – previously of Saloman and Berghaus – in large, part of the new appeal of such specialist clothing lies in the greater awareness of and demand for durability and utility which has been fostered by the recession.

“When they have less money to spend people look for clothes that are especially versatile in all situations and are prepared to invest in those that are durable, waterproof, breathable, that have the right pockets and fastenings and so on, rather than pay less for something that just looks like it might have that functionality,” he says.

A more educated consumer – aware as much about cloth and construction as brands, >> thanks in large part to access to information via the internet – has helped fuel interest too.

And a breakdown in dress codes that has seen less and less need for formality in the nine-to-five working world have also encouraged the transition of technical clothing from its intended purpose to tackling the trials of more everyday life.

The specialist brands have certainly preempted this demand too – by providing styles, most notably in outerwear, that look the part as much in an urban environment as in the traditionally day-glo world of outdoor sports.

Anderton notes that supreme utility is not enough if the garment looks unappealing, especially for women, for whom colour, silhouette and the right details remain just as important.

And according to Tim Jasper, brand director of Rohan: “There has been a demand for those items of clothing in particular that move away from that highly functional aesthetic that specialist clothing has traditionally had and towards retaining that functionality in more wearable styles. That can be a problem for the guy who wants to look as though he has just come down off the Eiger, but it works much better for the guy who wants to do that and then not look too out of place waiting for a train.”

Rohan, which has seen business expand to encompass 60 own-brand stores nationally, has consequently introduced the likes of fleeces that look more like conventional knitwear and general use, deconstructed

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The technical jacket says you’re healthy, active, practical, but also suggests a certain old-fashioned manliness that is big in fashion right now blazer-type jackets that also happen to be abrasion-resistant, crease-resistant, breathable and machine-washable.

And, Jasper notes enthusiastically, with zips on the pockets.

The demand for clothing that has as much panache as practicality has spread across sports too. As across the dale, up a mountain or on the snow, so too at sea. If fashion brands have developed their own specialist clothing for sailing over recent years – Prada, for example, has its Luna Rossa line, already with annual sales of more than E20m, while Italian luxury textiles company Loro Piana has recently launched its Regatta clothing collection to celebrate its Superyacht Regatta competition – so specialist sailing brands are becoming more aware that their clothes are not just being worn on deck.

“Marine brands have to be careful not to dilute their perception in the rather insular marine market, but there is no question that the market is developing an appreciation that a technical garment should look as good as it possibly can,” says Matt Gill, product development manager for the Gill brand.

“Now consumers don’t just want bright red, yellow or navy, for example. Up until just a few years ago you would never see classic black. It might be low-visibility in the water but it looks good and has seen real demand.”

Nor is Gill Clothing alone in pursuing more pleasing aesthetics to their specialised

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clothing. Norwegian brand Helly Hansen has sought to blur the fashion/function boundary with its new Ask advanced sportswear line.

Henri Lloyd has teamed up with Japanese fabric and chemical manufacturer Teijin to launch Blue Eco, sailing’s first fully recyclable, waterproof/breathable collection.

But while recessionary pressures, practical lifestyles and changes to the design approach by manufacturers may all be important in shaping this growing cross-over market, none of that touches on one of utilitarian clothing’s biggest draws: image, and especially so for men.

The clothing might suggest an outdoorsy life rarely actually lived – “the technical jacket says you’re healthy, active, practical,” as Anderon puts it – but it also suggests a certain

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old-fashioned manliness that is big in fashion right now. A trend for workwear-oriented style – backpacks, heavy boots, chunky knitwear – has seen technical outerwear embraced in particular, especially any in line with the growing appreciation for so-called heritage brands.

“And this rugged aesthetic not only suits the times, but its comfort and practicality means it’s likely to last much longer than most trends,” says Alastair Rae, co-founder of British menswear brand Albam, which has launched a line of parkas made from Ventile, one of the original, WW2-era technical fabrics.

“It may be fashionable but in a way this is a new appreciation for clothing that is beyond fashion, clothing that is made to be fit for purpose.” n

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FASHION

Image courtesy of Berghaus

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lotus position

It may be madness, but one thing is for sure, designing five new cars in less than a year is going to be exciting. But Lotus has never been short in the ambition stakes, as Josh Sims reports

Donato Coco says he feels rather tired. “This just never happens in the car world,” he says.

“Normally a car company builds on the previous generation of cars. New cars evolve.

We’ve had to pull together all our brand values and start from scratch. As a designer that’s very exciting. So exciting you could die from it...”

Coco is, however, still with us, even if he is no longer with Ferrari. The man who helped shape Ferrari’s F430 Scuderia Coupe, California, and the F458 Italia, among others, has now made the move to design director of Lotus, the relative minnow of a British sports car company that in recent decades has been somewhat on the skids.

He has given up sunny climes for eastern

England. For what? Only to design five new cars in the space of nine months – against the industry norm of one every year or so.

“The design staff went up from 15 members to 65 almost overnight,” he says. “We got them from all over the world – wherever we could find them. And we’ve had to dream up what we’ve done since, otherwise when we woke up each morning we were already late.”

Next year sees the launch of the first dream – a new Esprit V8, returning Lotus to the supercar market and, of course, making a nod to arguably its most memorable model, driven underwater by Roger Moore as James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me. This will be rapidly followed by a new Elise, to take on the Porsche Boxster entry-level market; the Elite, a

two-plus-two coupé more in the mould of Aston Martin’s DB; and the Eterna, Lotus’ first four-door “super-saloon” – all of which will necessarily share a distinctive handwriting.

In short, Lotus is gambling that it can go from historically-significant, fondly-recalled but commercially-stalled has-been to a serious new player in the luxury sports car market almost overnight.

“Why do it? Madness, stupidity, all the usual reasons,” explains a buoyant Dany Bahar, an ex-senior vice-president at Ferrari, and before that the COO of Red Bull and now the new CEO at Lotus. “But then any manager dreams of being able to reawaken a sleeping giant. It’s better than just doing more of what your predecessor did. >>

You have to retain that special enthusiasm for Lotus, one that has survived even the last 15 years when it has been somewhat slowly disappearing

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“This is a massive challenge. There are massive problems. But it’s massive fun. There aren’t many people who would take on Lotus now, not even without its debt, not even if it was for free. So the only response is attack. It’s 50/50, win or lose.”

Amid a recession, they may seem intimidating odds. But Bahar is confident that Lotus can be turned around and a British motoring institution saved – after all, Lotus may now be owned by the Malaysian car-maker Proton, but it was the company’s late founder Colin Chapman who put motor racing on the map in the UK. He made stars of the likes of Mario Andretti and Ayrton Senna. He pioneered many of the clever engineering techniques that became standard in Formula One racing (the company continues to operate a world-class engineering division, contracting to the likes of GM, Toyota, Vauxhall and Dodge). And he created a name legendary in the UK’s autophile circles to stand alongside the likes of Bentley, Rolls Royce, the late Bristol Motors, or the now also re-born Jensen.

Bahar’s plan is simple – to follow up on what Chapman realised back in the 70s, but could not correct, that it is almost impossible to build a business on low-volume, low-margin car manufacture. Instead, as Porsche has done, you need to retain the enthusiasts’ love for the brand while offering a range of cars that target several niche demands, including the latest ones.

“Even the idea of sports cars being sold as

everyday, useable cars was unheard of just 10 years ago,” says Bahar. “But that’s not enough to revive the brand – you have to retain that special enthusiasm for Lotus, one that has survived even the last 15 years, when the company has been somewhat slowly disappearing. Lotus is still up there for those fans even after that.”

Indeed, as well as a design revamp and a market re-positioning, an image overhaul will be part of the turnaround process too. All Lotus cars will continue to be hand-built in England (“not by three robots wherever,” says Bahar); there will be a new emphasis on tapping into the romance of the brand through the launch this autumn of a clothing and accessories line – less the usual car brand promotional spin-offs as an upmarket collection in cotton, cashmere and high-grade leather that mentions Lotus in passing – products that can reach the strong base of fans who love Lotus but cannot afford the cars. And, as of last year, there is the return by Lotus to F1, after an 18-year gap.

“That’s just a no-brainer,” says Bahar. “It’s part of what the company is. Road cars were developed by Chapman just to finance the racing. Lotus is the only company to have won all major racing championships. And, besides which, racing gives us technical credibility. If it works for racing, it will work on the road – and the true sports car customer is someone who still cares about that.”

The company is even going out on a limb in

the most unexpected of ways. The eagle-eyed may have noticed that five new car launches were mentioned, but only four described. The fifth is, remarkably, an electric, four-seater city car concept – chic, nifty, progressive, but hardly something to get the petrol-heads revved up. Yet it points to the revamped company’s new maturity.

“There’s no real reason for launching a car like that,” Bahar concedes. “You could live without it, but the fact is that the whole car market has changed over recent years towards smaller and greener cars, like Smart, Mini, Prius – and we have to recognise that.

Besides, there is still room to do all that with a sportier model.”

Room, certainly, has been something Donato Coco has been pondering too, in between trying to catch some sleep.

“We’ve enjoyed this last year,” he says. “And we’ve suffered a lot. Now we see if it will all work out. The most important thing has been to make sure we don’t repeat mistakes – that we correct previous cars’ limitations.”

What could he be referring to? The horsepower? The power/weight ratio? The handling through that tricky s-bend?

“I met this guy the other week who was a real Lotus fanatic, one of the many around the world,” says Coco. “But he told me he had a problem with them. He was tall and couldn’t get into any of the cars. That’s crazy and such a shame. So we’re making sure you can get in and out of these new cars more elegantly.” n

Road cars were developed by Colin Chapman just to finance the racing.

Lotus is the only company to have won all major racing championships

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ENTREPRENEUR

Good for the long term A wise ability to look at the long-term view has helped Philip Burgan steer his care homes group through all the troubles the industry has seen recently. Peter Baber reports The most strait-laced, double-breasted, pin-striped businessman would probably die before admitting it, but it’s true – business investment can at times be as subject to the whims of fashion as a woman’s hemline.

Nothing illustrates this more than the attitude to the care homes sector in this country. Half a decade ago it was an industry (if you can call it that) that could do no wrong. Banks and investors were falling over themselves to lend money to it, and landowners suddenly found another ready supply of would-be developers

willing to pay way above the going rate.

Much of this enthusiasm was bolstered by companies like Southern Cross, which had even been through a flotation, so great was the demand of people to invest in their success. The rise of the industry was inexorable, we were told, because the UK population as a whole was getting older, and so more people would need care. The small matter of how this care was to be paid for was usually overlooked.

Now cue forward five years and a very

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different picture emerges. Southern Cross pulled out of the industry in July last year, leaving 31,000 people who relied on its care in the lurch, and not before questions had been asked in the financial press about the amount of money its directors had been taking out of the business.

Last autumn saw the airing of a BBC Panorama programme detailing shocking abuse at a care home for people with learning disabilities run by Castlebeck. And then in December a House of Commons Select >>

Intuition: Philip Burgan first bought four care homes in the late 1990s as an investment

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I sat next to Princess Alexandra at a lunch at St James’s palace recently. She had clearly done her homework, but her perception was bad and quite rightly so

Committee report warned that there were still far too many elderly people at risk of neglect in care homes run by an overstretched industry.

Hanging over all of this is one big unanswered question – how are we to pay for our care in old age? When the Dilnot Commission on long-term care suggested last summer that a personal cap of £35,000 should be put on everyone’s long-term care costs, there were widespread claims that even this was too high.

So where is the money to come from?

Philip Burgan, chief executive of the Maria Mallaband Care Group (MMCG), is familiar with these issues. And he admits the industry has something of an image problem. He says he was ashamed to be working in the same industry as Castlebeck when he saw the Panorama programme.

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“I sat next to Princess Alexandra at a lunch at St James’s Palace the other week,” he says.

“She had clearly done her homework, but her perception was all bad, and quite rightly so.”

Fortunately he managed to persuade her otherwise, to see that there are examples of good practice in the industry, and of success.

And chief among these must be his own Leeds-based company.

Starting from a base of running just four care homes in 2002, it runs 142 today, both in care for the elderly and care for autistic patients. It has also taken over 36 of the homes that were being run by Southern Cross, doubling the company’s turnover to around £100m and taking headcount from 1,500 to over 4,000.

He says his initial impressions of his new acquisitions have confirmed some of the claims that were being made about how

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Southern Cross’s financial problems were affecting it standards.

“You can’t believe how badly run they were,” he says. “In Scotland, some of the homes hadn’t had a visit from an area manager in six months. As for the fabric of buildings, they were saving the pennies and missing the pounds. If you had two washing machines and driers, for example, and one pair went down, you would find that they wouldn’t repair them because you still had the other pair, even when the fault was something that doesn’t cost much to repair.

“And everything had to go to head office for approval. They were not using local people.

One home had both its boilers go down on Christmas Eve, but they couldn’t use the local plumber. So the residents had to wait for four days with no hot water or heating until the Southern Cross-designated guy was back on call to drive the 180 miles to fix it.

“They even had a handyman who wasn’t allowed to go up a ladder because of health and safety. When I walked into the home where he worked, the foyer had five bulbs in the ceiling, and four of them were out.”

He had in fact already decided to hive the 36 new homes into a new vehicle called Countrywide Care Homes.

“I didn’t want to taint the MMCG brand with a load of variable quality care homes,” he says.

“I wanted to create a value brand.”

By “value” he insists he means homes that may not be as luxuriously decorated and furnished, and may be in less desirable locations, but have an equal dedication to care.

“The standard of care will be equally as good,” he says.

But he could see the trouble Southern Cross was heading into from many years ago, he says. “Southern Cross outbid me so many times and paid unsustainable prices. The chickens have now come home to roost.”

He thinks the whole investor excitement about care homes could actually have been sensibly dampened down if people had bothered to sit back and take a wider view. Taking long-term angle in business generally is something he is very keen on.

“I have always taken a five- to ten-year view,” he says. “The private equity hype was all >>

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Since 1997 the minimum wage has more than doubled but local authority care home fees have only gone up by 50%.

I don’t want to go down that rocky road

based on demographics, but actually they have been flat for the past five years. They only started going up this year, and the famous ‘J’ curve doesn’t start going up until 2014.”

And, as ever, there is the matter of how the continuing care business is to be funded. It was Burgan’s long-term pessimistic view of this that caused him to move MMCG largely out of providing social service-funded care as long as six years ago.

“In late 2005 I took a step back and looked at the market,” he says. “Even then, prices were starting to overheat. But I couldn’t see how the social service model was going to work, as the large rises in local authority fees we had seen at the start of the decade were starting to slow off, but inflation wasn’t. I thought ‘That’s not really going to work’. So between then and 2008 we started selling off homes

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for elderly care, only buying and building within affluent areas.”

The elderly care business within the company is now 70% private funded.

Burgan says he was particularly cautious over what was happening in the market because he has seen it all before. At the turn of the century, many care homes operators had sold up and left the market because the new Labour government was introducing care standards while the fees local authorities were paying were dwindling. But then local authorities had changed tack and the beginning of the century had seen substantial fee rises.

“Since 1997 the minimum wage has more than doubled,” he says, “but local authority care home fees have only gone up by 50%.

Sooner or later someone is going to realise this

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and we will all go back to 1999, and suddenly see ringfenced money and local authority fees rising 6% or 8% – but only for a short time. I don’t want to go down that rocky road again.

I want to organise my own fees.”

It seems incredible, then, that Burgan is even considering going back into the social service-funded market at all, as he is now considering doing with Countrywide Care Homes. In fact, if, as he claims, the fees local authorities were paying for care were at least £100 a week less than what it costs “to do the job properly” even before the latest public sector cutbacks, what person with a sane business mind would want to enter such a market?

Burgan says it does make sense – if you get the timing right.

“You make profit with difficulty,” he says.

“The only way we make it pay is because the entry price is so low. For example, we are not going to pay £300,000 in rent, so we will renegotiate rents on coming in and pay £150,000 instead. A lot more smaller Southern-Cross-type businesses will go bust, and that will be my opportunity. Supply and demand will come more into kilter, so there will be fewer bed vacancies, and then demographics start to kick in 2014. By that time we will be approaching a new election, so perhaps there will be more money around to give people a feelgood factor. In the meantime we can improve those businesses.

Some of them are overstaffed with administration staff. Certainly with the businesses we have bought so far, the numbers stack up on the day we have bought them.”

This long-term thinking is no doubt part of the reason for the success of the first business Burgan built up, the Medimart retail chemist chain that he successfully sold to German firm Gehe in 1995. He is a pharmacist by training – although he says he soon grew tired of doing the actual pharmacy.

“You are stuck in a room, and a piece of paper comes in and you process it. That’s it for 40 years.”

Fortunately a short subsidiary course on business he did as part of his degree enthralled him, so he tried his hand at management. By the age of 29 he was managing director of

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one small chain, then was headhunted to run a larger chain at 32, but two years later in 1986, having become disenchanted with a boss he felt was too gung-ho, he left there to set up what became Medimart.

He decided to sell out in 1995, however (by which time the gung-ho boss had come a cropper in the early 1990s property slump), because, again, he could see changes on the horizon.

“All the value in running a pharmacy chain was based on the licence,” he says. “But at the time the Government were talking about derestricting the industry completely. All the money I had was tied up in that business.

As it happens those changes never came, but I sold right at the top of the market at the right time.”

After a brief hiatus, during which he lost £1m

ENTREPRENEUR

trying to run his own venture capital fund but made the same amount back on property deals, he decided to acquire four care homes in the late 1990s just as an investment. He brought a manager in to run them, and then spent some years fulfilling a dream to be an international rally driver. Only after that did he consider the care homes business worth developing.

He says: “I bought four more homes, extended them, and then caught the rise in equity as the market was also going up.”

MMCG now, however, is a very different animal from Medimart. For one thing it is much bigger: he never employed more than 250 people at Medimart. As a result, he has had to part company with some management people who have worked with him for many years, because, he felt, they were not up to

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running a bigger organisation. His management team now includes both his son and his son-in-law, although he insists that they have earned their positions on merit and there is no succession in the wings.

“I hate nepotism,” he says.

The changes have also meant that he has had to take much more of a “helicopter” view of his business. But even at the age of 60, that hasn’t dimmed his enjoyment of it.

“All my friends are retiring,” he says. “I met two college friends at a retirement party recently. They were both still pharmacists and I thought, ‘Why am I sat with these two old men?’ But then I realised I am just as old as them. Perhaps it’s my outlook on life. I like doing deals, and I have never enjoyed business as much as I do at the moment.”

It’s certainly a good position to be in. n

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After the split St James Securities was one half of the best known property joint ventures in the North.

Now that the venture has come to an end, Peter Baber finds out what’s in store for the company on its own

When you think of the really big schemes to have graced the Yorkshire commercial property scene in the past few years – the ones that can really be said to have been a game changer for the cities involved – one particular name, CTP St James, seems to have been associated with many of them. Just think about it. The joint venture between Leeds-based St James Securities and Manchester-based CTP – surely a happy Northern compromise if ever there was one – was behind the Round Foundry in Leeds, the Heart of the City Project in Sheffield, and the Wakefield Waterfront scheme, to name but a few.

So it comes as something of a surprise to learn that 2011 will go down as the year the joint venture came to an end. The two companies have split up what remains to be done, which in St James’s case has left it with a couple of development sites in Wakefield and a site next to the existing Round Foundry in Leeds. CTP took care of Sheffield.

Not only that, but the schemes St James Securities (SJS) director Paul Morris seems most enthused about at the moment are much smaller retail-based schemes. When BQ came to interview him – at the company

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headquarters in Bridgewater Place, another high-profile SJS building has since sold on – the company was on the point of putting in an application to build a 32,000sq ft Marks & Spencer Simply Food store on the Leeds Road in Harrogate. This is on a site vacated by Nidd Vale Motors which has, in turn, moved to the company’s St James Business Park in Knaresborough.

In retail terms you would have thought moving any food retailer into Harrogate was a real hot potato, given the furore over the council’s approval of Tesco moving into the genteel town last year. Indeed, Morris concedes that Sainsbury’s attempt to locate a Sainsbury’s Local next to the Mile Post pub up the road has been meet with similar hostility. The M&S scheme, by contrast, won 88% public support when SJS took it out to public consultation.

Does that not say something about the snobbishness of people living in Harrogate, I ask – loving M&S, but not Tesco or Sainsbury’s? Not a bit, says Morris.

“It says we made sure we chose the correct retailer for a gateway site. It’s an incredibly prominent spot.”

But come on, I ask, doing a 32,000sq ft food

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store here, or a new 70,000sq ft warehouse for Bettys & Taylors at the St James Business Park – it’s hardly the kind of earth-shattering development the company was used to in the joint venture days. What has happened? Why has the joint venture come to an end?

“The joint venture had reached the end of its raison d’être,” he says. “The Round Foundry and the Heart of the City were very much around the lines of true regeneration with lots of public money, but it got to the point where there were no new schemes like that, and wouldn’t be for a long time. Our focus was very much going onto retail. You only keep in the joint venture if you are going to get another site and another site.”

In fact, he says, such publicly-funded schemes were on their way out even before the recession and the new Government’s austerity measures put paid to them for good. That was one of the reasons why the Wakefield Waterfront scheme – which former Yorkshire Forward chairman Terry Hodgkinson has admitted was touch and go for a while – proved tricky.

“These schemes do take an awful lot of time, and you need public money on that type of

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SUCCESS STORY

scheme,” says Morris. “I really take my hat off to those authorities who did push regeneration. The problem is that in those locations where you were putting in a lot of commercial office space you were relying on the public sector to take up that space. There just wasn’t a sufficient market otherwise. A lot of the latent demand got taken anyway by business parks such as Calder Park. So when schemes were eventually delivered in the centre, they were all relying on government or quango occupiers.”

SJS is still working on small new regeneration schemes. Paul Morris says it is currently working on an un-named scheme in the North East that, once an 150,000sq ft supermarket is in place, will allow “£4m worth of infrastructure works which no one could afford otherwise”.

“What people have seen in the last 10 years were fantastic schemes,” he says, “but they were of their time. This scheme I am looking at in the North East, for example, would have attracted a load of gap funding before, but we are not going to see that amount of money ever again in my lifetime. We are going back to good, old-fashioned ways of getting a high value use in there, and that high value at the moment happens to be retail. That in itself isn’t easy. Supermarket operators are looking harder and harder at the deals they are agreeing.”

He is keen to point out that SJS, which was founded by Roland Stross and construction boss Roger Quarmby in 1982, is perfectly used to such schemes. “Where we are now is how we operated in the 1990s,” he says. “We did very well out of the previous recession.

Recessions are good times for us. In fact, the hardest time is when you are in a boom, because that is when you make terrible mistakes by buying the wrong thing at the top of the market and hitting as it falls out. >>

Perceptive: Paul Morris is taking advantage of what he calls a flight to quality in the property market

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SUCCESS STORY

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We are going back to good, oldfashioned ways of getting a high value use and that high value use at the moment is retail. That in itself isn’t easy “Through the last decade we did embark on big schemes where there was ERDF money.

But before that, for example, we had probably done more retail in Bradford than anybody – we did Forster Square and Peel Park. We did Seacroft in Leeds too – and that was a real working-in-partnership with Leeds City Council, having to get a compulsory purchase order to demolish the old Seacroft centre and come up with a new district centre.”

But as for the older larger schemes that SJS may have hanging around, Morris says the company will just have to become more

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creative about them – and they may take longer. Stross and Quarmby semi-retired from the business in 2007, and the old schemes are officially being looked after by Quarmby’s son Oliver, but Morris has some ideas about what might happen. He thinks the unexpected success of the new Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield – “150,000 visitors in its first five weeks, when they were expecting that in a year” – means they might try to introduce a leisure use to the remaining sites there.

As for Shaw Lodge, a large mill complex SJS is converting in Halifax, ideas are even more

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distant, but Morris takes inspiration from what happened at Saltaire – always conscious that Halifax already has one development like that in Dean Clough.

“You have to think outside the box,” he says.

“When Jonathan Silver first bought Saltaire, people must have thought, ‘This guy is mad.’

They had just come out of the worst recession ever, and manufacturing was decimated. OK, he happened to be good mates with David Hockney, but I can imagine people in the Wool Exchange laughing their heads off. But you have got to have a vision, and if you believe it, the next biggest hurdle is getting other people to buy in and believe it.”

The most important thing to realise, he says, is that such schemes don’t happen overnight, which is why long-established companies like SJS have an advantage.

“There was a plethora of wannabe developers that emerged throughout the 2000s,” he says, “and that was a problem because they weren’t developers.”

Morris, more than anyone else in Yorkshire, should know, because he has only been a director of SJS since January last year, having come to work for the organisation on a peripatetic basis during 2010. Less than two years before that he was working for one Simon Morris, perhaps the most notorious of all those property “wannabes”, and was there when the Morris Properties empire collapsed amid allegations of fraud. Simon Morris is now serving an 18-month jail sentence after being convicted of blackmailing a former business associate over an unpaid debt.

The Serious Fraud Office investigation into Morris Properties collapsed amid much publicity, and Paul Morris thinks it was right that it should have done so.

“The deals they were investigating had all had panels of valuers approving them,” he says.

“Do you think they would all have let such gross fraud through?”

He thinks Simon Morris was badly advised, even by members of his own family, who he says knew nothing about property.

“The first time I went into their headquarters the first thing I noticed was the heavy gloss black walls in their reception,” he says. “It was exactly what you would expect from an entrepreneur, but we property people would

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never do that. The gross to net on that must have been appalling.”

He says he only agreed to join the company because he wanted to get a taste of property development after a career being a property agent. But he never actually became a director of the company.

“I only invested in special purpose vehicles because I knew there was no risk,” he says.

The two Morrises are in fact unrelated, and Paul says he would usually point this out near the start of any meeting the two of them attended. (I can only imagine that having to do this must have become tiresome quickly – and perhaps not just for him.)

Nevertheless, he remains bitterly angry at Anglo Irish Bank, who he claims initially promised to back him in an attempt to carry £20m of Morris Properties’ debts into a new company, and then reneged.

“They were convinced that Simon was backing me,” he says. “Nothing could have been further from the truth.”

As a result, Paul Morris spent nearly a year away from property, investing instead in a retail venture. However, the bug soon came back and within a few months he was knocking on SJS’s door with property ventures he thought they would be interested in.

“As a joint venture partner they were top of the list,” he says. “I knew this wasn’t a company that would go behind my back, even if I didn’t have anything locked on.”

Soon he was working there full-time, and enjoying what he says is a flight to quality in the market.

“We have the experience here, and the knowledge and the quality,” he says. “So we have gone back into schemes that other people have been working on – schemes where perhaps they have acquired interests in land, but are not in a position to take them forward. We have a good relationship with some of those authorities they have been dealing with, so we have been able to go in and immediately get their respect by saying, ‘We are going to partner with these people, but actually the scheme you wanted to see isn’t really going to happen. However we believe we can deliver it like this.’ And immediately you have the doors open and senior executives want to talk to you.”

SUCCESS STORY

These must be interesting meetings, because Morris’s opinion of local authorities – at least in Yorkshire – is not exactly heartening. He likes his current work in the North East, he says, because councils are much more accommodating there.

“The difference between local authorities in the North East and the ones here is that the ones in the North East will open the doors and say: ‘What can we do for you?’ They want jobs. Certain authorities down here have not cottoned on to the urgency. The agenda wherever you are surely has got to be jobs and growth.”

This is one of the reasons why he is ambivalent about the changes to the planning system. Not because of the Government’s enthusiasm for localism, although he is worried about that, but because he thinks certain authorities will use it as an excuse to delay and do nothing.

His opinion of central government isn’t much higher, however, as he believes the new

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proposed enterprise zones – what he calles ‘Enterprise Zone-lites’ because they are scaled-down versions of previous schemes – will do little to lift the UK out of the doldrums.

He says: “If you look at previous Enteprise Zone activity businesses just moved from one to the other. Instead you could drop corporation tax to 5% for companies that want to locate there, but not for every company – not for property – but for those doing R&D for things like wind energy.

“Even then that might not be enough, because who’s to say the scheme won’t get knocked out after the next election. So make them an Enterprise Zone-turbo – write into the law surrounding them that for 15 years such companies who locate there will only have to pay 5% corporation tax. That way you will get the Nissans we got in the late 1980s.”

Needless to say, he can see a role for SJS here, in building the business parks that would be in hot demand as a result. n

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INVESTMENT

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Still worth investing in A snapshot of Yorkshire business leaders produced by BQ and UBS Wealth Management reveals just how much investment is still going on in the region, even in the downturn UBS Wealth Management’s Yorkshire office has teamed up with BQ Yorkshire magazine to talk to some of the people who help drive the region’s economy through business investment.

Here, we highlight the Yorkshire Investor Directors, a group of business people who have helped their companies grow by investing in expansion, new premises, new technology and, most importantly, Yorkshire people.

The Yorkshire Investor Directors listing is a snapshot of business leaders, each with a story to tell, from retail entrepreneurs to technology to finance. In each case we take a close look not just at what the business does, but how much has been invested in it for future growth as well.

Neil King, director at UBS’s Yorkshire office, says: “The Yorkshire Investor Directors gives a fantastic insight into some of the people who lead businesses which are making a substantial contribution to Yorkshire’s economic landscape.

“This is not a definitive list of all of the businesses making a difference in the region – we know from the work we are doing here in Yorkshire that this could take up several issues of BQ magazine.

“Some of the directors are leading well-known firms, large and small, while others are hidden gems of the Yorkshire economic picture. What links them all is a willingness to push forward

and make money available to drive their business forward. Today we recognise those people for their contribution to Yorkshire’s success.”

The survey is most topical because UBS Wealth Management, a company which currently looks after assets worth two trillion Swiss francs worldwide, selected Yorkshire to establish its latest UK office due to the strong potential for growth in an area that demonstrates impressive entrepreneurial flair and heritage. The Leeds office, at 1 City Square, is UBS’s sixth UK office, following on from London, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Manchester and Birmingham.

The team at the Yorkshire office have more than 55 years of wealth management experience. They include regional head Andrew Aitken as well as Neil King, Karen Vardy and Claire Kerr. They are aiming to offer holistic and bespoke advice to high net worth families and individuals in the Yorkshire and Humberside region using the full capabilities of UBS global platform.

BQ Yorkshire editor Peter Baber says: “Yorkshire’s economy cannot thrive without people such as Yorkshire Investor Directors and it is important that we acknowledge the crucial role they play.

“The research project UBS has undertaken reflects BQ’s desire to promote the excellent work of businesses in Yorkshire.” n

This is not a definitive list of all the businesses making a difference in the region – we know from the work we are doing here in Yorkshire that this could take up several issues of BQ magazine BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 11

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Omar Bhamji, managing director, CK Foods, Hull.

Activity: Established in 2005, CK Food Processing was founded on the principles of providing added value to an ever-evolving market. Through extensive market research the company found that existing suppliers were not fulfilling client expectations in several key areas. CK Food Processing has worked closely with Europe’s major cheese producers to form unique pizza cheese blends which are fully responding to the demands of the pizza cheese industry. Furthermore, the company has developed revolutionary brands which are now highly regarded among the UK’s market leaders.

Investment: Over £3.5m has been invested in a new purpose-built factory being constructed in Bradford, which is aimed at strategically positioning CK Foods as a provider for local, national and international markets through the provision of creative and technological enhancements in the food processing sector.

Dr Henry Shirman, managing director, MTL Group, Rotherham Activity: MTL Group is among the fastestgrowing contract manufacturing specialists in the metal sector and laser cuts, bends, machines and fabricates steel to customer requirements in the defence, construction, rail and renewable-energy sectors. Its customers include BAE, JCB, Caterpillar, Rheinmetall and others in the offshore wind energy sector.

Since a management buyout in 2006, the group’s turnover has tripled to over £50m Investment: In February, the group spent £5m relocating its operations to a facility in Rotherham. This will allow further growth and yield significant operational efficiencies. In the last year the group has invested heavily in

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INVESTMENT

offshore wind technology with the development of a new twin head, high definition plasma cutter, a robotic plasma pipe cutter and additional bespoke handling equipment. This has resulted in the group winning its biggest-ever export order. The company has recruited 16 new apprentices this year. In the last six months, headcount has increased by 10% to more than 350.

Export turnover has increased rapidly and will increase from 8% of sales last year to 22% of sales this year.

George Baker, managing director, KRL Group, Willerby, East Yorkshire Activity: KRL Group is a photocopier and print specialist which has adapted from solely providing mechanical services to clients to offering consultancy work aimed at helping customers establish the most cost-effective ways of meeting their print requirements. The company underwent a management buyout in November 2009.

Investment: Since the MBO, the company has invested around £80,000 in software and hardware, with developments including the ability to remotely log into clients’ IT systems.

It has also invested in new staff and training, as well as external consultants to help shape the business to meet future demands. The result of the investments has been improved service to customers, as well as new contracts with businesses including the Hull-based Sewell Group.

Philip Burgan, chairman and chief executive, Maria Mallaband Care Group, Westcourt, Gelderd Road, Leeds Activity: Maria Mallaband Care Group is one of the UK’s largest care home providers with a total of 112 homes across the UK, including 76 luxury homes for private fee payers, as well as a further 36 under the Countrywide Care Homes sub-brand which cater for customers referred through social services channels.

Burgan founded the group – named after his grandmother – 15 years ago, following a career running a chain of pharmacies. Initially, he purchased four homes to establish the group, before taking advantage of improved market conditions around 2002 to start the growth of the business to its current size.

Stuart Turner, Founder, Sushi Sushi, Longfields Court, Barnsley Activity: Sushi Sushi began on a laptop in Stuart Turner’s kitchen. It was a small informative blog, with just a few ingredients for sale. Four years later, the business runs from a large warehouse in South Yorkshire and has a team of full-time customer service, warehouse and web employers.

Investment: A new website, www.sushitrade.co.uk allows diversification from retail to trade. This has involved recruiting staff and employing an engineering company to manufacture sushi-making machines. The end goal is to sell them to the Japanese market.

Investment: In 2011, Maria Mallaband Care Group bought 35 homes, mainly in the north of England, from Southern Cross. Nine of these are in Yorkshire and the expansion of the group’s homes has also boosted staffing in the company’s Leeds head office. Taking on the homes from their former operator also secured a total of 2,250 jobs. Burgan has plans to continue his investment to double the size of the Countrywide Care Homes brand.

Read more about Philip Burgan on page 64.

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Sally Robinson, owner, Amplebosom. com, Old Byland, Helmsley, York Activity: Founded in 1999, online lingerie retailer Amplebosom.com is a true example of farming business diversification, which now employs seven people, plus founder Sally Robinson. Having already opened the family farm up to bed-and-breakfast guests and as a National Park cafe, farmer’s wife Sally spotted a gap in the market, with many independent shops which sold bras closing down. Farm >>

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INVESTMENT

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buildings were converted into warehousing and investment in technology has helped the firm grow.

Investment: More than £60,000 was invested in technology in 2011, following the introduction of better broadband to the village. This has allowed a complete revamp of the website, making it more user-friendly and allowing it to be hosted in a retail cloud platform. The savings this introduced covered the cost of the business’ hard copy catalogues.

Martin Port, managing director, BigChange and BigChange Mobile Activity: BigChange is a change consultancy, aimed at small - to medium-sized businesses to help increase growth and turn around stagnant or struggling businesses. BigChange Mobile is the exclusive distributor in Europe of an in-vehicle computer. Its technology aims to ensure commercial vehicle drivers have all the information they need to ensure they drive and work efficiently.

Investment: Martin Port recently invested a six-figure sum into BigChange Mobile as a new technology start-up. BigChange Mobile owns Micronet Europe which launched in Leeds in 2011. It aims to create 100 jobs and to have revenues of £10m within two years.

Ian Townsend, chairman, Reset Training, Upper Dunsforth, York Activity: Reset Training has devised a pioneering competence management system which aims to help any organisation find out instantly whether individuals and companies have the qualifications, accreditations and competences to do their job. A card-driven access management system, RCS, aims to give customers control of contractors and help them manage risk assessments, method statements and compliance. An app for smartphones allows highways and rail maintenance companies to check on-the-spot where workforces are. The RCS has been adopted by Leeds Bradford Airport and the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

Investment: £200,000 has recently been invested in Reset by a group of Yorkshire businessmen, including Townsend himself. This has enabled Reset to expand and to cope with the growing demand for its RCS card. The

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 11

Jonathan Turner, chief executive, Bayford & Co, Bramham, Wetherby Activity: Jonathan Turner’s business interests include one of the largest fuelcard providers to businesses across the UK, as well as various commercial, residential and retail property interests. He is a major investor in pollution prevention and water leak detection and in a new business providing action and adventure kit for boys.

Investment: Has recently launched another fuelcard business in partnership with Shell.

company hopes to create around 50 jobs over the next few years.

Stuart Paver, managing director, Pavers, Upper Poppleton, York Activity: Pavers Ltd is a multi-channel shoe retailer operating in more than 100 stores.

Investment: In 2011 Pavers launched its own TV shopping channel – Paversshoes.tv on the Sky platform. Costing £1m to launch, it is the first single-product TV channel in the world and allows customers to purchase how, where and when they choose. As well as interests in the UK and Ireland, Pavers has also invested heavily in its retail and manufacturing project in India operating under the Pavers England banner.

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Chris Hopkins, managing director, Ploughcroft, Eco Roof Visitor Centre, Brighouse Activity: Ploughcroft started out as a building and roofing company, but has expanded with the development of the UK’s first renewable training academy that is City & Guilds accredited, to become a leading solar renewable installer. The firm has also redeveloped its solar roof training course, which has now been placed on the curriculum for industry training.

Investment: In the last year, over and above a significant injection of capital from two of the panel on TV’s Dragons’ Den, Hopkins has invested more than £250,000 of his own money into the development of the training centre, an Eco Visitor Centre, and into staff, training and new vehicles. In two years, staffing has tripled from 20 to 60.

John Laing, managing director, Caledonian Plastics, Sheffield Activity: Founded in 1966, Caledonian Plastics is an injection and blow-moulding firm specialising in technical mouldings for a variety of customers in the automotive, leisure, food and DIY sectors.

Investment: An investment of £150,000 has bought a new injection moulding machine to boost the company’s clean room which caters for clients in the medical sector.

David Baynes, chief executive, Fusion IP, Sheffield Activity: Fusion IP works with the University of Sheffield and Cardiff University to take the ideas created by these institutions and transform them into technology for business.

It currently has 24 companies at various stages of development, having built them from start-ups. Of these, 14 are in Yorkshire.

Investment: Fusion IP invests around £2m a year into the companies, raising a further £8m per annum from outside investors.

Chris Ives, founder, Ilkley Brewery, Ilkley Activity: Ilkley Brewery is a brewer and distributor of beer founded in 2009. The brewery also has partnerships with other such businesses which allows its beers to be

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distributed nationally and to break into new markets.

Investment: A £250,000 investment has seen the brewery move from its former site, which only had capacity to brew 12,000 pints a week, to new premises capable of producing up to 33,000 pints a week.

Mike Briggs, managing director, Accurate Laser Cutting, Leeds Activity: Established in Leeds in 2010, servicing clients mainly across West Yorkshire and into the North West and North East. The company aims to provide fast turnaround work across a range of industries in architecture, automotive manufacture and sign making.

Investment: The initial set-up cost of £600,000 included the purchase of laser cutting equipment. The firm now employs a total of eight people.

Simon and Julie Ellison, managing directors, Zyro, Thirsk Activity: Founded in 1995 by Simon and Julie Ellison and markets more than 30 brands exclusively to cycling and outdoor specialist retailers nationwide. Zyro also designs, develops and markets three own-brands, including Altura bikewear and luggage, Bodyfit saddles and Tortec racks, mudguards and other general cycling accessories.

Investment: Having originally moved to Thirsk in 2004, Zyro has invested in increasing office and warehousing capabilities by 67% over the past two years to a total of 50,000sq ft. A subsequent 25% growth in staff takes it to a total of 110.

Phillip Murphy, owner, Wetherby Whaler, Wetherby Activity: The Wetherby Whaler group includes four high quality fish and chip restaurants in Wetherby, Wakefield, York and Pudsey. Phillip and Janine Murphy began trading in fish and chips in 1969 in Tadcaster. The second generation of Murphys – Phillip and Janine’s daughters – are now also involved in the business.

Investment: In 2011, an investment of more than £300,000 saw a major refurbishment of the Wakefield restaurant. This followed a major £500,000 refurbishment of the York

restaurant in 2009 and a prior £700,000 spend on the purchase of the Pudsey Wetherby Whaler restaurant, taking the investment in the last five years to £1.5m. The potential purchase of a new major flagship site in Yorkshire is under consideration.

Kai Arter, managing director, Badgequo, Silsden Activity: Badgequo designs, develops and manufactures a wide range of cosmetics and toiletries sold under the company’s own brands, Body Collection and Technic, as well as value-end private label brands for high street retailers.

Investment: In June 2011 the company obtained funding from Finance Yorkshire, which was made up of an £800,000 equity investment and a £100,000 business loan to help ambitious growth and development plans, with particular focus on further expansion into the European market.

Chris Rea, managing director, AES Engineering, Rotherham Activity: The company designs, manufactures and distributes highly-engineered mechanical

INVESTMENT seals used in rotating equipment to stop the leakage of fluids and gases.

Investment: The company invested in the acquisition of three bolt-on businesses during 2010/11. It increased capital expenditure and working capital to support the group’s organic growth, which increased from an £86m turnover in 2009 to £123m in 2011.

David Hartley, managing director, Wensleydale Dairy Products, Hawes Activity: Wensleydale Dairy Products hand-crafts cheese, using recipes which rely on milk from local farms.

The firm employs more than 200 people, supplying major multiple retailers and wholesalers, as well as the export and food service markets. David Hartley was part of the team which, in 1992, completed a management buyout, after Dairy Crest closed the creamery.

Investment: The business also operates as a Yorkshire Dales tourist attraction. An extensive makeover has revitalised the Wensleydale Creamery Visitor Centre which is expected to see an additional 50,000 visitors a year, taking the total to more than 250,000.

Ken BrookChrispin, chief executive, Seabrook Crisps, Bradford Activity: Founded in 1945 by Colin Brook, Seabrook Crisps is Britain’s fastest growing quality crisp brand.

The company was the first to launch crinkle-cut crisps in the 1950s and the first to use healthier alternatives such as sunflower oil and sea salt. Seabrook produces over seven million packets of crisps a week using Yorkshire potatoes and is available in more than 10,000 outlets throughout the UK. Investment: Currently spending £2.5m on investment in its factory, the final phase of a £5.5m programme started three years ago to grow from a regional player to a leading national crisp brand. The business has also invested significant amounts of resource in new product development.

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BIT OF A CHAT

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Curie Cancer Hospice in Bradford. Marie Curie was Gordons’ chosen charity for 2011 and the tournament, which this year attracted 25 teams from across the county, is now in its eighth year.

Pearson Jones managed to beat Yorkshire Bank in the final by two goals to nil.

Still touring: Sir Cliff and his entourage

with Frank Tock

>> Wired for wakey

>> All adding up No, this is not a group of accountants trying to find the missing figures.

This is what some of a group of 300 staff from the Leeds office of PricewaterhouseCoopers did on the firm’s annual volunteering day in October.

Among the activities that took place was this flashmob, who later went around the city centre selling cakes to raise money for local social enterprise Create, which aims to train vulnerable people to enter the catering industry, and opened a restaurant in the city centre this summer.

Other activities included running sessions on interviews and CV writing at a local job centre, launching PWC’s support of a breakfast club at Hunslet Moor Primary School, and running interactive workshops with pupils at South Leeds Academy.

>> Pearson jones wins through Congratulations to the team from Pearson Jones which won a five-a-side football tournament organised by law firm Gordons that managed to raise £2,600 for the Marie

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 11

News comes to us from the Waterton Park Hotel, near Wakefield. The four-star hotel, it turns out, has recently had a rather famous visitor in residence.

Yes, none other than Cliff Richard chose it as a place to stay while rehearsing for his ‘Soulicious’ UK tour. Then, in an almost throwaway line afterwards, we are told that among his entourage were “icons of the 50s and 60s Percy Sledge and Lamont Dozier”. Now, I have nothing against Sir Cliff himself – just a fleeting bar or two of “Whenever God Shines His Light”, his 1989 duet with Van Morrison, brings tears of nostalgia back to my eyes – but come on, Percy Sledge and Lamont Dozier! I am much more interested in finding out why these two men who together brought us more soul ballads than most wedding singers could muster chose to spend their days in the UK in good old Wakey. Was it, as Mr Dozier himself might have said, a case of “I Hear A Symphony” whenever he hears the word “Yorkshire”? Or, given that Waterton Park is actually situated on an island in a lake, was it more likely a case of there being “Nowhere Run” while he was there? Or, as Mr Sledge would also have sung, that there were ‘Too Many Rivers To Cross”?

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>> Nice one you reds Ooh, how delicious. After years of hearing Mancunians and other people from t’other side of t’Pennines claim that there was no way they would be envious of God’s own county, and after years of suspecting that they were lying, guess what? Now we have proof. It turns out that the team trying to put Manchester forward as the location for the Green Investment Bank was so enamoured of the Leeds entry that they copied it – word for word.

A web page setting out Manchester’s credentials for being the headquarters for the new Government-backed venture was copied straight out of a similar page extolling the virtues of Leeds. In fact, so sloppy had the copying been that in some parts the new page still referred to the city whose praises it was singing as Leeds. Now those people over the Pennines are claiming that it was all because a firewall wasn’t working properly, and that the page wasn’t yet meant to be seen by the viewing public. Even if that is true, it leaves you wondering what other secret admissions they have hidden behind other barriers – whatever kind of physical or cyberspace barriers those may be.

>> This is the worst of times Finally some sobering thoughts to end on.

Introducing the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICEAW) Business Advice Network to an invited audience in Sheffield, its executive director Mark Protherough chose to use the experience of his own son to demonstrate just how bad the current economic downturn really is. The lad, he said, had passed out of Leeds University with a very good degree two-and-a-half years ago. Yet, apart from a low-paid six-month stint in a factory, he has been unemployed ever since.

This really got me. When even a director of an institution which supports a profession which has networking in its bloodstream can’t get any kind of break for his own son, times must indeed be hard. Let’s hope Mr Protherough’s son gets some better news soon.

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EVENTS DIARY

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BQ’s business events diary gives you lots of time to forward-plan. If you wish to add your event to the list send it to: editor@bq-magazine.co.uk

JANUARY

10 The Met Club Harrogate Business Luch. 12-2.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

11 The Met Club – Yorkshire’s own networking club. Mint Hotel, Leeds, 5.307.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

13 The Met Club Leeds Phone Apps Seminar. 8.30-10.30am. For more details ring 01423 525622.

12 Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber Pure Networking. Leeds United Football Ground, 7.30-9.30am. For more details visit www.yourchamber.org.uk

14 The Met Club Barnsley Breakfast. 8.30-10.30am. For more details ring 01423 525622.

12 The Met Club Harrogate Breakfast. White Hart Hotel, Harrogate, 8.3010.00am. For more details ring 01423 525622.

16 The Met Club – Yorkshire’s own networking club. Cedar Court Grand, York, 5.30-7.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

17 The Met Club Leeds Breakfast. Cas Mia Millennium, 8.30-10.00am. For more details ring 01423 525622.

20 The Met Club Harrogate Breakfast. 8.30-10.00am. For more details ring 01423 525622.

17 Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Scarborough Business Lunch. Royal Hotel, Scarborough, 12-2.00pm. For more details visit www.yourchamber.org.uk

28 The Met Club Leeds Networking Lunch. 12noon-1.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

18 The Met Club York Networking Lunch. 12.00-1.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

19 Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber Pure Networking. Dean Court Hotel, York, 7.30-9.30am. For more details visit www.yourchamber.org.uk 19 Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Business Forum. HSBC, York, 4.00-6.00pm.

For more details visit www.yourchamber.org.uk 20 The Met Club Harrogate Ladies Lunch. White Hart Hotel, Harrogate, 12noon2.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

26 The Met Club Leeds video blogging seminar. 8.30-10.30am. For more details ring 01423 525622.

27 The Met Club Leeds Business Lunch. Mint Hotel, 12noon-2.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

27 Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber Annual Dinner. With guest speaker Steve Wood, president of strategy for IBM UK & Ireland. Queen’s Hotel, Leeds, 6.45pm-midnight. For more details visit www.yourchamber.org.uk

MARCH 1 Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber Pure Networking. Leeds United Football Ground, 7.30-9.30am. For more details visit www.yourchamber.org.uk.

1 The Met Club – Yorkshire’s own networking club. Hotel du Vin, Harrogate, 5.307.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

6 The Met Club Harrogate Social Media Seminar. 8.30-10.30am. For more details ring 01423 525622.

7 The Met Club – Yorkshire’s own networking club. Mint Hotel, Leeds, 5.307.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

14 The Met Club – Yorkshire’s own networking club. Yo Yo Bar & Restaurant, Bradford, 5.30-7.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

16 The Met Club Harrogate Networking Lunch. 12noon-1.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

19 The Met Club Leeds Breakfast. 8.30-10.00am. For more details ring 01423 525622.

31 Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber Tourism Lunch. York Marriott Hotel, 12noon-2.00pm. For more details visit www.yourchamber.org.uk

21 Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber Pure Networking. Bedern Hall, York, 7.30-9.30am. For more details visit www.yourchamber.org.uk

31 The Met Club – Yorkshire’s own networking club. Cedar Court Hotel, Wakefield, 5.30-7.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

22 Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber Harrogate Business Lunch.

Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate, 12.00-2.00pm. For more details visit www.yourchamber.org.uk

FEBRUARY 2 Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber Pure Networking. Leeds United Football Ground, 7.30-9.30am. For more details visit www.yourchamber.org.uk.

2 The Met Club – Yorkshire’s own networking club. Hotel du Vin, Harrogate, 5.307.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

8 Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber York Business Lunch. York Racecourse, 12.00-2.00pm. For more details visit www.yourchamber.org.uk 8 The Met Club – Yorkshire’s own networking club. Mint Hotel, Leeds, 5.307.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

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27 The Met Club York Networking Lunch. 12noon-1.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

27 Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber York Property Forum. Royal York Hotel, 5.00-7.00pm. For more details visit www.yourchamber.org.uk 29 The Met Club Leeds Ladies Lunch. Mint Hotel, Leeds, 12noon-2.30pm. For more details ring 01423 525622.

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

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2 SPECIAL REPORT: access to finance who is right?

We hear the argument and listen to the reply every day – businessmen say banks aren’t lending, only for them to say they are. Over the next 18 pages we find out how to maximise much-needed funds from financial institutions, if indeed they are available in the first place. But there are also other ways to look at liquidity – there is always an alternative...

ACCESS TO FINANCE

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A dental firm gets its teeth into working capital, ready advice on slow winter cashflow, farming is the new black, soup gets hotter, oil lubricates business, and timber merchants grow internationally >> Oiling the deal Brighouse-based Millers Oils is more than a century old and still family-run.

The company supplies blend oils and lubricants to a wide range of customers, who in recent years have included the British Touring Cars Championship. But an EIB loan helped the company revamp and expand its premises, while a further £750,000 in EIB funding and £500,000 finance from Lombard this year helped fund further expansion which included the development of an R&D lab. In two years the total amount of funding the bank’s organisations have sent the business’s way amounts to £2m.

Gary Smith, relationship director at NatWest, said: “Millers has a well-known brand worldwide and are a proud Yorkshire business.”

to buy food locally and want to focus on quality. There has also been an increase in people going to agricultural college.”

Philip Platts said: “With the global surge in prices for food and an increase in commodity prices, we are hopeful that we can consolidate the operating costs of the farm with the new facilities and expand our milk production with the fully automated milking parlour.”

The business now employs five staff.

The funding package was put together by Barclays Business agricultural manager David Williams. He said: “Barclays Business remains committed to the agricultural sector and this deal highlights our appetite to support quality customers in a tough market.”

>> Farming is back Barclays divisional director James Cliffe says the investment his bank has made in Wakefield-based dairy farm N H Platts and Son is yet another example of how agricultural is now becoming a popular sector to invest in again.

The business, based in West Bretton, just next to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, was established in 1954 and farms 490 acres. It grows feed crops for its livestock and milks more than 200 cows.

The new funding has helped it expand its operations with a new dairy parlour and a slurry silo.

“There has been a strong growth in all parts of agriculture, although obviously renewables are important with the £100m renewables fund for farms our bank launched earlier this year,” says James Cliffe. “But generally farmers are investing much more. This is probably because commodity prices have increased so much, but it is also because more and more people want

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>> Extra bite An extra £1m in working capital from NatWest has helped dental implant manufacturer Neoss speed up its export growth.

The £15m-turnover Harrogate company, which is still only 11 years old, already exports over 95% of its products to dental laboratories and practices and universities in Europe and the North America. It has subsidiares in Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, Austria, Sweden and the US.

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NatWest senior relationship manager Paul Dawson said: “Neoss is a great example of a successful UK business which manufactures and exports a quality, niche product.

“Its founders have a wealth of experience and have built a strong international client base.”

>> New movers Lambson Building Products, which supplies laminated timber to the leisure industry switched to the UK offshoot of Israeli bank Leumi three months ago after it became unhappy with the arrangements from its incumbent high street clearing bank. The Castleford company had been through five changes of relationship manager and was also finding a lack of flexibility in the funding it provided.

The refinance and re-banking package involved a £5m ABL facility from Leumi ABL, as well as £4.44m from Bank Leumi (UK) to support the business with stock finance, property finance, and a multi-option and foreign exchange facility.

John Walsh, regional sales manager at Leumi ABL, said: “Lambsons has an excellent reputation and the business has remained robust throughout the economic downturn, taking advantage of new opportunities and developing new markets.”

Glenn Monkman, managing director of the 40-year-old company, says he is very happy with the new arrangements: “We have dedicated support and any issues are resolved promptly and efficiently which is a welcome change for us,” he says. “Due to purchases our business makes in euros and US dollars, we needed a facility that would give us real flexibility and we found that, unlike other organisations, the Leumi UK team took the time to listen to and understand our requirements and came up with a completely tailored solution.”

“I want to focus on the next job not chase payment for the last one” John Quinlivan Premier Cleaning & Transport Services Ltd.

Late invoice payments used to be a real problem for me. Now Bibby Financial Services advance cash raised against my sales ledger within 24 hours, everything runs more smoothly. I’ve got the cash flow I need to pay my staff and suppliers on time and make quick business decisions when I need to. Outstanding invoices are collected for me, so I can spend that time building business. I appreciate knowing that Thomas, my Client Manager, is always at the end of the phone too.

Like to access the cash in your business?

Talk to Your Invoice Finance Experts on 0800 www.bibbyfinancialservices.com

91 95 92 Your Invoice Finance Experts

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Providing for Provender Ripon-based soup producer Yorkshire Provender has now managed to relocate its business into bigger premises in Leeming Bar and invest in new plant and equipment, thanks to funding from Barclays.

The company, which currently employs 22 people, was set up in 2001 by Terry and Belinda Williams.

It sells its soup to national supermarkets, including Asda, Booths, Co-op, Morrison’s, Sainsbury’s, Somerfield, Tesco and Waitrose, and has been enjoying a big increase in demand.

Williams said: “We’ve expanded quite rapidly with the launch of new products and we simply outgrew our Ripon premises. With the new financial structure in place we’ve been able to invest in new plant and equipment

Mike Wicks, Barclays relationship director, with Yorkshire Provender owner Terry Williams which will allow us to increase production and expand our new product lines.”

Mike Wicks, Barclays business manager in North Yorkshire, said: “Yorkshire Provender is

a growing business with an excellent management team and a strong product and brand. It’s great to see a company thriving in the current economic climate.”

How businesses can protect themselves against the impact of a severe cold snap this winter Mark Storey, managing director Bibby Financial Services Yorkshire As the country braces itself for severe weather which is expected to bring harsh winds, heavy rain and even snow, businesses will be thinking back to last year when a cold snap had a lasting, damaging effect on the small and medium business community.

The Federation of Small Business (FSB) predicted that the unprecedented bad weather at the end of 2010 cost UK businesses between £600m and £1bn every day, while the FSB put the figure as high as £250m, with 10% of the UK workforce being affected.

To reduce the impact this time around, business managers and owners should be making prior arrangements to ensure productivity doesn’t grind to halt at any point in the months ahead. Businesses of all sizes are

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heading into the new year under increasing financial pressure as the European economy seemingly edges closer to recession than recovery. Contingency plans should now be made to ensure a stress-free winter and maximise chances for growth in spring, when hopefully the green shoots of recovery return.

Businesses should make arrangements in advance of the bad weather for staff to work from home, ensuring measures have been put in place, such as remote internet access, that will help things run as smoothly as possible.

Firms should also consider offering employees flexible working hours to give them the best chance of negotiating treacherous conditions and more options on when they need to get to work.

It is small, and medium-sized businesses which suffer most from bad weather and any consequent loss of trade, because they find it

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harder to absorb a drop in sales than larger organisations.

The construction industry in particular, relies on a healthy cashflow to purchase raw materials and pay workers. If a project is put on hold for a sustained period of time this creates a funding bottleneck which has a major knock-on effect across the business.

It is preparation for these difficult periods which is now imperative. Ensuring a healthy cashflow will help bridge the gap between invoices being raised and receipt of payment.

Invoice finance can help business owners achieve this, the funding and comprehensive credit management solution helps maintain cash flow by releasing a percentage of the value of their outstanding customer invoices as soon as they are raised, overcoming the impact of late payments and any loss of trade.

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COMPANY PROFILE

Access to finance should not provide a stumbling block for business growth in a post-recession climate

By Bibby Financial Services managing director, Mark Storey

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He resounding sentiment from small and medium-sized enterprises following the Chancellor’s recent Autumn Statement was that the Government is failing to address the ongoing issue of access to finance, which remains a major stumbling block to business growth.

“Despite George Osborne announcing £40bn will be put towards credit easing for small and medium-sized businesses as part of the ‘National Loan Guarantee’ scheme, this will be aimed at those businesses with a turnover of up to £50m.

“The problem with this is that the banks are being set to offer lower cost loans because of the credit easing but the bank levy is set to rise in January.

So banks will be making less money on these loans, but being taxed more for them. This would make them less likely, unless they are Government controlled banks and this can be enforced, to lend to small and medium sized businesses.

“Fundamentally, it is hard to understand how this will work as the bank levy will prevent many firms gaining access to vital funding. The move is well-intentioned, but we may well see a marked division between what Government and non-Government controlled banks are able to offer businesses. Across the board however, this move will make the banks feel like they are being hit again and the worry is that they become even more averse to lending.

“Our own research shows that more than two-thirds (67 per cent) of UK small and medium-sized enterprises have not applied for external funding over the past 12 months.

Following the Chancellor’s budget announcement, 25 per cent of the 1,000 businesses we sampled think the Government’s approach to funding is unrealistic and unlikely to achieve positive results.

Furthermore, 61 per cent do not believe the Government is providing the right support for economic growth which suggests a serious mismatch.

“On top of this, a study by SME Finance Monitor found that more than a fifth of the country’s 4.5

one viable alternative to bank loans and overdrafts is invoice finance, for which the level of funding to businesses has risen to its highest since the start of the recession million small and medium-sized firms looking for funding would be putting it off for the next three months due to a perception that the process would be “too much hassle”.

“These findings highlight not only many businesses’ reluctance to apply for finance at present but a lack of awareness of other forms of funding.

“One viable alternative to bank loans and overdrafts is invoice finance, for which the level of funding to businesses has risen to its highest since the start of the recession, according to new figures from the Asset Based Finance Association (ABFA).

“In Q3 of this year the total funding for businesses using this flexible form of finance has risen by nine per cent on last year, to reach £16billion, with one of the strongest areas of growth in export, supporting the Government’s ambition of seeing an export-led recovery.

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“However, more can be done to educate firms to this form of funding, as the number of businesses using invoice finance has remained static over the past 12 months, which is disheartening as we know there are many business owners and manager in need of support and there are billions of pounds readily available.

“The future recovery of the economy will be driven by the success of the small and medium-sized business community in the UK, so it absolutely vital that those firms do not fail because cash flow dries up, especially when there are funding facilities available.

“Invoice finance, a funding and comprehensive credit management solution, helps business owners bridge the gap between invoices raised and payment, by releasing a percentage of the value of their outstanding customer invoices as soon as they are raised. This eases cash flow pressure and overcomes the impact of late payments.

“It is beneficial for those looking to start in business, or growing their company through to more well established businesses and for firms looking to restructure their finances. It is also suitable for a wide range of industry sectors from traditional manufacturing, to wholesalers, the service industry as well as transport, IT and construction.

“For those businesses looking to overcome economic difficulties and move towards a period of growth in 2012, now is the time to explore available funding options which can make an immediate and positive impact on their business.”

To find out more about Bibby Financial Services visit www.bibbyfinancialservices.com 0800 91 95 92

BUSINESS QUARTER |WINTER 11

ACCESS TO FINANCE

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Getting a hold of it Business advisers say banks aren’t lending, but banks bring out figures to show they are. Who is right, asks Peter Baber. In a special report, we consider in detail what you as a company need to do to get access to finance

Does Leeds need a network of mixologists?

Murdo Macleod certainly seems to think so.

Last year this former regional manager for Britvic Pepsi decided the time had come to break out on his own and launch such a business based in the city.

For those who may still not know, mixology is the art of mixing cocktails, and mixologists like to consider themselves a cut above your average cocktail barman.

“Mixologists are more sophisticated than bar staff,” says Macleod. “We are trying to train bar staff to use more than just a little bit of Bombay Sapphire, for example.”

He now has a network of 35 freelance mixologists from Yorkshire and further afield in the north, who he keeps control of through an online database where they can swap shifts to suit their lifestyle.

“We can do everything from a hen party for six in a flat to a marquee with 250 people,” says Macleod. “I can also supply canapés through third party suppliers.”

The company is expanding through the corporate world – it recently ran a nonalcoholic cocktail event for Lloyds TSB. And, thanks to Macleod’s connections in the world of clubbing – he used to work at the Ministry of Sound – during the summer months Zest Mixology operates in Ibiza as well.

It does sound an idyllic, even hedonistic lifestyle.

But is Zest Mixology really the kind of company that is going to be prospering in these austere times? It would seem that it is: in its first year the company made £145,000, and this year Macloed says they are on target to turn over £250,000.

What’s perhaps even more unexpected is that this is a company that has attracted funding.

HSBC loaned the company money to get started. Admittedly not much – £16,000 – and only on condition that Macleod himself put in £4,000 of his own money – but the bank has no regrets about doing so. Maria Grimbley, a director from the bank, says the Zest is >>

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Business and pleasure: Murdo Macleod, mixologist and entrepreneur

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“a well managed and forward-thinking business, which continues to go from strength to strength”.

Other businesses, however, might wish they were so lucky. Many of them are currently looking for a cocktail of sorts. Not the kind that Zest supplies, but a cocktail of funds to help them either start up a business, or grow one – and are finding the usual suppliers distinctly lacking.

This was borne out in a recent seminar held in Sheffield by a group of business advisers, Lloyds Bank and Finance Yorkshire, the new £90m public sector fund aimed at small businesses in the region. At the seminar, a quick straw poll of all those business owners attending revealed that 94% believe that access to funding for small businesses is the most crucial thing for unlocking business growth – the kind of growth that prime minister David Cameron expects to help the UK out of the economic downturn.

Some 38% of the businesses present were actively looking for funding, and half thought the funding situation would not improve or even get worse in the next 12 months.

James Bullock, a partner in the corporate team at lawyers Irwin Mitchell, one of the sponsors of the event, says: “While over half of businesses believe the prospects of access to finance improving over the next year are slim, there are many good companies who are looking to grow and need some injection of capital in order to give them a boost.”

If you listen to the professionals who advise these businesses, however, that is not what they are getting. At least not from the banks, who are still too involved in following Government demands to shore up their balance sheets, or else concerned about the implications of any possible collapse of the euro.

Jonathan Diggines, chief executive of EV, a growth and loan capital fund operating mainly in the north of England which also runs some of Finance Yorkshire’s funds, says: “It is fairly clear that many banks have withdrawn capital from the SME market. Net loans have reduced in the last 12 months.”

ACCESS TO FINANCE

I visited five businesses around West Yorkshire last week. Only one of them was feeling the pinch, and 60% of them were feeling confident about prospects Darren Forshaw, co-founder of Leeds-based turnaround fund Endless, agrees. “Liquidity has come out of the market,” he says. “It is much more difficult to get access to funds from the banks.”

A similar view is also held by Ian Marwood, corporate finance partner in the Leeds office of Grant Thornton, although it is one he has only come to relatively recently.

He says: “Over last summer I felt the banks’ appetite for lending was good, particularly if you put the right proposition to them, and there is still nothing exact that says banks are reining back on lending. But you get the feeling of unease.”

Not surprisingly perhaps, the banks themselves say that nothing has changed. Liam Kane, regional director for commercial banking at NatWest, insists that his bank is still approving as much as 85% of all companies which actually apply. He even suggests that the picture of companies on the verge of going to the wall and being refused funding by cruel banks is one that has largely been invented by the media.

“I have read the newspapers like everybody, but I also talk to our customers in Yorkshire, and that is quite different from what I read in the media,” he says. “I visited five businesses around West Yorkshire last week. Only one of them was feeling the pinch, and 60% of them were feeling confident about their prospects.”

If anything, he says, it is the companies who are pulling up the drawbridge.

“Demand for funding is down 17% year on year,” he says.

James Cliffe, divisional director at Barclays, says he too has seen a reluctance among company finance directors to look for funding,

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and as a result has seen the overall cash left in company current accounts go up by 40% in the past 12 months, as businesses try to make sure they have enough to cover themselves.

He worries that this in itself could provoke yet another downturn.

“Businesses are storing up cash,” he says.

“This might be great for short-term funding, but in the next two years I think this is going to have an impact on business growth rates as they haven’t been investing.”

His bank, on the other hand, has not changed tack, he says. He claims that around 80% of applications he and his credit committee get to see will be approved – although they have to see them first.

“Obviously our relationship managers deal with customers at the start,” he says, “and they may turn away more.”

It is a seemingly even bigger picture at the newcomer on the block, Santander. Steve Pateman, executive director for corporate, commercial and business banking across the whole of the UK, told an audience in Leeds recently that “We can support 90% of companies who turn to us”.

And at Lloyds TSB, area director for commercial banking Martyn Kendrick says: “We still approve eight out of ten applications for loans and overdrafts. We’ve grown our year-on-year core commercial business net lending by over 2% as of the end of September 2011, and we also provided £9.6bn of committed gross lending to UK SMEs in the first nine months of 2011.”

But Andrew Burton, director of regional private fund management company Viking Fund Managers, says you should treat such figures with some caution. He would, for >>

Different picture: Liam Kane believes the “cruel bank” is a media invention

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Limited access: Ian Marwood has a feeling of unease over the banks’ appetite for lending

example, take issue with Kendrick including overdraft figures in the overall loans total, as he claims these are not the same. But he goes further.

“I have had an argument with banker’s organisation the BBA in the past about these figures,” he says. “I have been asking them to define what they mean by ‘new’ when they say ‘new applications approved’. What is an application, for that matter, and how is this acceptance signalled to companies? This information is rarely spelled out in these figures. But when you ask them for more detailed information they say their records are commercially sensitive.”

Daren Bekisz, a partner at BTG Restructuring, has a slightly more balanced view. He says: “There are lots of businesses complaining that they cannot get access to funds while all banks are saying they are trying to lend. There seems to be most energy involved in trying to bringing these two views together.”

Whatever the situation, if you are currently looking for funding – whether it’s growth capital or working capital, and whether you are a start-up or an already established business – what should you have in mind?

The constant rules about having a compelling business plan and having at least thoroughly researched the market if you yourself don’t have any experience in the sector certainly still apply. That is certainly what Murdo Macleod had behind him when he first approached banks about his idea.

“I would say knowing the market was a key element to me getting funding,” he says.

“Half of my business plan was projections, but the rest was comparing me with the competition. I had established that there are a lot of people like us in London where it’s a very saturated market. But they are generally very reluctant to travel outside the M25. There is also a company like us in Manchester and one in Birmingham, but none around here.”

He only put the business plan itself together after going on a six-month part-time introduction to business course organised by Business Link.

“The adviser said mine was the most perfect

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plan he had seen in his time as an adviser,” he says.

But Macleod might be something of a rarity.

Burton, who along with working for Viking Fund Managers is also chairman of the Yorkshire Association of Business Angels, says: “There are still a lot of idiot proposals out there – people saying ‘I have this great idea, it just needs a billion pounds.’”

It is partly to help those kinds of business people that the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAEW) recently spent £250,000 launching its new Business Advice Network.

Under this service, any small business which wants to can apply for an initial free consultation with a chartered accountant to look at where they are going.

The ICAEW sees this partly as a replacement for Business Link, which due to public funding cuts is now little more than a website. But the service has also been warmly welcomed by Finance Yorkshire itself.

Speaking at the launch of the service in Sheffield, Finance Yorkshire chairman James Newman said: “Out of all those who come to talk to us we knock out 50% straight away.

But we can fund 20% of the rest. We find that if they have been to an intermediary, however, that ratio is more likely to be six or seven out of 10.”

Strategic thinking should apply particularly if the kind of situation you are in is effectively one of trying to seek some kind of turnaround – something many think is actually more common than people care to admit.

“Too many of the opportunities I see are effectively distressed financing,” says Marwood, “and what bank will want to do that?”

Bekisz goes further. “There may be funding out there but you have to back up your case with the turnaround story,” he says. “They are still looking for profit streams.”

Speaking from a banker’s perspective, Cliffe also thinks there are still people out there who are unrealistic about their plans.

“Common faults are an over-optimistic forecast and not looking at the costs base, or what could make the business go down,” he says.

This last point he thinks could also be why so many companies do have the impression that banks are not lending. The banks’ own position has not changed, he believes; it’s just the worsening economic environment means these positions have to be tested more rigorously.

“Four to five years ago we may only have considered a 10% reduction in your sales forecast to see if you could still cope. Now because of the recession it is more likely to be 20 to 25%. We really need to see how flexible your business is likely to be if sales deteriorate that much.”

Such swings in fortune mean you have to have a strong management team behind you as well.

“We certainly need to chat about whether you have the capability in the management team to manage expansion,” says Cliffe. “Have you thought about how they will cope with the enlarged business?”

Burton adds that he frequently has to coach the boards of companies who are looking for funding in how to behave as a proper investee company. This is something that doesn’t always come naturally to owner-managed businesses. >>

Common faults for unrealistic plans are an over-optimistic forecast and not looking at the costs base, or what could make the business go down

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ACCESS TO FINANCE

We can see now how the management team has performed during the downturn. Before, we were just looking at how they were behaving in a boom “There is a difference in funded companies between executives and directors,” he says.

“Directors are meant to be responsible for the whole group of shareholders, not just themselves. It is an intellectual debate, but it is an important one when you are looking for finance.”

Fortunately the strength of your management team is perhaps one area where the past few turbulent years may have put you in good stead, because, just as they have said about British manufacturing in the past 20 years, if you have survived these past few years you can probably survive anything.

“We can really see now how the management team has performed during the downturn,” says Peter Armitage, an investment partner at venture capital fund Key Capital Partners.

“Before, we were just looking at how they were behaving in a boom.”

That said, there may still be things you have done in the three years that might not put you in such good stead from a funder’s point of view, and one of those will be your relations with the taxman. Bekisz says HMRC is now starting to tighten up the rules on who can apply for Time to Pay, the special arrangements it introduced during the 2008/9 recession to give small companies more time to pay their taxes. They are also looking less favourably at companies who are coming back to try to arrange a Time to Pay scheme for the second or third time.

“As HMRC rightly points out, it is not a funder,” he says.

He also fears that the fact that you have applied for Time to Pay arrangements at all might make your company look less attractive to a potential funder, rather as if you were an

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individual with a poor credit record. The importance of a good track record also has a bearing on those contemplating a start-up.

Cliffe says that last year his bank backed 106,000 start-up accounts, which is 12% up on 2008. Yes, that is a sign that more people are thinking of starting a business having been made redundant, he says, but there are other factors to take into account, too.

“I get the feeling a lot of people are actually starting a business while they are still in employment. As a funder we would certainly look at that as a positive. Start-ups are always difficult, but this situation means the business person has more security, and more experience. You get to make sure you can pay back by having a day-job.”

The good thing about the past few years when it comes to finding funding, however, is that it has thrown up a number of alternatives to the traditional bank route.

First there is the Government’s Regional Growth Fund (RGF), announced at roughly the same time that the first Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) were set up. This aims to make available in total £1.4bn to boost regional businesses.

Unfortunately, as you might expect, it has been hugely oversubscribed. Figures by Deloitte suggest that in the first round of RGF funding alone, the total number of bids submitted nationally amounted to £2.8bn – twice the total amount of the fund. Not surprisingly, then, while seven Yorkshire organisations were successful in making bids that had to amount to at least £1m each, 50 were unsuccessful. In the second round, oversubscription was even worse: Yorkshire and the Humber businesses may have >>

Contentious issue: Andrew Walker warns against what he calls “vulture” funds

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ACCESS TO FINANCE won £143m in new funding, but total bid value nationwide in this round was £3.3bn.

If you aren’t willing to risk so much in a competition like that, Martyn Kendrick from Lloyds TSB thinks European Investment Bank (EIB) loans are worth a look.

“EIB loans enable firms with fewer than 250 employees to benefit from lower interest rates and be able to finance 100% of an individual company’s investment costs, up to a maximum of £11m per project,” he says. “Over the last three years, the EIB has provided low-cost, long-term loans totalling £2.3bn to more than 7,500 small British businesses, and Lloyds TSB recently secured a new £150m tranche of EIB funding.”

In a similar vein there is the Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) scheme, a successor to the old Small Firms Loan Guarantee (SFLG) scheme, through which the Government undertakes to support small businesses who may not have huge amounts of security by offering to pay banks back at least part of the debt if the company fails to pay.

Many agree that the EFG is an improvement on the SFLG. But there is yet another dispute about just how much it is actually being taken up.

Many advisers say the banks have been reluctant to pursue the EFG as aggressively as had been hoped because of the complex system involved in setting up the payback system with the Government, and the fact that there are limits to the amount the Government is prepared to pay back.

“These loan guarantee schemes have been very slow and are hard to activate,” says Jonathan Diggines. “The Government has given the impression that the banks will just lend the money, but they won’t, because of the track record they have seen of getting the money back. It is notoriously inefficient.”

Needless to say, the bankers disagree. Cliffe admits that EFG schemes are not something his bank actively advertises “because it’s the kind of thing you would talk about on a one-to-one discussion with your adviser”.

“But we have trained all our managers on it,” he adds.

Liam Kane can quote figures. “There are some 27 participants in the EFG scheme,” he says, “but at NatWest we have provided 40% of

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the funding. We also have a commitment to increase it in 2012.”

Away from the Government-funded schemes, there is also the Business Growth Fund. This £2.5bn equity investment backed by Barclays, HSBC, RBS, Lloyds, and Standard Chartered, was one of the recommendations of the Business Finance Taskforce in October last year, when it published its report on how the recently bailed out banking sector could be seen to be more supportive of business. The fund is still only eight months old officially, and its northern office, which is managed

by Andy Gregory – formerly of Key Capital Partners – has yet to make any investments at all. But many advisers are eagerly awaiting its first moves in the early part of 2012 – if only because the project seems extraordinarily ambitious.

“They say they are going to be looking at

deals of between £2m and £10m in development capital,” says Ian Marwood. “But there are going to be an awful lot of £5m deals to get to their £2bn total.”

“They have £2.5bn to spend in only the next few years,” says Christian Mayo from KPMG, “so Andy Gregory and his team really will have their work cut out for them.”

Going even more out into the world or private funders, there are always business angels to consider.

Burton says he suspects this could become an increasingly active sector of the funding market because the Government is actively encouraging it. From April 2012, tax relief on any money paid into an Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) – a very common vehicle for angels to use – will be raised from 20% to 30%. Thresholds for the size of the company you can invest in, the total amount you can

Becoming a business angel is better than putting your money in unit trusts at the moment. An angel will usually have a longer timescale than private equity

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invest in one company and the total amount you can invest in one year are also all being raised.

“The Government is also clearly signalling it wants this side of the market to grow,” says Burton.

He claims there is an increase too in the number of people applying to be angels – all of whom must have at least £250,000 in liquid assets or an annual salary of over £100,000.

“But many people fall into that list,” he says.

“Most of them have already invested in commercial property, and made money from that. But they now see the poor return on property, and wonder what to do with their cash. Becoming an angel is better than putting your money in unit trusts at the moment.”

He says there are advantages to business angel investment over funding from a private equity house.

“A business angel will usually have a longer timescale than private equity,” he says. “They might be willing to wait a while.”

Nevertheless, he readily concedes what some of those private equity houses themselves are keen to point out – that business angel investment is never going to come in huge tranches.

“Funds of over £1m here are rare,” he says.

For private equity and other types of venture funding are still very much in the game. The credit crunch and the ensuing withdrawal from the market of substantial amounts of the leverage that funded many a private equity deal in the past may have caused a temporary hiccup, but the main players are back.

“Private equity has really started to claw back some of the growth it had lost to corporate buyers,” says Marwood.

He recently advised on the £27m management buyout at data centre company Onyx, which was backed by private equity house ISIS. “When I completed the Onyx deal I had a number of other private equity callers who wanted to know why we hadn’t told them about the deal,” he says. “They are obviously eager. We are even seeing them doing deals where they are effectively taking on the leverage themselves.”

Armitage says he is currently in the process of going through just such a deal, and has done others in the past, not always because there

ACCESS TO FINANCE

was no alternative. “It only works in certain situations,” he says, “such as if you are the majority shareholder and you are putting development capital money in. Deals have become a little bit more expensive so you sometimes start to wonder if you really want a bank in there in such situations, because they start to cause problems.”

Many have also picked up on a tendency for venture capital firms to invest in something Diggines terms “management breakouts” – situations where a healthy subsidiary of an ailing company can be bought out from under it.

“A lot of good management and manufacturing is locked up within businesses that are going nowhere,” he says. “This helps them get out.”

Such situations can be tricky to negotiate, however, and not just for the HR department.

Bekisz agrees that there are “zombie” businesses out there, and funds that could be looking to buy healthy subsidiaries from them.

“But is the owner willing to sell them, even if they are profitable, given that cash they give to the remaining business?” he wonders.

It also depends how charitably you view such actions. Andrew Walker, an insolvency partner at Irwin Mitchell and the Yorkshire chairman of turnaround group R3, talks instead about what he sees as “vulture” funds (not exactly the most endearing phrase) looking to invest in just such distresses businesses.

“These funds are made up of individuals who made money in the boom period and need to invest it, or are looking to fund prepack scenarios, which is still contentious.”

Another old favourite making a return is asset-based lending (ABL). Walker says immediately after the credit crunch much of this form of funding, where lenders offer money on the security of the company’s assets, fell away.

“A lot of that was predicated on there being a cheap wholesale market for debt, which there isn’t any more,” he says.

However, Darren Forshaw says that while many of the old names have left the market, other names have taken their place.

“PNC bought KBC Business Capital, and they are now seriously involved in the UK,” he says.

“Yorkshire Bank has created an ABL arm. And

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Bank Leumi has been doing a lot of deals in the Leeds area.”

John Walsh, Leumi’s regional manager in Yorkshire, certainly believes more advisers are waking up to the possibility of using assets as collateral in a deal.

“As a result, Leumi is seeing increasing numbers of proposals coming through from corporate finance boutiques and venture capitalists for more multi asset based deals,” he says.

Forshaw says ABL is certainly not a solution for everyone, particularly if your business is only holding steady or is even downsizing. But Daren Bekisz adds that with new lenders coming in who will also lend against stock – not strictly speaking the same thing as ABL – there are options out there.

“These are not going to be huge amounts,” he says, “but £50,000, for example, could be all the difference you need.”

Before you have to resort to that, however, many others would advise you take what they say is a more obvious way of looking at bringing money into your business – by arranging your business in a less costly, more income-generating way.

Walker has recently been working with two businesses which have been through just such a process. One was a company that regularly used diamond cutting tools, but kept these expensive items in store even when they weren’t using them. He persuaded them to install a sort of vending machine that only spat out the diamond heads according to job numbers that were programmed in.

“It certainly freed up cash,” he says.

Another business was a zoo that was in crisis, although as soon as the advisers arrived it wasn’t hard to see why.

“The souvenir shop was not part of the exit,” he says, “and so the customers didn’t have to visit it.”

A swift rearrangement of facilities solved that problem.

“In reality says Andrew Burton, you should look at all the possibilities – and more besides.

“Whatever the current situation is with banks, that shouldn’t be your major concern. The key thing is to use every source you can think of, not just to stick at your traditional bank lender.” n

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How an ICAEW chartered accountant helps your business grow Chris Manners, ICAEW Regional Director Yorkshire & Humber If I’m talking to someone who runs his or her own SME business, it’s not usually long before I hear that the relationship with their bank is a bit strained: overdrafts squeezed, interest rates increased, and a reluctance to lend for expansion. On the other hand, bankers tell me that they’re in the market, doors wide open, and willing to lend – but no one is coming forward with a proposition they can support.

Whoever has the right of it – and the truth probably lies in a mix of both points of view – there’s not much doubt that cash to fund business growth is harder to come by than it was before the recession, and that this lack of cash is one factor (among several) that’s slowing down the recovery.

There are other sources of finance in our region, any number of them: the options include Acorn funds, Enterprise funds, Business Growth funds, Angel investors and many more. But knowing what and where they are, and when and how to approach them, is a complicated matter and a task that is probably beyond the non-specialist.

This is where a chartered accountant can make a huge difference. ICAEW is a professional membership organisation, supporting over 136,000 chartered accountants around the world. Through our technical knowledge, skills and expertise, we provide insight and leadership to the global accountancy and finance profession.

Our members provide financial knowledge and guidance based on the highest professional, technical and ethical standards. We develop and support individuals, organisations and communities to help them achieve long-term, sustainable economic value.

Because of us, people can do business with confidence. At the Yorkshire launch of the ICAEW Business Advice Service in Sheffield in November James Newman, Chairman of

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Chris Manners, ICAEW regional director Yorkshire & Humber

Loan applications prepared with the help of a finance professional are twice or three times more likely to succeed Finance Yorkshire and himself a chartered accountant, said that loan applications which have been prepared with the help of a professional financial adviser are twice or three times more likely to be considered favourably than those without.

Chartered accountants are taught to listen and question, to ensure that the decisions and

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recommendations they make are of the highest standard. Their high-quality advice, sound judgment and insight into the issues affecting your finances are second to none.

The ICAEW Business Advice Service (BAS) is a national initiative which aims to help small companies and start-ups with the kind of business and financial advice that will help them to grow and thrive. SME business owners can contact firms in their area for a free initial consultation on a variety of issues, both large and small, and there is no future obligation. More than 3,000 ICAEW practices nationally, 300 of them in Yorkshire, have already signed up to offer support under the scheme.

The ICAEW Business Advice Service offers SME owners and managers the opportunity to discuss their business with a qualified chartered accountant through a free initial consultation. ICAEW chartered accountants will be able to offer expert advice on a whole range of issues – from starting a business to turnaround, restructuring, financial management or taxation issues. And with how best to access the finance that they need for growth in 2012 and beyond. They deal with lenders, growth funds and other investors every day of every week and know how to prepare an approach that will stand the best chance of succeeding.

BAS’s value has been publicly praised by leading figures – Vince Cable, the business secretary; Lord Green, export minister; Mark Prisk, minister for small business; Lord Digby Jones, former Labour trade minister and Boris Johnson, mayor of London.

Small businesses can find details of ICAEW Chartered Accountants in their local area at www.businessadviceservice.com.

Those participating in the service will also carry the BAS symbol:

Have you got big dreams for your business? We Can HeLP. Get expert advice on how best to plan, start, manage and grow your business with the ICAEW Business Advice Service.

Book a free appointment with an ICAEW Chartered Accountant today.

Go to businessadviceservice.com 052_ICAEW_Football_Shirt_BQ_Mag.indd 1

16/12/2011 14:43

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Working with business across Yorkshire Martyn Kendrick, area director for Lloyds TSB Commercial in Yorkshire The key to restoring business confidence is improved access to finance, which plays a vital role for firms when looking to invest in their future. Investing is essential in order to capitalise on expansion opportunities and enable growth, and so Yorkshire companies must not be put off by perceived barriers which they believe may prevent them securing funding.

Funding Yorkshire businesses is important for local enterprise and will also help to stimulate and contribute to economic growth. Lloyds TSB is able to offer a range of complementary funding packages including traditional banking, loan and overdraft facilities as well as asset-based finance, which is an ideal way of managing cashflow.

Martyn Kendrick, area director for Lloyds TSB Commercial in Yorkshire, said: “Businesses that are worried about securing funding should speak to a professional advisor or their banking partner, as there are a host of funding options that can be tailored to meet their needs and help place them in the best possible position for growth.

“As well as traditional banking, there are other funding options available which may be more suited to certain businesses. The Governmentbacked Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) scheme, for example, is an ideal funding option for firms who have a viable business proposal, but lack the security to secure conventional funding.

“A European Investment Bank (EIB) loan is another alternative funding solution for firms, allowing UK SMEs to benefit from discounted loan rates when investing in their businesses.

Lloyds Banking Group has just been granted another £150m through the EIB initiative, and by securing this further tranche, even more of Yorkshire’s small firms will have access to the EIB’s discounted loan rate funding.

“Our support to Yorkshire business is reflected in the success of our local customers. Recently,

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Martyn Kendrick, area director for Lloyds TSB Commercial in Yorkshire KB Fisheries, a chain of fish and chip restaurants, opened its third outlet in Rotherham after securing six-figure funding from Lloyds TSB Commercial. This expansion not only benefited the business, but also the local economy where the opening of the new restaurant resulted in the creation of 43 new jobs.

“Moving into 2012, we have made a new unilateral £12bn lending commitment to support SMEs next year and we hope that this pledge proves to be the confidence boost that will help to kick start real growth across Yorkshire and the rest of the UK.” In addition to traditional bank loans, firms should also consider the potential of taking a collaborative approach to funding and utilising an asset based finance facility to release the value of invoices, and assets such as equipment and machinery, to boost cashflow.

Mike Day, area director in the north for Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance, said: “Asset based finance has continued to grow in popularity over the last 10 years and is now widely regarded as a mainstream form of funding.

“Due to the product set’s flexibility and ability

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to grow in-line with sales, businesses of all sizes and across all sectors are utilising asset based finance facilities to provide a cashflow boost to ease day-to-day working capital, or free up cash to capitalise on growth opportunities.

“Against an economic backdrop where access to finance is essential, this set of products works well both as a standalone product, or alongside a loan or overdraft facility, to fully support a company’s ambitions.

“In Yorkshire, we work with a variety of businesses to ensure they are in a strong position to grow.

“Recently, we supported Doncaster-based Insignia Bathroom Solutions with a factoring facility to enable the company to capitalise on organic expansion opportunities. As a result of the funding, one arm of the business, Outasight VB Ltd is extending its customer base overseas and growing turnover to £2m by the end of 2012.

“As the popularity of asset based finance grows in Yorkshire, we continue to support businesses of all shapes and sizes with flexible and scalable funding packages.”

JPE Holdings Limited

WE HELP YOU KEEP YOUR CASHFLOW FLOWING. For your business to flourish, it’s vital to have a steady cashflow. But sometimes funds go out quicker than they come in.

That’s why Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance offer a range of invoice finance solutions, including factoring and invoice discounting with a unique 28-day notice-to-terminate period.

We also offer a range of business finance options, and have approved over 80% of all business loan and overdraft applications in the last year.* So to keep your business running smoothly and to help keep your cash flowing freely, contact us today.

To find out how we can help your business, call Richard Butterfield, Senior Business Development Manager on 07970 586222, 1st Floor, Lisbon House, 116 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4LT.

Any property given as security which may include your home, may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage or other debts secured on it. All lending is subject to a satisfactory credit assessment.

Bank of the Year 2005-2011 FDs’ Excellence Awards in association with ICAEW and supported by the CBI & Real Business. *Figure relates to July ’10-June ’11. Calls may be monitored or recorded. Lloyds TSB Bank plc is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Factoring, Invoice Discounting, Hire Purchase and Leasing facilities are provided by Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance. When using these products and services your agreement will be with a Lloyds Banking Group company whose terms and conditions will apply. Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance is a trading name of Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance Limited. Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance Ltd. Registered office: No. 1, Brookhill Way, Banbury OX16 3EL. Registered in England and Wales no. 733011.

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