Post Business - 18th March 2013

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Party heavenHow festivals are helping brewery to grow

P12&13

Economicdevelopment18-19

thisweek

VarietyisboostforCheshire

SpooktacularsuccessstoryCreative11

The Chinaconnection

Feature4-5

GrowthforMedicashNews3

Maggie’sraretripstovisitbusinessesinMerseysideNetworker21

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Kellogg increases capacity onShip Canal route to Liverpool

Work Ready scheme reaches 50th apprenticeship placementST HELENS Chamber of Com-merce’s Work Ready schemehas hit a key milestone.

The programme preparesyoung people for the work-place and helps them findapprenticeships and it hasseen its 50th young personsecure employment since itlaunched last September.

The council-backed initiativehas also been adopted as amodel for national roll-out.

Council leader Marie Rim-mer said: “Getting that foot onthe first rung of the ladder iscrucial, and apprenticeshipscan open so many doors forour young people. ”

Shaun Potter, from ThattoHeath, was the 50th person tosecure employment afterrecently starting work withspecialist software develop-ment company, Momote.

Graham Whistance, Momotemanaging director, said: “Thequality and hard-workingnature of the apprentices wehave taken on has delivered arapid return on our invest-ment in them.”

Young people wishing toapply for a place on the ‘WorkReady’ programme can attendthe next open day on May 6. Tobook a place call 01744 742018.

Businesses interested inoffering an apprenticeship canattend the chamber’s free Meetthe Apprentice events. Thenext event takes place on April26. Call Debbie Hillon on 01744742064 or Daniel Manchesteron 01744 742123.

Everton in social responsibility schemeEVERTON FC willstrengthen links withbusinesses at a morningseminar at the club nextTuesday, April 23.

Downtown Liverpoolin Business head FrankMcKenna will host the

event which, togetherwith Blues’ chief exec-utive Robert Elstone,will also support theclub’s official charity,Everton in the Com-munity.

It will be followed by

the launch of a new cor-porate social responsib-ility scheme, ‘Evertonin the CommunityAmbassadors’ Club’ forindividuals and localbusinesses.

For an annual contri-

bution of £199 to thecharity, participants canbecome CommunityAmbassadors of thecharity which is in its25th year. Emailambassadors@ evertonfc.com for details.

Export weekMERSEYSIDE firms are beingencouraged to join in a week ofevents aimed at boosting the region’sexports.

UK Trade & Investment is runningan Export Week from May 13-17, witha launch in Liverpool on May 13 todirect businesses towards support.

New pubopeningleads to70 jobsPUB group JD Wether-spoon is creating 70jobs with the openingof its latest Merseysidesite next Tuesday.

The group has inves-ted £1.7m in NewBrighton’s The MasterMariner on the site offormer nightclubs RJ’sand Darcy’s Bar, inMarine Parade.

ManageressStephanie Nolan waspreviously at The DeeHotel, in West Kirby.

The new pub is partof Union Terrace, ashort row of seafrontproperties that wereoriginally lodginghouses.

They were built forthe seaside resort ofNew Brighton in the1830s.

The pub is named inhonour of a former res-ident.

Wetherspoon said, in1851 Ann Cobboon,thought to be amis-spelling of Cubbon,was a lodging housekeeper in Union Ter-race.

Henry Cubbon, Mas-ter Mariner, also livedthere at that time andin 1855, the death of

Captain Cubbon,“aged 40, late of thebarque Regulus”, wasannounced in the Liv-erpool Mercury.

The Master Marinerwill specialise in realales and a wide rangeof beers, includinglocal and regionalbrewers.

Photos, local historyand information boardsrelating to the historyand characters of thearea, will be displayed.

Manageress MsNolan said: “Myselfand my team are look-ing forward to welcom-ing customers into thepub and we are confid-ent that it will be agreat addition to NewBrighton’s community.”

GLOBAL cereal group Kellogg is toincrease capacity on Peel Ports’Manchester Ship Canal containershuttle service between Manchesterand Liverpool

In a deal that includes flexible ‘ondemand’ warehousing at the Port ofLiverpool, Kellogg will use the “greenhighway” to increase the volume ofbreakfast cereals it transports andtake hundreds of trucks off UK roads.

The Ship Canal shuttle servicealready serves other major retailnames such as Princes Foods, Kings-land Wine, Tesco, Typhoo, Regatta anda major global sportswear brand.

Up to 2,500 containers of Kellogg cer-eals will be transported on the water-way between Kellogg’s Manchester,

Ireland and Iberia distribution hubsthis year. The containerised product istranshipped at the Port of Liverpool onto a coastal feeder service to serve theIrish and Spanish markets.

The Port of Liverpool’s flexible ‘ondemand’ warehousing offers storagefor up to 7,000 pallets of cereal productwhen required.

Kellogg’s use of the shuttle servicewill equate to an 85% reduction inroad miles for the supply chain, aswell as a reduction of 40,000 roadmiles, and 61 tonnes of CO2 during thecoming year.

Kellogg spokesman Paul Blears said:“We are working closely with PeelPorts to activate the increasing oppor-tunities for waterborne transport.

By reviewing our supply chainstrategy and integrating waterways weare seeing our sustainability goalscome to life.”

Paul McCoy, business development

manager for containers and barge atPeel Ports, said: “We have developed astrong relationship with Kellogg.

“We have a comprehensive under-standing of their logistics needs and

aspirations. As a result, we are nowworking with them on a whole rangeof low-carbon initiatives includingcontainer handling, warehousing andconsolidation.”

From left: Martin Foulkes (St Helens Chamber), Cllr Marie Rimmer, Shaun Potter,Kath Boullen (St Helens Chamber chief executive), Stephen Griffiths (Momote)

The vessel Deniz carrying Kellogg’s products along the Ship Canal

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Medicash boosts premiums,surpluses and membership

Matt Allen expects employer-paid accounts to compensate for for fewer individual clients

Luxury Woolton housing development nears completionA MULTI-MILLION poundluxury housing developmentin one of Liverpool’s mostexclusive suburbs is close tocompletion.

Quarry Street in Woolton,made famous by The Beatles,is now the site for 10“boutique” homes, ranging inprice from £235,000 to £275,000.

Cheshire developer Step-

pingstone Group is behind theproject and Liverpool archi-tect Falconer Chester Hallwere brought in to design thehomes..

Steppingstone managingdirector is Steve O’Connor, aformer Liverpool Post Busi-ness Person of the Year.

He said: “The focus hasbeen on the best use of design

to create maximum light andliving space and this is thereason we decided to bring inan independent architect.

“We wanted total designcontrol and to be involved in afantastic redevelopment pro-ject.”

The development includes arange of terraced anddetached properties, all with

their own urban garden spaceand secure integrated privateparking. A “key feature” ofthe homes is the “bi-fold”doors which open across thefull length of the living space.

Mark Doohan, director ofFalconer Chester Hall, added:“There is a limited amount ofchoice within the housingmarket and it was important

for us to develop for Stepping-stone new and unique housingthat was high quality designand specification yet stillaffordable.

“This project aims, indesign terms, to fuse the her-itage character of the conser-vation area with the desire foropen-plan contemporary livingspace.”

Certero extends NHS client baseWARRINGTON IT softwarefirm Certero is continuing todrive growth in the health sec-tor after securing three newcontracts with the NHS.

It signed deals with Black-burn with Darwen CCG(Clinic Commissioning

Group), East Lancs CCG, andGreater Preston and Chorleyand South Ribble CCGs.

Certero managing directorJohn Lunt said the firm isalready the largest supplier ofPC power management to theNHS and the latest round of

deals will see Certero deliv-ering its software licenceoptimisation solution, Asset-Studio V4, to its new clients.

All IT software requireslicences and AssetStudio pin-points overspend on unneces-sary software licences.

Mills’ TV listingBIRKENHEAD creative production house MillsMedia Group is celebrating its Business TVdivision’s listing as a Top 50 business by trademagazine Televisual.

Televisual’s corporate production list celeb-rates the best in the business television andlive event industries and is traditionally dom-inated by London-based companies.

Pub to becare homeA FORMER Liverpoolpub is to be convertedinto a care home afterits sale for several hun-dred thousand pounds.

Pub operator SpiritPub Co has sold theDerby Mills site inMuirhead Avenue, WestDerby, via agents atColliers International.

The buyer isLeeds-based LNT Groupwhich planning to con-vert the two-storeybuilding into athree-storey 64-bedcare home for the eld-erly.

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LIVERPOOL-based health cash planprovider Medicash has reportedgrowth in its written premiums, areturn to surplus at its non-insurancearm, and another rise in policyhold-ers, despite the economic downturn.

In its annual results for the year toDecember 31, 2012, it revealed £20.4mof premiums written, compared with£19.6m in 2011.

The rise contributed to a surplus of£199,000 for the insurance operationsof Medicash.

The non-insurance side of the busi-ness, such as investments, alsoachieved a surplus, of £1.76m com-pared with a loss of £959,000 in 2011.

A rise in employer-paid policyhold-ers more than offset a fall in the num-ber of individual policyholders – con-sistent with continued pressure onhousehold incomes and redundancies– leading to 135,171 contributing poli-cyholders against 131,000 in 2011.

During the year, Medicash intro-duced further innovative productsincluding being the first cash plan pro-vider to introduce an exclusive onlinediscount platform, and enhancing itsEmployee Assistance Programme(EAP) to include a Day One StressIntervention service.

And as price competition intensifiedMedicash sought to differentiate itselffrom rivals with an increased focus onproviding excellent customer servicewhich was rewarded with an “excel-lence” award in an independent cus-tomer service assessment.

The business achieved a 99.1% pay-out on claims as a proportion of thosereceived, compared with 98.3% in 2011,and complaints received as a percent-age of those paid fell to 0.05% from0.08% the previous year.

Claims incurred during the year asa proportion of premiums fell to 80.2%from 82.6% in the previous year.

And while there was an increase in

the number of claims paid, the fall inthe average value per claim andincrease in earned premiums, com-bined to reduce the claims ratio.

Medicash finance director MattAllen said: “While we expect the num-ber of individual policyholders to con-tinue to decline because of the con-tinued pressure on household income

and redundancies across the publicsector, we expect the number ofemployer paid policyholders toincrease as the popularity of cashplans as an employee benefitincreases.”

Chief executive Sue Weir added:“Despite the pressure on our pricesand margins through increased com-

petition within the employer paid cashplan market, we believe that continuedinvestment in our service proposition,information technology, product rangeand relationships with employers andintermediaries, will enable us to main-tain and grow our policyholder base.”

Medicash gave £118,000 to charitiesin 2012 compared with £85,000 in 2011.


GleesonBill

post business big feature

Only time will tellif Cains’ propertyplans will succeedTHE plan unveiled lastweek by the owners ofCains brewery to with-draw from canning beerfor supermarkets’ ownbrands and to convert alarge part of the Stan-hope Street brewery intocinemas, shops andapartments came as noreal shock.

For years, Cains,whether during the own-ership of the Dusanj fam-ily or others before them,has struggled to make aworthwhile profit.

Cains’ branded beersare excellent to the pal-ate. The raisin beer andpremium lager are asfine as you could hope tofind anywhere. The prob-lem is they are difficultto find. The beers don’tsell widely enough toallow for sufficient eco-nomies of scale. Evenwithin the brewery'shome town of Liverpool Ihave come acrossoff-licence and supermar-ket shelves stocked withnicely presented rivalbrands, such as New-castle Brown, but no signof Cains.

Cains’ traditional pubchain has always beensmall – a dozen or sopubs – hence the need tocan for supermarkets.

If you have ever beeninside their StanhopeStreet brewery and seenthe thousands of cans ofsupermarket own-labelbrand beers whizzingpast you on the conveyorbelt, you could be for-given for wondering howthe brewer doesn't makea profit from canning.Suffice to say, it must be avery competitive busi-ness with only fractionsof a penny being made onevery can, if that.

Then there was the dis-astrous stock market flot-ation. A reverse takeoverof a struggling pub chaincalled Honeycomb Leis-ure a few years ago was adaft idea from the start.The Dusanj brotherscalled it a turnaroundsituation. That provedunjustifiably optimistic.In the end, losses anddebts forced Cains intoadministration until itwas salvaged by theDusanj duo.

The move out of can-ning operations isrational and probablysomething that shouldhave been done a longtime ago.

Only time will tell

whether the proposals forthe site will succeed. Thedevelopment plans forStanhope Street do sounda bit of a long shot. Thepremises are a bit too farout of town, but younever know. Certainly,the time isn’t right cur-rently for more apart-ments in the city. You justneed to look at the aban-doned construction pro-jects at the Baltic Tri-angle and Sefton Street tosee that.

However, the StanhopeStreet brewery is a fineold building with somefantastic tiling and wood-work. When the propertymarket does come back,somebody should be ableto find a good use for it.

The proper answer toCains’ troubles is prob-ably to distribute itsexcellent beers morewidely by gradually andorganically growing itspub chain and getting afoothold in more super-markets for Cains’branded beers, backed byan advertising campaign.

GENERAL Motors wentto some trouble lastweek to reassure Ger-mans that it wasn’tgoing to abandon itsEuropean operations.

At an event at one ofits car plants in Germanyattended by German gov-ernment officials anddiplomats, the carmakeremphasised that it wascommitted to Europe.

The fact it needed say-ing is interesting.

There are goodgrounds to be concerned.GM has closed plants inEurope recently. TheEuropean operation con-tinues to be loss-making.GM hummed and hawedconsiderably about a pos-sible sale a couple ofyears ago. Europe is hold-ing back an otherwiseprofitable company.

GM used the event toremind everyone that itis investing 4bn euros inEurope, a good deal of itin Ellesmere Port, which,like Tata’s Land Roverfactory at Halewood, hasits production linesturned up to full speedthrough day and night.

It still doesn’t feel rightto me that, while Britishcar plants are going fromstrength to strength,their German counter-parts need reassuringthat they, too, have afuture.

FROM traditional shippingspecialists to hi-tech gamingpioneers, many Merseysidefirms are making an impactin China.

Liverpool has long had trade links withthe Far East, and the city boasts Europe’soldest Chinese community, so the citywas well-placed to benefit when thePeople’s Republic began opening up toWestern trade and rocketed up the globaleconomic league table.

Those links were reinforced in 2010when Liverpool became the only UK cityto have its own pavilion at the WorldExpo in Shanghai. The pavilion, whichpromoted Liverpool as a place to visit andinvest in, attracted more than 770,000curious visitors.

We were warned at the time that theExpo visit would not suddenly lead to aflood of investment. Three years laterthere have been some positive develop-ments, including plans for the proposedInternational Trade Centre in Wirral, butthe man on the Crosby omnibus could beforgiven for thinking that China linkshave hardly developed.

But behind the scenes, many Merseycompanies are busy forging strong linksthat may well help to bring jobs to theregion in the not-too-distant future.

Leaders from some of those companiestook to the stage at this week’s It’s Liv-erpool in China breakfast event, organ-ised by economic development agencyLiverpool Vision.

And representatives from many moresuch firms, including architecture prac-tice Brock Carmichael, were also in theaudience at the HSBC-sponsored event inLiverpool’s Malmaison hotel.

Martin Kitney, founder and chief oper-ating officer of Liverpool video gamescompany Thumbstar, told the audiencehow his small firm had made a bigimpact on China’s mobile telecoms mar-ket.

Thumbstar is the sole provider ofAndroid games on China Telecom’smobile platform. It signed a one-year con-tract last year, and recently signed afour-year extension.

Thumbstar’s founder and chief oper-ating officer, Martin Kitney told the Post:“If anybody wants to put a game on there,they’ll have to come through our pro-cedures,”

The games website is nowlive, but it will be formallylaunched next month in amassive marketing push byChina Telecom.

“They’ll be sending 50m textsto consumers so they knowabout the service,” said Mr Kit-ney.

Thumbstar first spoke toChina Telecom 18 months ago, and therelationship developed rapidly.

“They were looking for a game pro-vider to supply this contract,” recalledMr Kitney, “and we’d been recommendedto them.

“From there it progressed fairlyquickly and we’ve been working eversince to get games ready.

“We need to get 100 games ready for thelaunch, translated into Chinese andtested for the local handsets.

“We must have presented 500 or 600games to them.

“We are sensitive to the games theywant in their market. They want to getWestern products into China, and we dohave some games from Chinesedevelopers that we were working with inEurope anyway.”

Thumbstar decided early that it neededto have a presence in China.

He said: “The thing that has reallyassisted us to progress and enhance ourrelationship with China Telecom hasbeen opening a small office in HongKong, from where we service our

day-to-day communicationswith our client.

“I’ve also been heavilyinvolved in terms of the promo-tion there. I’ve been out to HongKong and to Guangzhou, wherethe platform is physicallybased.

“We try to make sure we havesenior management out there atleast once a month. We do havetrusted people working out

there, but they like to see us have a pres-ence there as well.

“In China, it’s about relationships –they like to make sure we’re taking careof it personally.”

China is often talked about as a chal-lenging environment for foreign firms,but Kitney stresses that Western andChinese companies need to adapt to eachother’s needs.

He said: “It has been a challenge for us,

but it’s a challenge for them to work withus, too. Our processes are different tohow they normally do things.

“It’s not all been plain sailing. We’vehad to get used to their culture and theirlevel of business processes.

“Having an office in Hong Kong andhaving a member of staff there who isvery astute in terms of their processesand protocols has been a real help to us.”

Despite the challenges, Kitney recom-mends that small businesses looking togrow should consider looking to China.

“The opportunities in Asia aremassive,” he said. “It’s where the realgrowth is. And China itself is such a hugeopportunity for businesses.

“You have to be careful who you’reworking with. We have heard some realhorror stories. But the value that can begenerated is unbelievable, really.”

BDP is a North West architecture prac-tice that was heavily involved in thedevelopment and delivery of the city’s£1bn Liverpool One retail scheme.

Planning director Andrew Teage hasbeen central to the continued momentumof BDP’s interests in Liverpool and hemade a personal contribution to the finalchapter of BDP’s book, The Regenerationof a City Centre, suggesting what thefuture of Liverpool might be post 2008.

The practice is also expanding inter-nationally, particularly in China, follow-ing its involvement alongside LiverpoolCity Council at the Shanghai Expo whenLiverpool spent six months there, withinthe BDP-designed Liverpool pavilion.

Alistair Houghtonhears how Liverpoolfirms are movinginto China in 2013 –the Year of the Snake

We canstand onour owntwo feetin China

Mersey firms


post businessbig feature

Mr Teage, another panellist at Tues-day’s debate, said BDP decided as early as2008, due to the state of the UK andEuropean market, that it needed a globalpresence. Through existing links with cli-ents, and especially its design brief withLiverpool for the Shanghai Expo, itfocused on China.

“To understand the market and oppor-tunities and to win and grow our offer inChina we had to be in China and it was in2009 that we decided we needed a per-manent presence in China,” he said.

BDP has won a number of new archi-tectural commissions in the retail andleisure youth sector and MrTeage said: “This demonstratedthat we can stand on our owntwo feet in China.”

But he revealed new oppor-tunities after a shift in thinkingrecently on the east coast ofChina which has seen most ofthe country’s development.

“On the east coast they haverealised that there is value inregeneration,” he said.

Mr Teage said previously the attitudehad been one of: “Here’s a five-mile pieceof land, build me a new city.

“Now,” he added, “along the east coastwhere they have been becoming a lotmore westernised, they realise they needto regenerate their cities and urbanareas.”

BDP’s Shanghai office currently has 25staff but there is room for 40, which MrTeage said they will achieve comfortably

during the year.“We will then develop additional stu-

dios across China,” he said.Staffing, he said, will be predominantly

Chinese, adding: “We learned early onthat you need to have ethnic Chinese inyour studio because of the culture andlanguage to develop business.”

Building business links with China isalso about building personal relation-ships with Chinese business leaders.

Steven Foo, business development dir-ector at Liverpool accountancy firmMitchell Charlesworth, told the meetinghow his business had made inroads into

the Liverpool Chinese com-munity over the past five years.

He added: “In my experienceof going to China, and doingbusiness with people fromChina, I’ve found dining at abusiness level to be very inter-esting. I’ve learned thatChinese people like to do busi-ness over dinner rather than ina boardroom at 9am or 10am.”

Mr Foo said that people want-ing to do business with China shouldavoid potentially sensitive political sub-jects, such as China’s relationship withJapan, and should ensure they arewell-dressed.

He added: “It’s good to make the effortin terms of making promotional materialor websites bilingual, so everybody canread them properly. And, on your busi-ness cards, if you get your name trans-lated into Chinese it goes a long way.”

Shipping veteran says £300m Liverpool2 planswill help Mersey firms grow trade with China

THE massive Liverpool2 con-tainer terminal being built inthe Mersey will provide amassive boost to businessestrading with China – that wasthe message from logisticsleader Frank Fox at the It’s Liv-erpool in China event.

Peel Ports has now startedwork on Liverpool2, the£300m expansion of itsSeaforth terminal to allow itto handle larger“post-Panamax” ships.

The terminal will allowmore traders to bring goodsdirectly into the North via Liv-erpool rather than having toroute it through Southernports.

Mr Fox, managing directorof Liverpool’s Lombard Ship-ping and Forwarding, has beenhelping companies trade withChina for 25 years.

He told this week’s It’s Liv-erpool in China briefing thatthe terminal will reduce costsfor importers and help takelorries off the roads.

He said: “For the future,from Liverpool’s point of view,I’m looking forward to whenthe post-Panamax terminal isopen and operating.

“I see that as an opportunityfor North West importers andexporters to reduce their costs.

“When you consider, at themoment for example, freightrates from China to Felixstoweand the haulage costs fromthere to Manchester, Liverpoolor even Yorkshire – well, crazyas it sounds, you pay as muchto get goods from Felixstoweto Liverpool as you do to getgoods from Shanghai to Felix-stowe. Then there’s the carbonfootprint that creates.”

And the terminal will, MrFox said, have wider benefits.

“This city was built on itsmaritime trading,” he said.

“I think this (post-Panamax)is a great opportunity from ajobs point of view. The morejobs we can bring into Liver-pool via the port, the moreemployment opportunities itcreates going forward.”

Earlier, Mr Fox told the Postthat Lombard’s relationshipswith Chinese companies havestrengthened after he visitedthe country as part of a UKTrade & Investment delegationto the World Expo in Shanghai.

He said: “We were also ableto travel outside Shanghai to

meet the companies we’vebeen dealing with in China fora period of time.

“That has helped us tocement the relationship withthe companies that we’vebeen dealing with.

“Plus, we got a good pictureof what was going on inShanghai, as opposed to themind’s eye picture.

“The can-do attitude therewas unbelievable. When youlook at the Expo site, createdon a brownfield site, you got aferry from one side to another.There were purpose-built ferryterminals – it’s the equivalentof building Pier Head orBirkenhead from scratch.”

Mr Fox said the recessionhad badly hit volumes of tradeto and from China.

But that, he said, meantfreight rates had fallen – bene-fiting any firm wiling to risktrading in current conditions.

He added: “If people arelooking to source products,China has been the first portof call. I think it still is.

“The way their factories aretooled up from a manufactur-ing point of view, there’s not alot they can’t make.”

The panel at the It’s Liverpool in China event, from left,Frank Fox of Lombard Shipping, Martin Kitney ofThumbstar), David Wade- Smith, Andrew Teage of BDP andSteven Foo of Mitchell Charlesworth Picture: GAVIN TRAFFORD

Peel’s Liverpool2 container terminal will help firms grow their trade with China

Get yournametranslatedintoChinese

making China impact


notes

byMikeTaylorLIVERPOOLOFFICEOFCHARLESSTANLEY

post business wealth management

marketanalysis

IN ASSOCIATIONWITH

■ ONE-FIFTH ofcomplaints about

banks and buildingsocieties’ currentaccounts are not beingcleared up to custom-ers’ satisfaction, aconsumer group hasreported.

The findings, whichcome at a time whenmoves are under wayto make it easier forpeople to switch cur-rent accounts andencourage competi-tion, were made fol-lowing a survey of2,000 people across theUK in February byWhich?

The group foundthat one quarter (26%)of UK bank customers,equating to 12mpeople across thecountry, have experi-enced problems in thelast 12 months.

Of these, two-thirdshave made a com-plaint and 22% ofpeople who did sowere not happy withhow their issue wasresolved.

Common causes forcomplaint includedpoor customer ser-vice, incorrectcharges, difficulty get-ting through tosomeone and mistakesshowing up on state-ments.

■ THE bank ofmum and dad is

less in demand byyounger people,according to researchfrom a debt advicecharity.

While large num-bers of first-timehomebuyers reportreceiving parentalhelp with deposits,new data fromStepChange DebtCharity reveals thatyoung adults do notborrow as much fromfriends and family asolder generations.

In 2012, the averageamount owed tofriends and family bythose under 25 andseeking help from thecharity was £1,761.

This was far lowerthan £3,458 for thoseaged 25 to 39.

Constant drip of dispiritingeconomic news for Europe

THE global economic environment ismuch less risky than it was a year ago,but still conditions remain sufficientlyfragile to warrant continued activegovernment/central bank support aswe continue to live on that knife edgewith everyone seeking a balanced out-come.

The gentle positive momentumbehind both the global economy andthe return environment continued dur-ing the first quarter, but the gravit-ational pull of renewed recession hasbeen offset by monetary policy con-tinuing.

The global economy is still takingtime to heal, and momentum remainsdependent on a considerable degree ofcentral bank support and governmentintervention. Indeed, it is not justintervention to support more buoyanteconomic activity that we must payattention to, but government action isalso seen as the main means ofcoordinating public and privateinterests in the post crisis world.

With global central banks taking outover $150bn per month of governmentsupply via QE purchases, global mar-kets are utterly in thrall to the effects.Prices across the risk\credit spectrumare distorted by the consequences ofunlimited QE.

No asset classes are immune with

the exception of Europe whichremains an extreme version of theChinese Water Torture – a constantsuccession of challenging bad newsdripping on to the forehead of Euroconfidence. It was Cyprus, Italian Elec-tions, Slovenia, and now Portugal.

With the Portuguese constitutionalcourt saying no to austerity, it’s likelyto precipitate a new election, raisingthe fear threshold another few notches.That every single Southern Europeaneconomy will miss ECB deficit targetsis pretty much inevitable. Drip dripdrip.

Away from Europe, Global stocksare higher on expectations of highergrowth, but also on the miserablereturns available in bond markets. It’sovercoming all the pundits calling forstock corrections but as there reallyisn’t anything cheap to buy, and thesearch for yield remains paramount,it’s possible to make a rational argu-ment to buy anything

How long can it last? Well, at leastthere is an economic answer to thatquestion: if QE succeeds in drivingglobal growth – and with Japan actingas a driver for growth, not just domest-ically but for the whole of the PacificRim alongside renewed US growth,then the inevitable consequences downthe line will be a bond rout, hence thetalk of a rotation from bonds to equit-ies.

As economies recover, then there isbound to be rates pressure on centralgovernments to hike rates vs inflation.Who wants to buy bonds when ratesare rising? Hence, the US Federal Bankis warning banks about the need for“intensive and sophisticated stresstesting”.

From a market perspective, eventhough we hope the regulators are onthe ball about how critical the systemsare, it’s well to remember how shortthe market’s memory is.

With the market gorging on riskassets, clearly the pain will be enorm-ous if/when it pops. And some sectorslook like screaming asset bubbles.Money chasing itself into stocks orbonds, causing an accelerating upsideshouts irrational. If it breaks then theeffect in stocks and bonds will be goryin the extreme, hence the difficultinvestment world we live in of chasingthe upside, or at least not being leftbehind or taking a very defensive pos-ition to avoid the possible collapse inmarkets. As I said at the outset, it isabout balance and your own percep-tion of risk and/or reward.Mike Taylor Drip, drip, drip, Chinese water torture of bad economic news

PO accounts can challenge ‘bloated’ banks Mortgage freedom dayHOMEOWNERS have typicallyearned enough cash by this weekto cover their mortgage paymentsfor the whole of 2013.

But people living in the rentalsector will have to wait anothermonth on average – until May 12 -before they find themselves in thesame position, Halifax found.

Halifax pinpointed April 13 as“mortgage freedom day”, afterworking out that on the 103rd dayof the year, people will haveearned enough from their averageannual take-home pay of £23,450 to

cover their yearly mortgage repay-ment costs.

The calculation is based onyearly mortgage repayments cost-ing £6,597 typically for a new bor-rower. The figure is also based ontypical house prices of around£161,400, as well as someone hav-ing a 30% deposit or equity intheir home.

Every penny of someone’sincome for the year so far wouldhave to be channelled just towardsmortgage payments in order forthem to have mortgage freedom.

THE Post Office’s new currentaccount service could challenge thedominance of the big five UK highstreet banks, a poll suggests.

Campaign website MoveYourMoney.org.uk found that more than80% of respondents said they wouldconsider switching to the Post Officeif it offered a current account withfull banking facilities, while morethan 78% said that they would trustthe Post Office as a provider of fin-ancial services.

Features customers would expectincluded access to their money andthe ability to use it without restric-

tions, while the top three featuresmentioned by more than 90% ofrespondents were access to the fullATM network free of charge, a debitcard coming with the account, andfor payments to be accepted in allshops and retailers.

Transparent costs and chargesand quality online banking alsoscored highly.

Laura Willoughby chief executiveof the MoveYourMoney.org.uk cam-paign, said: “These results show thatthe public want full and fair accessto banking services in the UK.

“The Post Office must heed these

results by offering accounts with thefull range of features, not just basicaccounts that exclude the most vul-nerable from everyday banking facil-ities.

“If the Post Office get this rightthey can challenge our bloated highstreet banks, but only if they offeraccounts that people can actuallyuse properly.”

She added: “With the overhaul ofthe benefits system where peoplewill receive a single monthly pay-ment it is more vital than ever thateveryone has access to a bankaccount that meets their needs.”


post businessnews

Maritime sector in skills pleato drive Superport ambitionsA CALL has gone out to the region’seducation and learning sector pro-viders to meet the skills needs for theregion’s Superport growth plans.

Birkenhead-based trade body Mer-sey Maritime Group (MMG), whichrepresents 1,700 firms operating in themaritime sector, issued the rallyingcall today.

MMG chief executive Jim Teasdalewas involved in producing part of theLiverpool City Region’s Skills forGrowth Annual Report which wasunveiled by the region’s EmploymentSkills Board (ESB).

He is also a member of the Super-port committee and sector represent-ative on the ESB.

Mr Teasdale said the region has a“unique opportunity” to deliver stepchanges in performance with £12bn ofinvestment planned in the next dec-ade, including Peel Ports’ £300m Liv-erpool2 container terminal, poten-

tially creating100,000 morejobs by 2025.

“The Super-port Skills forGrowthAgreementaims toidentify cur-rent andfuture skillsneeds across

our maritime sector,” said Mr Teas-dale.

“It will be used as a planning frame-work to enable local schools, colleges,learning providers and universities toplan courses and educational provi-sion which is likely to create a largenumber of employment opportunitiesin the coming years.

“It will also provide parents,learners and job seekers with a betterunderstanding of the future job oppor-tunities within the city region.”

Mr Teasdale said huge investment isexpected in the region’s maritime sec-tor in the coming years.

“Our Superport will, in a relativelyshort time, require around 20,000 moreskilled people.

“This will ensure we can transportever-increasing volumes of freight byair, rail, road and river, canal and sea.

“The work to develop these skilledpeople needs to start now if we are tocement the Mersey’s reputation as akey global gateway and unleash thefull potential of our airport, port and

logistics hubs.”MMG will work as a “skills broker”

to ensure the marine sector’s skilldemand is communicated to suppliers,such as schools and training colleges.

In November 2012, port operatorPeel Ports Mersey signed up to a part-nership agreement with MMG, sayingthe agreement underlines a commoncommitment to provide job-specifictraining and employment opportunit-ies in maritime and other growth sec-tors within the region.

“The latest report presents a terrific

opportunity for skills providers, likeour own Maritime and EngineeringCollege North West (MECNW), tomatch courses with the demand forskills,” said Mr Teasdale.

“As skills brokers, Mersey MaritimeGroup aims to inform learning pro-viders about apprenticeship frame-works related to Superport and spe-cific details on investment projects.

“We can further advise on fundingpackages.”

Richard Else, operations directorfor Jaguar Land Rover Halewood, and

ESB chairman, launched the Skills forGrowth Annual Report. He said: “Fortoo long our skills system has beenstuck in a vicious circle, with busi-nesses finding that the skills deliveredby schools, colleges and universitiesdon’t always meet their needs, but notalways being fully clear about whatskills should be delivered.

“The report marks a break with thisand the opportunity to be absolutelyclear about what the economy needsand to get on with delivering a skillsfor growth programme.”

Jim Teasdale, Mersey Maritime Group chief executive and Employment Skills Board representative

Tennis tournament director appeals to firms

Langtreeon site atFestivalGardensSITE investigationworks have begun onthe site of the festivaldome at the FestivalGardens on Liverpool’sOtterspool Promenadein advance of the pro-posed development forhousing.

Owner Langtree hasbegun early stage clear-ance and ground invest-igation works inadvance of the remedi-ation works and sub-sequent developmenton the 25-acre site,which has receivedplanning permissionfor up to 1,400 newhomes.

The move comesexactly a year after thegardens of the originalfestival park werere-opened and returnedto the people of Liver-pool following amulti-million poundrefurbishment byLangtree.

“The Government’sinitiatives aroundkick-starting the hous-ing market are clearlybeginning to have animpact and there’s beenan increasing numberof positive announce-ments by listed housebuilders in recentmonths,” said Langtreechief executive JohnDownes.

“The market’s start-ing to move and itmakes sense to preparethe land so that housebuilders can takeadvantage of thisunique site which isboth in the park and onthe waterfront.”

Since the FestivalGardens re-openedmore than 100,000people have walkedthrough its gates toenjoy the mix of formaland oriental gardensand woodland walks.

The site boasts viewsacross the river to theWelsh hills and hasentrances on bothRiverside Drive andOtterspool Promenade.

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‘Our workto developthese skillshas to startright now’

THE director of the LiverpoolInternational Tennis Tourna-ment is renewing his appealfor local corporate backing forthe event.

Now in its 12th year, theCalderstones Park tournamenthas grown and now routinelywelcomes tennis legendsincluding Martina Navrat-ilova, John McEnroe, BjornBorg as well as up-and-coming

players from the circuit.Liverpool City Council has

been a major backer of theevent but due to cutbacks itsfinancial support hasdwindled.

This means that AndersBorg, whose company North-ern Vision runs the event, isnow keen to persuade moreMerseyside firms to get onboard.

Mr Borg told Post Business:“We have the second-biggestcorporate area in Liverpoolafter the Grand National butwe are dependent upon corpor-ates taking advantage of ourevent in terms of branding.”

He added the tournamentoffers “excellent” opportunit-ies for exposure.

As well as being hugely pop-ular with Merseyside tennis

fans it attracts around 2,000corporate guests.

Mr Borg, pictured right,added: “This is in addition tobeing showcased on our web-site which registers more than300,000 hits each year.”

He said 10% of all sponsor-ships will go towards thenewly started Liverpool Ten-nis Foundation for Merseysideyoungsters.

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post business the bottom line

Cheshire fertiliser firm enjoysstrong profit and sales growth

A view from Lordship Lane on Frodsham/Helsby marshes looking towards Growhow’s Cheshire factory

Broker downgrades recruitment agency as Q1 profits fall

CHESHIRE-based fertiliser firmGrowhow enjoyed a strong 2012,according to financial accounts lodgedlast week at Companies House.

Growhow, a joint venture betweenNorway’s Yara International andNorth America-based CF Industries,saw turnover for the year to lastDecember rise 3% to £506m. Lastyear’s sales rise came on top of a 25%increase in 2011, largely fuelled by asharp rise in fertiliser prices.

As well as fertilisers sold to farms,the firm also supplies the chemicalsindustry.

At the same time, the company man-aged to trim its cost of sales by almost10%, resulting in a gross profit of£138m in 2012 compared to £85m theyear before.

Operating profit was £124.6m, 27%up on £97.8m in 2011.

By the time interest receivable andpayable and taxation are taken intoaccount, the fertiliser firm made aprofit for the financial year of £95m,30% higher than £73m in 2011.

The firm’s balance sheet shows yearend tangible fixed assets of £243mversus £248m at the end of 2011.

Cash in the bank was £33m, up from£31m. Net current assets were £92m,compared to £61m in 2011. Theincrease resulted from a decision toinvest “in higher finished productinventories ahead of a major scheduleof a plant maintenance programme” inquarter one 2013.

Growhow had no bank debts at theend of the year, an improvement on the£33m owed at the previous balancesheet date. However, it had financeleases and hire purchase contractsworth £379m due to be repaid withinone year. This figure is up slightly on2011’s £374m.

In the report, the directors revealthat all outstanding loans to its share-holders were settled by way of cashlessdividends. An additional £10mdividend was authorised and paid.

The report also reveals that,whereas last year’s hike in fertiliserprices benefited 2011’s turnover figure,this year’s more modest rise was downto increased sales volumes.

It also enjoyed a £23m boost toincome from an insurance claim fol-lowing a fire at its Billingham plant. Itreceived £48m from the same claim inthe previous year.

The group had to support anincrease in pension liabilities of £10mdue to a fall in corporate bond yields.

The directors say they are confident

about the future outlook of the busi-ness. During the year Growhow nego-tiated a new £51m five-year unsecuredrevolving credit facility with RoyalBank of Scotland that expires inSeptember 2017.

In their annual report the directorsadd: “Business forecasts show continu-ing strong profitability and healthycashflows. This assumes continuingstrong demand for fertilisers and eco-nomic gas prices based on sufficientavailability of gas supplies.” Neverthe-less, the report adds that: “gas rep-resents a significant portion of

product cost and prices have been sub-ject to significant volatility in recentperiods.”

The directors continue: “Existingbank facilities include financial cov-enants that are adequately covered bythe expected financial performance ofthe business.

“The key sensitivities to the finan-cial forecasts are raw material costs,sales pricing and sales volume. Thedirectors believe any significantadverse impact in raw material pri-cing can be reasonably recovered insales pricing before becoming a risk to

meeting the financial covenants.”The 55-hectare Ince complex near

Ellesmere Port was opened in 1965 byShell and Armour Star. It was boughtby Finnish company Kemira in 1988.

Today, Growhow employs 400 people.It produces 1m tonnes of fertiliser ayear.

Growhow was founded in 2007 as ajoint venture between KemiraGrowhow and Terra Industries. Thatsame year, Kemira Growhow wastaken over by Norwegian group Yara.Last year, Terra was taken over by CFIndustries.

LIVERPOOL stockbroker PanmureGordon posted a ‘sell’ note on the stockof recruitment specialist Michael PageInternational this week after a poorfirst quarter performance.

The Chapel Street broker also said ithad placed its current forecasts forPage under review after the firstquarter announcement.

Page, which has a legal and finan-cial recruitment base in Liverpool’sEdmund Street, said total year-on-year

gross profits for the first quarter 2013were down 6.7% at £126.8m comparedwith the same period in 2012.

They were ahead by 0.2% comparedwith the fourth quarter, but chief exec-utive Steve Ingham said that, despitegood performances in some regions,such as Asia and North America, itsbusinesses in France and Germanywhich operate mostly in permanentrecruitment “experienced anotherchallenging quarter, down 17% and

27%, respectively”.He added: “Activity levels remained

strong in the quarter, but with difficulttrading conditions continuing in sev-eral markets, we anticipate quartertwo to be a challenging quarter.”

Mr Ingham said: “Overall, we havehad a robust first quarter. However, totarget our long term growth and profitopportunities, we have continued toinvest in our key growth markets ofChina, South East Asia, Latin Amer-

ica, Germany and, now, North Amer-ica.”

The UK, which accounts for 24% ofoverall group gross profits, achieved afigure of £30.2m for the first quarter,which was 1.2% below the samequarter last year, and 0.1% worse thanthe previous quarter.

Panmure Gordon analysts said: “Afirst quarter update does little to dis-pel our fears that trading remainstough in recruitment markets.”

notes■ A BUSINESS

used by majorcompanies for confer-ences and residentialtraining was thisweek put up for saleby a leading hotelsand leisure group.

De Vere Venuescaters for as many as700,000 conference del-egates a year, includ-ing at Cheadle House,near Manchester Air-port, Heythrop Parkin Oxfordshire, and atthe Kassam and RicohArena football stadi-ums.

De Vere Group saidits decision to appointLazard to advise it ona possible sale of the30-location businessfollowed a number ofunsolicitedapproaches frominterested parties.Reports said analystsvalued the business atbetween £280m and£300m.

■ A POOR Chelten-ham festival left

its mark on book-maker Ladbrokes thisweek after it wasforced to scale backexpectations forannual profits.

The company,which has more than2,700 betting shops,said lower revenuesfrom high value gam-ing customers and thebig number of horseracing fixtures lost tothe weather alsoimpacted the threemonths to March 31.

Profits were down£13m to £37.4m in theperiod, including £6min lost revenues at theCheltenham festival.

Shares fell 6% asLadbrokes said itexpects operatingprofits for this year tobe at the bottom endof current marketforecasts.

The firm received aboost this monthwhen 66-1 outsiderAuroras Encore wonthe Grand National atAintree, triggering a£15m windfall.

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post businesssmall business

Cleaner makes waveswith water process

HAVE you heard the oneabout the dry cleaningbusiness that useswater to clean all of itsitems?

Strange, but true.Mason McLean is one of only a

dozen businesses in the UK usingwater, meaning there’s none of theusual solvent smells pervading itsshops in Heswall and West Kirby.

Founder Shaun Mason, 49, claims touse the most environmentally friendlycleaning system in the world based onwater and biodegradable detergents:“Even cleaners who claim to be ‘green’use man-made organic solvents,” hesaid.

“Water is the solvent of life and Ihave been cleaning with water for 14months. All the stuff I use goes downthe drain.”

The move to water-based cleaning isgathering pace, with many solventsbeing banned around the world.

Mr Mason said: “About 80% of stainson garments are water-based, likewine or coffee, so solvents aren’t thebest for removing them, whereaswater is very much the way to do it,even for highly embellished weddingdresses.”

Mr Mason uses the Electrolux Pro-fessional Lagoon wet-cleaning systemand his work with the company has soimpressed Electrolux that they haveinvited him to speak at a businessstart-up exhibition in London in June.

He developed his interest in special-ist cleaning care after working eightyears for former Bootle dry cleanerJohnson.

Originally from Jersey, he studied asa biochemist at Hull University andworked in the laundry industry beforehe was head-hunted by Johnson in2001.

He was responsible at board levelfor business development but was thenmade managing director of Jeeves ofBelgravia, which Johnson had bought.

“We had franchises in New York,Jakarta and Hong Kong and that’swhere the clothes care element reallycame in. I held the Royal Warrant andwe cleaned for Prince Charles andother Royals.”

He later ran a restoration servicefor Johnson linked to insurance com-panies involving restoring damagedgarments and curtains involved infires or floods.

Mr Mason left Johnson in 2009, andadmitted: “I was at a Burns Night Sup-per where we had drunk too much anda friend said there was a shop inHeswall called Rob Roy Cleaners lyingidle.

“I did a deal with the previous ten-ant for the equipment and we openedin May 2010.”

Apart from a small bank loan thebusiness is entirely self-funded. MrMason’s wife, a University of Chesterprofessor with a marketing degree, isthe McLean in the title.

He said: “We started buildingourselves as a bit of a specialistcleaner through my knowledge ofJeeves and Johnson and recruitedsome former Johnson staff. We havenine now, including me.

“I have gone from being corporate tovery much hands on. I like the clean-ing and the chemicals bit of it.”

In the first week the business tookabout £1,000. This year turnover is

expected to come in at just under£300,000.

In September 2010 he started torevisit the insurance sector, and thenbegan to restore leather and suedeusing water, which led to a specialisthandbag restoration service that hasattracted business from all over theUK through the firm’s website.

Clients send their Louis Vuitton,Mulberry, Prada and Chanel bags for abit of TLC, ranging in cost from £80 to£300 per bag.

Mr Mason said: “It is somethingover the next few years I am going togrow significantly. It is potentiallyfranchisable.”

He added: “Because I started off inbusiness a bit late in life I have to finda way of growing my businessquickly.”

Shaun Mason pictured at his Heswall shop which specialises in water-based cleaning techniques

notes

■ MORE than 40% ofsmall firms in the

North West are unawareof auto-enrolment pen-sion legislation, a LloydsTSB Commercial Fin-ance poll claims.

The system, intro-duced last October,requires employers toenrol their workers intoa qualifying workplacepension scheme.

The amount employ-ers and employees paywill gradually increase,but by October 2018,employers will have tocontribute 4% of earn-ings, and their employ-ees 3%, with a further1% received in tax relief.

But in the survey ofmore than 200 small- andmedium-sized busi-nesses (SMEs) in theNorth West, 41% wereunaware of the changesand only 13% of SMEs inthe North West had agood understanding ofauto-enrolment.

More than a quarter(27%) of the firms saidthey were unaware ofwhen the new legislationwould be introduced to afirm of their size and asimilar number (29%)said they were aware ofa date and would beready.

This leaves almosthalf of the region’s SMEs(44%) aware of the datebut without plans inplace of how to complywith the legislation.

The date an organisa-tion will need to imple-ment these changes bywill be determined bytheir PAYE scheme size.For example, employerswith 50 to 249 people intheir largest PAYEscheme will be stagedbetween April 2014 andApril 2015. Employerswith fewer than 50people in their largestPAYE scheme will bestaged between June2015 and April 2017.

■ A QUARTER of UKstaff search for

other employment whileat work, a new reportreveals.

Safetica, a provider ofemployee monitoringand data protection soft-ware, commissioned thereport into the extentthat staff use their officePCs for non-work relatedactivities.

It found 32% usesocial media duringwork hours and 32%print personal files oncompany printers.

And 12% comprom-ised security by takingwork files home.

When the survey wasbroken down by gender,it found women arebolder when it comes todefying rules in almostall categories.

It also found that theolder generation seemedto be more orderly, withthe young 25-34 agegroup scoring highest inall categories.

Mason McLean’s Telegraph Road shop in Heswall

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post business creative & digital IN ASSOCIATIONWITH

Mappingsystemlands atairportPASSENGERS at Liver-pool John Lennon Air-port (JLA) can now callon hi-tech help to guidethem through the ter-minal with the arrival ofGoogle Indoor Maps.

The system means air-port visitors withAndroid phones can openGoogle maps and zoom inon the airport to reveal afull plan of the terminal.Their location will be sig-nalled by a blue dot.

Google has mapped allthree levels at the airportand has indicated facilit-ies including toilets,ATMs and the informa-tion desk.

The airport said: “Get-ting lost at JLA is rare,however this new GoogleIndoor Map will now alsohelp passengers findtheir way to many of thenew retailers and passen-ger facilities at the air-port following the recent£12m terminal improve-ments.”

Danny Pritchard fromJLA, said: “Even thoughsurveys show 97% pas-senger satisfaction levels,we are always looking atways to enhance the pas-senger experience here atJLA.

“This Google IndoorMap application will helpto make it even easier forour passengers to locate aparticular bar, retailer,restaurant, coffee shop orperhaps the premiumlounge.”

Next stop Warrington for growing Liverpool digital agency

From left, Steve Todd of Studio Mashbo, Natalie Kissack of Network Warrington, Gavin Sherratt of StudioMashbo, James Balderstone of Network Warrington and Mike Edwards of Kaleidoscope

Printing boss prepares to backhundreds of entrepreneurs

Tony Rafferty, founder and chief executive of Printing.com

ONE of the leading backers of a supportscheme for young entrepreneurs says heis keen to hear from people in Mersey-side who want to start their own graphicdesign businesses.

The Government-backed Start-UpLoans scheme, which allows people agedunder 30 to apply for loans of up to£10,000, is being delivered by the Prince’sTrust and a range of business partners.

Printing.com has pledged to help some200 entrepreneurs in the coming yearthrough its involvement with the £112mproject.

Tony Rafferty, who grew up in Liv-erpool, set up Printing.com when he was24 with a £3,000 loan from his father.Today, the global business is listed on theAlternative Investment Market and pos-ted annual revenues for 2012 of £21.7m.

He said: “Our main focus will be tohelp young entrepreneurs from thegraphic arts sector including graphicand web designers. But we want to hearfrom young entrepreneurs from othersectors too.

“Our business is partly based on anetwork of franchises and we alreadyprovide lots of mentoring. We know howto help people get going.

“As a former director of the BritishFranchise Association I’m also keen toget the Start-Up Loan Scheme out in thebroader franchise community. We have awealth of experience built up over manyyears in this area.”

Mr Rafferty said the nature of thegraphic design industry meant smallstart-up loans could help to build bigbusinesses.

He added: “In our sector you stillreally can create a business with just aMac, Adobe’s Creative Suite and a con-nection to the internet – provided you

can afford the hardware and software.“I’m often struck by the level of supportavailable to young people going intohigher education, which far exceeds thebacking for young entrepreneurs takingtheir first steps in business.”

The Start-Up Loans project aims tosupport 45,000 young business people by2015.

Applicants should apply through deliv-ery partners such as Printing.com, whowill interview and mentor hopefuls.

Entrepreneur and former Dragons’Den panellist James Caan, who is chair-man of the Start-Up Loans Company,said: “We welcome Printing.com’sinvolvement in the scheme and we arethrilled with the momentum the schemecontinues to maintain.

“To be an entrepreneur is more thanhaving a job. It gives you the freedom tomake your own mark, in the way inwhich you choose, and create your ownpath to success.

“It can be challenging, and exception-ally hard work, but the rewards areimmeasurable.”

For details on the scheme, visitwww.printing.com/entrepreneurs

byAlistairHoughtonPOSTBUSINESSSTAFFalistair.houghton@liverpool.com

TRANSPORT company NetworkWarrington has appointed Liv-erpool’s Studio Mashbo to helpit develop its digital communic-ations strategy.

Studio Mashbo will develop amobile-friendly web applicationthat customers can use to findout more about bus routes andlocal events and attractions.

Managing director GavinSherratt said: “Network War-rington is an organisation thatis open-minded and during thepitch process, it was open tonew innovations and ideas,which is something we likewhen developing new workingrelationships.”

Natalie Kissack, marketingexecutive at Network Warring-ton said: “We need to redesignour website in order for ourcustomers to access bus inform-ation more easily and also toattract new customers who maynot be as familiar with our busservices.

“We are confident that wehave found the right agency inStudio Mashbo, to work in part-nership with on this project.”

Studio Mashbo will workalongside Network Warring-ton’s branding and marketingpartner, Kaleidoscope.

Entrepreneur James Caan

JLA’s new app


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HattonBen

■ INTERNET entrepren-eur Ben Hatton isfounder and managingdirector of digital agencyRippleffect. FollowRippleffect on Twitter@rippleffected

Morrisonsjoins theweb partyTHE recent announce-ment by supermarketMorrisons of its plans tofinally begin sellingonline was met with littlesurprise, but it beggedthe question “what tookit so long?”

Of the four supermar-ket giants, Morrisons isthe last to provide anonline offering to its cus-tomers. The move followsthe chain reporting a 7%fall in pre-tax profits to£879m, and the businessadmitted its weekly shop-pers were down 400,000.

The online grocerymarket is booming andMorrisons’ position is instark contrast to othersupermarkets which havestormed ahead investingin their internet offeringand are now reaping thebenefits of a marketworth £5.6bn per annum– Waitrose alone reporteda 49% increase in salesfor last year.

Morrisons has dippedits toe in the water withwine site Morrisons Cel-lar, which is allegedlyenjoying good sales.

One of the main reas-ons the company is lateto the online table is thatit has previously ques-tioned the profitability ofselling groceries over theinternet. By having cus-tomers come into storesto purchase goods, thecost of delivery involvedin online sales is avoided.

But as the figuresshow, a company offeringconsumer goods can illafford not to invest in itsonline market. With therise in internet shopping,existing and potentialcustomers may be put offif the online option isn’tavailable.

There is a lesson for allbrands to take from Mor-risons’ delayed decisionto sell online – if youdon’t sell online, there isalways someone else whodoes. This can lead toexisting customersswitching brands andpotential customers over-looking you.

Only time will tell ifMorrisons is learningthis lesson too late.

post businesscreative & digital

byAlistairHoughtonPOSTBUSINESSSTAFFalistair.houghton@liverpool.com

Theatrical firm not spookedby ambitious growth targetsSPOOKY specialists Shiverpool arelaunching an expansion drive in 2013as they bid to take their theatricalskills to businesses and schoolsthroughout the region.

Shiverpool is best-known for itsghost tours in Liverpool, but has alsoorganised a range of events from Hal-loween festival Scarewood Forest to aMersey Tunnel corporate showcase.

Last year, 50,000 people attended thecompany’s events. Founder John Stonesays he hopes to attract 100,000 visitorsa year to its events and tours by 2015.

As well as holding more events andtours, Baltic Triangle-based Shiverpoolalso plans to work more closely withschools through its new Shiverschoolcommunity interest company.

The company’s team, includingartistic director Lucy Carewand educational co-ordin-ator Julie Hindle, will gointo schools and hold eventsfrom Macbeth workshops toGothic literature showcases.

It has, for example, car-ried out workshops atBirkenhead Academy forstudents researching Victorian literat-ure, while it has also worked withNorth Liverpool Academy.

Lucy said: “Whatever the set text is,we can do something with it.”

Shiverpool’s first tour was “HopeStreet Shivers”, which still attracts upto 200 people a week.

More recently it launched the AuldCity Shivers tour aroundLiverpool’soriginal seven streets. That tour isproving popular with corporategroups, as well as hen and stag parties.

It now includes a descent into theformer bank vaults beneath what isnow 62 Castle Street.

Lucy said: “They have this maze ofold bank vaults. We now take people60ft under Castle Street to explore thehistory that’s taken place there.

“Everyone had to sign a disclaimerto go down there, it’s so steep. But it’svery popular. We are developing thatspace further as an events space, work-ing with 62 Castle Street.”

Shiverpool has teamed up with 62and with other commercial districtrestaurants to create combined tourand dining packages.

John added: “When the cruise shipspull up, we’re down there with ourplacards to sell the tours.”

Shiverpool has also held severalbespoke tours aimed at women learn-ing English at Blackburne House.

Lucy said: “They work with womenfrom Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, Japanand China, so we go to Blackburne

House and do workshops toprepare them with differentbits of vocabulary.”

Those tours were so suc-cessful that Shiverpool plansto run more tours for Englishlearners this year. Lucy said:“We anticipate a 20% growthover the next two years, par-

ticularly with the increase in Chinesestudents choosing Liverpool as theircity for study.”

Among the company’s other success-ful events last year was ScarewoodForest, a “Hallowe’en spooktacular”held in the pinewoods at Formby.

The woods were taken over by vari-ous installations with a dark, fairy taletheme. In the afternoon, the “LittleMonsters” event was designed foryounger children, while the eveningevent was darker and scarier.

John said: “3,500 people turned up toScarewood Forest. It was a massivelearning curve. But we worked withsome amazing artists.

Julie added: “It was named one ofthe top things to do at Halloween byVisit Britain. That really elevated ourbrand.”

During the event, the companyworked with dozens of young actors,many from South Sefton College.

Shiverpool also works closely withLiverpool Community College. And thecompany is not just looking to recruitactors – it also works with traineedesigners and make-up artists, givingthem valuable real world experience.

Shiverpool will be holding the Scare-wood Forest events again this year –and are even looking to hold a sisterevent in Wirral to capitalise on thegrowing demand for Hal-loween-themed events.

The company has also moved bey-ond its “scary” productions into othercorporate events, including a com-memorative event at the Mersey Tun-nel that featured a London bus and

aviator Howard Hughes.Lucy said: “Shiverpool is a theatre

company. The tunnels event wasn’tspooky, it was about history.”

In March, Shiverpool presented ashow at North Liverpool Academycalled the Jemima Vyle show.

The event, a parody of the JeremyKyle Show, was part of the school’scareers day. It saw characters Vinnythe Vampire and Death compete for ajob as a tour guide.

Julie smiled: “Death was an urbansort of Death, in a hoodie. But the vam-pire was a traditional vampire with acloak, from Transylvania.”

Shiverpool has now moved to a lar-ger home in another Baltic Creativeunit, facing St James Street.

And the company now plans to workwith its neighbours, including NorthLiverpool Academy, to hold moreevents and tours in the area under thename Baltic Shivers.

Shiverpool also plans to hold work-shops and summer schools, from char-acter workshops to “confidence-build-ing” sessions, at its new home.

A visitor getsscared on oneof Shiverpool'scity tours

‘An urbansort ofDeath, ina hoodie’

Shiverpool organised a Mersey Tunnel corporate event last year


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post business the big interview

Beer festivals are aserious business forgrowing brewery

IT MAY be a microbrewerybut, as visitors to Waterloo’sOld Christ Church thisweekend will see, LiverpoolOrganic Brewery’s beer

festivals are anything but small.Mark Hensby and LOB have

already made a splash locally byorganising the twice-yearly WaterlooBeer Festival – the latest event startstoday and runs until Sunday.

In size, the Waterloo event nowrivals the renowned Liverpool BeerFestival, an event LOB also sponsors.

But even as the beer is still flowingin Waterloo, Hensby’s thoughts areturning to its biggest event yet – afestival in Liverpool’s iconic StGeorge’s Hall in September.

Kirkdale-based LOB was, says MrHensby, founded “almost by acci-dent” in 2008 after he decided tocome out of semi-retirement to teamup with brewer Karl Critchley.

At first, unsurprisingly, it focusedon brewing – but it’s those festivalsthat are now driving its growth. And,Hensby says, there may be more tocome.

“I’m now thinking we’ll probablyslow down a little bit for a littlewhile,” he said.

“But realistically, it wouldn’t bedifficult for us to continue buildingthe team and the facilities we have topotentially operate a beer festival onthe scale of Waterloo every month ofthe year.

“If we want to go completely crazy,we’ve already had preliminary dis-cussions with the guys behind thenew conference centre being built atthe Echo Arena. That facility will bebigger than the Olympia in London.We could have 60,000 to 70,000 peoplevisiting Liverpool in a weekend.”

HENSBY, who was born inYork, left school at 16 towork in Tesco.

But after three years he returnedto his “vocation”, playing classicalpiano. “I wasn’t able to make it at aprofessional level,” he said, “but Isold pianos for a number of years.”

Next he sold insurance until, withwhat he called “a bit of luck”, hefound himself working for the Omaniroyal family as a domestic aide in theUK. After four years he returned tothe financial services sector in hislate 20s.

Over a 20-year career he travelledaround the world and worked in sec-tors from pensions to stockbroking.His last full-time role was as chiefexecutive of Griffin Securities in thePhilippines, after which he movedinto consultancy.

By 2005 Hensby was contemplatingrunning a pub in “semi-retirement”.

“ I had two friends who ran verysuccessful pubs,” he said. “I phonedone and said so you think I could runa pub? He said ‘you’ve spend most ofyour life in a pub, so of course youcan!’”

Hensby instead joined the team atStamps Too in Waterloo for two yearsbefore considering his next move.

“I saw the pub industry was abso-lutely collapsing,” he said. “But Icame across another phenomenon,which was the explosion in themicrobrewery sector.”

So in 2008, he and investor JohnBurns began building the business.

In April, 2009, the fledgling brew-ery took a lease on its unit near BankHall station and installed a test kit.

Soon after, Karl Critchley, withwhom Hensby had worked at Stamps

Too, came on board as head brewer.Most home brewers use kits and

extracts to make their beers, butCritchley had spent years making hisbeers from scratch at a so-called “allgrain” level, meaning he was morethan ready to step up to the challengeof operating a commercial brewery.

“I came in two or three days aweek for three or four months whilewe finalised the big equipment and

the set-up of the building. And, inSeptember 2009, we started trading.”

At first, just Hensby and Critchleywere full-time, with one part-timestaff member.

“We needed to sell 40 to 60nine-gallon containers a week tobreak even,” he said.

“We thought it would take us sixmonths to do that. We did it in fiveweeks.”

As its name suggests, LOB usesorganic malts and hops in its beers.It means the ingredients are moreexpensive but, as with a certain Bel-gian lager brand, LOB uses that as aselling point with its slogan “qualityover compromise”.

Its beers include several namedafter “Heroes of Liverpool”, includ-ing Captain Noel Chavasse and KittyWilkinson. In 2011, LOB took overMerseyside’s oldest microbrewery,Cambrinus, and still brews beersunder that brand using founder JohnAspinall’s recipes.

LOB’s beers have proved a hit inMerseyside and beyond, and thebrewery is now operating at twothirds of its capacity.

“I think we’ll probably get up tofull capacity conceivably by the endof this year, but certainly in thecourse of next year,” said Hensby.

“Then, we have to take thedecision of whether we re-equipourselves to be bigger.”

EARLY in its life, LOB startedselling beers at a farmer’smarket at Waterloo’s

landmark Old Christ Church.

Hensby started chatting to theteam that runs the church, and theycame up with the idea of holding abeer festival there.

“I talked to the shareholders aboutit,” he remembered. “We all agreedthat it was risky but that we couldrisk it, as long as we didn’t lose morethan £2,000 or £3,000 the first timeround.

“We ran the first one in July 2010,when we weren’t even a year old.

“We then had a conversation abouthow many beers we should get. Theconsensus was 50 or 60 would beenough. But I said there was no pointin doing this unless we made somesort of statement – so we started with103 beers.

“930 people turned up in total, andwe lost about £2,000.”

LOB decided to hold another eventin March, 2011, and this time made asmall profit. So Hensby and his teammade the bold decision to hold twofestivals in 2012 – both of whichattracted 2,700 people.

Hensby is hoping to match that fig-ure at this week’s Waterloo event.

“At this moment, we’ve soldsomething like 2,250 tickets in

Alistair Houghtonmeets MARKHENSBY, managingdirector of LiverpoolOrganic Brewery

Mark Hensby prepares for the 2011 Waterloo Beer Festival – the latestevent will be held this weekend. Inset, Hensby with the brewery team

Age: 59 and 11 monthsBiggest achievement in busi-ness: I’ve done a lot of excitingthings and seen some excitingplaces. But the thing I’m proudestof is probably this businessBiggest regret: The one thing I goback to is my piano playing. But I’mnow of the view that when I wasyoung I didn’t have the concentra-tion that you have to have was toget anywhere with a musical instru-ment at a professional level. I can’tsay ‘I regret it’ because I don’t think

the foundations were thereBest advice received: The MD ofa firm I worked for in South Africahad a sign on his desk with the 10rules of business. Number one was“never run out of money”; numbertwo was “see rule one”, and so itwent on. When you start a busi-ness, especially in this climate,you’ve got to be properly capital-isedStill to achieve: If we get the StGeorge’s Hall festival right, thatwill be a colossal achievement


post businessthe big interview

TurnerAlex

■ Alex Turner is the generalmanager of financial trainingfirm Ambitious Minds

advance,” he said. “I’m expectingthat’ll get up to 2,500, and we’ll easilyadd a couple of hundred walk-ups.

“Sunday afternoon can be thenicest session. We’ve never soldmany advance tickets for it. It’s veryrelaxed. We’ve got the Martin Smithjazz band doing three sets.”

Between Waterloo festivals lastyear, Hensby’s fellow shareholderssuggested a beer festival in StGeorge’s Hall.

“When we went to visit I thought itwas a massive long shot – I didn’tthink we had a hope in hell,” he said.

“We went in and said ‘we’ve beendoing this at Waterloo and we’d liketo do it at St George’s Hall’. The teamat the hall had already been talkingabout a beer festival, so they werequite keen.

“After a couple of weeks she gaveme a phone call and said ‘it’s beenright to the top and we’re all 100%behind it’.”

Soon after signing the deal thebrewery took on Hannah Stubbs asits events manager to help it organ-ise this and future festivals.

St George’s Hall has the capacityto welcome 1,500 drinkers for every

session, though for the first year thatwill be restricted to 1,100.

Five months before the festivalopens, more than 1,400 tickets havealready been sold.

“Friday evening is virtually halfsold out,” mused Hensby. “We’ve soldmore than 300 for Saturday daytime.

“And that’s without much advancepublicity – we had an advert in theLiverpool Beer Festival programme,and we emailed Waterloo attendees.”

And with that, Hensby turned tohis computer to show off a map ofwhere those sales are coming from.

“This is LOB going global,” hesaid, pointing at dots representingbuyers from the USA.

He then zoomed in on the UK – andwhile the biggest cluster of buyerswas in Merseyside, there were alsomany buyers from London and theSouth East, with outliers in the Isleof Wight and Scotland.

“They’re coming from all over theplace,” he said, proudly. “Theextraordinary thing is that Water-loo’s demographics are not a millionmiles away from that.

“St George’s Hall is a special build-ing. There are some hugely bigger

beer festivals all over the country. Wecannot be the biggest. But I’d ventureto suggest we can make it the best.”

As if that wasn’t enough, the brew-ery also plans to hold a Christmasbeer festival at the Black-E in GreatGeorge Street, and is even in dis-cussions about holding anotherlarge-scale event in Southport.

THE real ale scene in the UKhas been revolutionised inrecent years by the growing

number of microbreweries,including LOB.

There are now 1,000 such busi-nesses in the UK but Hensby believesthe market is far from saturated.

“I feel there’s space for quite a fewmore breweries,” he said.

“Though the pub trade is in a ter-rible state, the side of the trade that’sin the worst state is the side that isfocusing on selling the multinational,large-brand beers.

“Those pubs are struggling, bigtime. But well-run real ale pubs aredoing really well.

“There may be 1,000 microbrew-eries, but their market share is rel-atively small. It’s not 10%, probably

nearer 5%, of on-sales to beer drink-ers. If the microbrewery trade cantake 20% of the market available,there’s space for 4,000 breweries.”

“There’s other trends emerging aswell. There’s ‘craft keg’, which wehaven’t yet got involved with but I’msure we will. That takes microbrew-ery beers to outlets that can’t handlecask, such as restaurants andtheatres.

“The big pub companies are pro-gressively being forced to allow themicrobreweries through the doorbecause the public wants it. We’relucky to have a contract withMitchell’s & Butlers, who are huge.

“We’ve also found more and morespecialist bottled beer retailers areopening – that’s a completely newmodel.

“This is a niche. If anybody has gota vision of coming into the micro-brewery area and making a million,then they’ll have to dream. But youcan make a pleasant living.”

■ TOMORROW night and Saturdaynight at Waterloo Beer Festival arealready sold out. For other sessions,visit www.waterloobeerfestival.com

Mark Hensby says beer festivals, suchas this week’s event in Waterloo, aredriving growth at Liverpool OrganicBrewery Picture: VICTORIA TETLEY

Great to seeWigan’s dayin the sunIT can seem that the issue offootball club ownership is allabout rich man’s playthings,with millionaires and billionairesbased thousands of miles awayplaying their own game ofhigh-stakes fantasy football.

Stick a pin in the footballleague tables and whichever clubyou land on, you buy, havingpretended that you have along-standing affinity for thefans and footballing traditions ofBlackburn, Portsmouth andelsewhere.

The new owners then declareunrealistic ambitions that havemore to do with ego and vanitythan about improving thefootball club.

In amongst this vipers’ nest, itis great to see Wigan Athletic gettheir day in the Wembley sun,especially because of theirchairman Dave Whelan.

As a St Helens lad, it takessomething out of the ordinary forme to praise a Wiganer, but MrWhelan’s contribution to his

hometown isremarkable forits impact andlongevity.

The mostvisible sign hasbeen thetransformationof the town’sfootball clubfrom playing at

the bottom of the Football Leaguepyramid at crumblingSpringfield Park to a shinystadium, Premier League statusand now an FA Cup Final.

As a footballer whose career isremembered for a career-stunting leg break in the 1960 FACup Final, it will clearly mean alot for Whelan to lead his teamout against Manchester City in afew weeks’ time. It should alsomean a lot to all football fans,because Wigan is a rare exampleof a genuinely sustainable andcommunity-focused club.

That is no accident, and it isnot just through football that MrWhelan has sought to createsomething of long-lasting benefit.

He has also spent millions,alongside the Ainscough family,in Wigan Youth Zone, a21st-century youth club.

It is a shame Mr Whelan getsmore publicity for expressing hisviews on, for example, whetherthere should be a minute’ssilence for Margaret Thatcherthan on some of his sincerely-held beliefs about what can be,and is being, done to improve thelife chances of the young peoplethat are his customers, fans andmost importantly neighbours.

Beating Manchester City willbe quite an achievement, butsuccess is measured in morethan just trophies.

‘Successmeasuredinmorethantrophies’


Riverview award joy

www.ldplegal.co.ukpost business legal

Vehicle tracking policy coversissues over data protection

Latest GT Law expansion covers South WalesGT Law, which has itsheadquarters in Liverpool, iscontinuing its UK expansionby opening its first office inSouth Wales, creating 12 jobs.

The office in Cardiff citycentre offers the firm’s fullrange of legal services, includ-ing employment law, personalinjury, wills and probate,immigration and conveyan-

cing.Gordon Tucker, a director at

GT LAW said: “GT Law is thefastest growing legal brand inthe UK and as we open moreoffices there’s a real opportun-ity for experienced solicitorsto join us. We are fast becom-ing recognised as a trustedhigh street brand”

Andrew Foster, GT Law’s

head of private client andwealth management is head-ing up the new team.

He said: “GT Law helpsthousands of people everymonth, so we wanted to bringour friendly, jargon-freeapproach to the people ofCardiff.”

He added: “We are modernlaw firm prepared to do things

differently to make the lawmore accessible to everyone.”

GT Law operates from 18offices around the UK.

It is currently representingmore than 3,000 of 10,000people in what is believed tobe the biggest class law actionin UK legal history againstformer Knowsley woodchipfactory Sonae.

Thoughtvital overLASPOINSURANCE profes-sionals need to act nowto respond to thechanges in personalinjury (PI) work whilethe market is still sort-ing itself out, or risklosing ground to com-petitors, says a report.

Liverpool personalinjury law firm AntonyHodari produced ‘AllChange: The new worldof PI’ which looks athow to respond tochanges introducedthis month by the LegalAid, Sentencing andPunishment of Offend-ers Act 2012 (LASPO).

The report comesafter Antony Hodariitself unveiled its newstrategy, working inpartnership withbrokers and insurersrather than paying forwork from claims inter-mediaries.

Insurers quizzed forthe report said theirkey demands of poten-tial law firm partnersinclude a strong leader-ship team, guaranteedand specified revenuestreams, a trusted rela-tionship and stream-lined systems.

The report con-cludes: “Whetherinsurers, brokers andlawyers like it or not,change is being thrustupon them and theyneed to consider verycarefully what theirresponse should be.

“It could be thatdoing nothing is rightfor a particular busi-ness, but that needs tobe a positive decision,rather than one madeout of apathy.”

Antony Hodari chiefexecutive Mark Groveradded: “Action isn’tnecessarily vital, butthought is.”

RIVERVIEW Law, the Brom-borough-based fixed-pricedlegal services business, haswon the 2013 Managing Part-ners’ Forum award for bestemerging firm.

The award recognises “theorganisation whose willing-ness to blaze their own trailis bringing about disruptiveinnovation and market

change.”Riverview launched a year

ago aiming to changing theway businesses use, measureand buy legal services,through fixed price annualand multi-year contracts.

The Managing PartnersForum represents the lead-ership team at professionalservice firms.

EMPLOYMENT lawyers at Chester lawfirm Aaron & Partners have developeda policy that protects companies fromfalling foul of data protection and pri-vacy laws when using vehicle trackingsystems.

The policy also helps to protectemployees whose personal data may beused against them during disciplinaryprocedures.

It comes as the Information Com-missioner reports seeing a rise in com-plaints relating to the monitoring ofemployees.

Vehicle tracking systems havebecome increasingly popular withcompanies that operate one or morevehicles.

The systems enable a company tocollect data on the vehicle’s use,including location, the time the igni-tion was switched on, and the driver’sbehaviour in terms of how the vehiclehas been driven.

However, Aaron & Partners, whichis one of Cheshire’s largest commer-cial law firms and employs 100 staff,believes that many employers do notrealise that they need to make theiremployees aware that their companyvehicle is being monitored, or risklegal action.

This could happen if an employee isaccused of misuse of a companyvehicle and has been unaware that thedata was being gathered by theiremployer.

Catherine Kerr, one of the firm’semployment specialists who developedthe policy, said: “Data or informationfrom the vehicle has been allocated toa particular employee.

“Without a proper vehicle trackingpolicy in place, arguably, employerscould be in breach of data protectionand privacy laws if they seek to useany data or information gathered fromthe tracking system.

“As it is not a legal obligation for anemployer to install vehicle trackingsystems, it is even more important foremployers to have a policy in thisregard.”

And Ms Kerr went on: “We envisagethat these policies becoming standardfor all such companies in the nearfuture.”

However, Ms Kerr stressed that avehicle tracking policy does have anumber of benefits for the companyand its employees.

She said that it also provides thenecessary protection, and minimisesthe risk of potential claims that couldbe brought by employees in relation tomonitoring, privacy and handling ofpersonal data.

Mark Grover

Vehicle tracking systems will become standard, says Catherine Kerr, inset, of Aaaron & Partners

[email protected]


post businesswomeninbusiness

Cast in the role ofbusinesswoman

Louisa Houghton, left, and Laura Seymour of Frame Picture: MIKE DEAN (Eye Imagery)

[email protected]

LAURA Seymour is puzzled.She doesn't understand why nobody

has tried her business model before.Ms Seymour's business, co-owned with

business partner Louisa Houghton and calledFrame Model and Casting Agency, has beenup and running for seven months.

Ms Seymour said: “We are unique in thatwe are a modelling and casting agency. Thereare plenty of casting agencies and modellingagencies, but nobody has thought to do themtogether. I don’t see why they wouldn’t.”

The former newspaper advertising salesmanager says the region is experiencinggrowing demand for cast extras and modelsfrom film and television production firms andadvertising businesses.

“It’s really exciting times as so much iscoming up north from London because it ischeaper to film here,” she said.

“Lime Pictures now films part of The OnlyWay is Essex in Childwall.

“They are also doing a lot of reality TV,period dramas and rom coms. And CBBC is atSalford where they make Cbeebies.

“We have also just provided the extras fortwo films.”

Ms Seymour took redundancy from her jobfour years ago to look after her first childduring the pre-school years. Modelling andworking as a film extra is something she haddone as a sideline for many years, includingappearing as an extra in Al’s Lads, a filmabout two Scousers who end up working forNew York gangster, Al Capone.

“I was also an extra in 51st state, Brookside,The Bill, Hollyoaks and I modelled quite a bitwhen I was younger,” she said.

“There was never an agency here that had agood portfolio of work.

“There was a little bit in Manchester, butthe lion’s share was in London.

“If you wanted to make it in this industryyou had to go to London,” said Ms Seymour.

She believes she can generate sufficientwork to keep about 80 people busy. With TV or

film extras attracting a daily rate of £85, shebelieves it is possible to make a living fromthe trade.

She said: "It’s hard for TV and film com-panies to get enough people together. It’smainly time. Take CBeebies: once kids reachschool age, parents don't want to take themout of lessons.

“We are hoping production companies willpass that recruitment of people to us.

"We have about 30 people on our books atthe moment. We want another 50. We knowthat we can provide them with enough work.

“When we take on more work, we willrecruit more.

"We take 20%.”Frame also charges a registration fee of £49,

which, she argues, is extremely good value formoney.

She said: “We have our own in-house pho-tographer. We put them on the website andclients can choose them for promotional work.

“There's lots of catalogue work for the likesof Studio (a gift catalogue), wedding showsand events. Also, a lot more magazines aresprouting up.”

Ms Seymour’s company is currently run-ning a modelling talent competition.

She explained: “We are looking for the faceof the Grange and Pyramids shopping centre.The competition is called Modelmania. We aredoing it through local papers.

“We are the official sponsors of it.“They are looking for a child aged three to

15 and a girl and a guy aged 16 plus.“They are going to be the face of the Pyr-

amids for the next 12 months.“They will do lots of campaigns for shops

like Burtons and River Island. They get ayear’s contract with us, a free portfolio andvouchers to spend in the stores.

“If this is successful, we will do work fortheir other shopping centres.

“In this day and age, everybody wants adream and if you can give somebody a chanceby giving them a part in a film or modellingfor a catalogue, then that's a good thing.”

Ms Seymour, who has previously run herown contract publishing business when shewas in her 20s, says she really loves runningher own business.

Wendy Sweeney,22, takes part inModel Mania


by Steve Housden, sectorstrategy manager at CITB

post business location

Construction industry needs to unite to make sure its voice is heard

FOLLOWING a positive Budget out-come for the construction industry,local construction leaders have

called on people in the Liverpoolconstruction industry to sign up tothe Construction4Growth (C4G)campaign and have their say on thefuture of the local economy.

Recent figures from the Construc-tion Skills Network (CSN) reportshow that the North West regionsuffered a 13% decline in output lastyear, making it imperative thatinvestment is made in constructionat a local level, with the wider bene-fit that it can boost the regional eco-nomy.

The CSN also forecast a furtherdecline in output in the North West

of 0.4% annually between now and2017, so it is more important thanever that investments aremade to reverse this pre-diction and help theindustry get back on itsfeet.

At CITB, we’re workingwith industry and govern-ment for the biggest impacton economic growth as wefeel this is vital if we’regoing to get Britain build-ing again.

The greater the number ofsign-ups we have to C4G, the more

influence and impact the campaigncan have.

While the Chancellor’sBudget announcementswere welcome, C4G part-ners believe that more can,and should, be done.

At the beginning of theyear, the CSN predicted a1.1% decline in the NorthWest constructionindustry’s annual recruit-ment rate.

With constructionreturning 3,200 jobs for every £100mspent, it’s vital that employers in Liv-

erpool are getting behind this cam-paign and lobbying for furtherinvestment and support.

Last year, David Cameron publiclyendorsed C4G as a key tool inkick-starting the UK economy.

And in the Budget, following ameeting with Skills Minister, MattHancock at 11 Downing Street andC4G partners, George Osborneechoed the Prime Minister’s supportand made the construction sector apriority.

Getting involved in C4G couldn’tbe easier. Just go to www.construc-tion4growth.co.uk

Glacier welcomestwo new tenants

Glacier Buildings at Brunswick Business Park and, inset, Sarah Williams

‘Moresign-upsmeansmoreinfluence’

TWO deals totalling 15,875 sq ft have beenagreed in Brunswick Business Park in Liv-erpool.

Ashtenne Space Northwest has secured thelettings in the Glacier Buildings with HobsReprographics and Rawcliffe’s Foods.

Hobs has taken 7,905 sq ft of industrial spacein unit 11 on a five-year lease. Established inLiverpool in 1969, Hobs is one of the UK’s mostsuccessful independent reprographic firms.

It employs more than 300 people across theUK and Ireland through its network of 29branches.

The unit is in addition to its existing citycentre offices in Castle Street and at theVanilla Factory in Fleet Street.

Rawcliffe’s, a food manufacturer, has taken7,970 sq ft of factory space on a five-year leasein unit 13.

It has relocated from the Great Homer Street

area and Glacier Buildings is in close prox-imity to existing premises occupied by thecompany.

The deals come on the back of one of thelargest industrial lettings in Liverpool in 2012,when healthcare products provider, BullenHealthcare Group, took 42,884 sq ft at GlacierBuildings.

Sarah Williams, asset manager at SpaceNorthwest, said: “It’s been a really positivestart to the year for Glacier Buildings. TheBullen Healthcare deal has been followed bythese two additional lettings to high qualitybrands, leaving just four units remaining atthe site.”

Glacier Buildings forms part of a terrace ofindustrial units created from refurbished redbrick dock warehouses.

Roy Backhouse, agent for the scheme, added:“We have seen a lot of interest in GlacierBuildings and I’m not surprised that we’vesuccessfully secured another two new lettingsin close succession.

“Glacier is a very popular site for businesseslooking for high quality accommodation.”

[email protected]

viewpoint

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post businesslocation

Property invesmentsoars in Warrington

Listed Liverpool office building is on market for sale or letAGENTS at Mason Owenhave been instructed to letor sell a Grade II-listedoffice building in Liverpoolcity centre.

The former GuardianAssurance Building on thecorner of Dale Street andMoorfields comprises17,468 sq ft of space overground, mezzanine and fourupper floors.

Built in 1893, the prop-erty was redeveloped in1985, with the front façaderetained.

It also offers 16 car park-ing spaces at the rear whilea “substantial” basementprovides storage space.

There are also two pas-senger lifts.

The freehold is beingoffered with full vacant pos-session.

Andrew Owen, director ofMason Owen, says it couldeither suit an owner occu-pier or may be suitable foralternative uses subject toplanning.

Mr Owen added: “This isa unique opportunity for anowner occupier ordeveloper to acquire a highquality listed building loc-ated within a prominentposition within the citycentre.

“The extremely low hold-ing costs due to its listedstatus only add to itsappeal.

“We are confident that wewill receive good levels ofinterest.” The former Guardian Royal Assurance building in Liverpool was built in 1893. Inset, Andrew Owen

ISG signsa 10-yearlease onwaterfrontPEEL has secured a1,000 sq ft office lettingat its Princes Dockdevelopment on Liver-pool’s waterfront.

International con-struction services com-pany ISG is takingaround 1,000 sq ft on a10-year lease at No 12Princes Dock.

ISG delivers fit-out,construction and arange of specialist ser-vices, working across anumber of sectorsincluding education,health, hospitality andleisure, living, office,public and community,technology and indus-trial, and retail.

It has 18 offices inthe UK and will be join-ing a long list ofnational and interna-tional companies whoare already based inPrinces Dock.

Liza Marco, propertymanager at Peel, said,“No 12 Princes Dockoffers occupiersimpressive Grade Aoffice accommodationin an unrivalled loca-tion on Liverpool’swaterfront.”

MORE then 1m sq ft of commercialspace was sold or let in Warrington in2012, new figures reveal.

The figure is slightly down on lastyear, although regeneration leadersanticipate a rise for 2013.

Regeneration body, Warrington &Co, today publishes the 15th Warring-ton Annual Property Report whichalso reveals investment sales netted£80m – a 285% increase on 2011.

And the town’s office market is offto an “outstanding” start to 2013 withmore than 60% of last year’s totalalready achieved.

Deals totalling 137,000 sq ft havealready been done.

The Independent Police ComplaintsCommission has taken 38,000 sq ft atthe former Northwest DevelopmentAgency’s office at Centre Park. YourHousing has signed to 35,000 sq ft atBirchwood Park and Golden GatesHousing is having a purpose-built20,000 sq ft headquarters on a sitenext to Bank Park.

The figures also include MWH (awater and environmental engineeringfirm) which took 13,500 sq ft at Domin-ion House and United Utilities taking

10,500 sq ft at Lingley Mere.Office deals accounted for 213,000 sq

ft of the total commercial space taken,with 35 deals recorded for the year.

More than half of the office dealswere at Birchwood Park. However, thelargest single deal was made by Swisshearing aid manufacturer Phonakwhich committed to a 44,900 sq ftnew-build office and assembly facilityat Centre Park with landlords Mar-shalls CPD. The building will be readyto occupy later this year.

The industrial sector recorded its

sixth best annual take-up figure in 15years at 872,000 sq ft.

Omega contributed significantly tothe take-up figure, with the commit-ment by Brake Brothers to lease200,000 sq ft at Omega North.

The pre-let attracted the highestindustrial rent at £5.15 per sq ft.

The report is being presented todayto more than 100 guests at the VillageHotel by Peter Crompton, chairman ofWarrington & Co and director of BEGroup.

He said: “The resilience of the localeconomy, recognised in national sur-veys, is reflected in Warrington’sproperty market.

“This year has got off to a greatstart with significant property let-tings already secured.”

Omega will play a “key role” in 2013activity. Bericote has received plan-ning consent to build a £100m, 600,000sq ft logistics facility and two furtherdevelopments at Omega North are dueon site this year.

The four projects will see 1.5m sq ftunder construction in 2013.

Cllr Terry O’Neill, leader of War-rington Council, said: “The results ofthe report are very good news for ourtown.

“There are many exciting projectseither on site or in the pipeline thatwill bring investment and jobs.”

[email protected]

Cllr Terry O’Neill

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post business economic development

growthfocus

on

Cheshire plans to remain

AN anomaly that oftencomes as a surprise topeople is the fact thatright next door toMerseyside, one of

Britain’s least productivesub-regions, is one of Britain’sand Europe’s most productiveplaces.

According to official figures fromthe Office for National Statistics,Cheshire’s output per head was£22,743 in 2011. That compares to£15,615 for Merseyside, £17,794 for theNorth West of England and £21,368for the UK.

In contrast to its neighbours,Cheshire is home to a wide variety ofhighly productive industries. Chem-icals, pharmaceuticals, financial ser-vices, car manufacturing, aviationand much else besides. Big opera-tions in the area include Ineos Chlor,AstraZeneca, Bentley, Vauxhall,Bank of America, Unilever, TataChemicals and M&S Money.

The variety of sectors that havemade their home in the county is oneof the reasons for its strong perform-ance.

Stephen Broomhead, former chiefexecutive of the Northwest Develop-ment Agency and currently chair-man of economic developmentagency Chester Renaissance, is wellplaced to compare the differencesbetween the economic performanceof Cheshire and the other counties ofthe North West.

Mr Broomhead said: “The strap-line for Chester and Warringtonshould be ‘invest in success.’

“If you don’t include Halton, thenthe county rivals the economic per-formance of the South East.

“The diversity of economic activ-ity in Cheshire is key. It has a welldeveloped service sector and a welldeveloped manufacturing sector.There is strong research and devel-opment and a well developed supplychain.

“That’s why it has not been asbadly affected as other places by therecession. There is also a good senseof common purpose aroundCheshire. All are puling together inthe right direction.

“The transport infrastructurehelps. Rail services to Chester needimproving, but things like the roadnetwork and the ship canal arestrong.”

Mr Broomhead believes thecounty’s three unitary authoritieshave made working with the privatesector simpler.

Mr Broomhead also believes thecounty’s future growth prospectslook good. In particular, he points tothe steelwork coming out of theground at Omega, the new businesspark under construction on the siteof the former United States Airforcebase at Burtonwood, and to devel-opments at Basford Hall in Crewe.

He said: “Omega will have 3,000new jobs there and £250m in invest-

ment. That’s not wishful thinking.It’s already happening.

“It’s about maintaining confidenceand continuing to attract privateinvestment.

“In the past, public sec-tor support has been dir-ected at places that neededit most. Cheshire has gotto tell its story to theprivate sector.

“Warrington was votedthe second best place to dobusiness in the UKrecently. That’s because ofthings like flexible plan-ning policies and the factthat firms can get to market quickly.”

Notwithstanding all of its success,the county still has pockets ofdeprivation in towns and cities like

Warrington, Crewe and Chester.There is also the issue of what to

do about the soon-to-closeAstraZeneca research labs.

“We need to see whatcan be done to attractother high-technologybusinesses to the site,”said Mr Broomhead.

Other challenges facedby successful regionsinclude the lack of anavailable pool of labourand high house prices.Skills training and theprovision of affordablehousing are issues right

at the top of the region’s planningagenda.

Christine Gaskell is chairwomanof Cheshire and Warrington Local

Enterprise Partnership. Like allLEPs, Cheshire and Warrington hasthe opportunity to bring greaterinfluence to bear over the futureshape of the county’s economy as aresult of measures announced in lastmonth’s Budget.

Ms Gaskell said: “We need to makesure we are aligned with what cent-ral government is expecting ofLEPs.”

She says six priorities forCheshire and Warrington have beenidentified. As well as traditionalinfrastructure investment such ashousing and business parks, it isimportant to improve the coverage ofbroadband in the county’s ruralareas.

She said: “We already have moremotorways and we will have HS2

coming through Cheshire. We con-nect the North West with east, west,north and south.

“We have secured £30m investmentto extend broadband coverage. Thatbroadband funding is for a consor-tium, including BT, to extend broad-band coverage to remote parts ofCheshire that have no broadband.”

Another priority will be to changethe image of the area. Ms Gaskellsaid: “We have realised people holdperceptions about the place that arenot based on reality: they associatethe county with footballers’ wives,cheese and green fields. The realityis very different. We are the best per-forming economy outside the southof England and we have a largermanufacturing base than either Liv-erpool or Manchester.”

The Rows, Bridge Street, Chester – an attractive part of the city centre that is popular with visitors

‘Diverseeconomicactivity inCheshireis key’

[email protected]


post businesseconomic development

diaryentrepreneur

ofana success story

Vauxhall production line at Ellesmere Port where the Astra is assembled

MBNA Europe Bank, part of Bank of America, at Chester business park

Scheme reflects strength of city’s employment base

WORK will start on thefirst stage of Chester’s£100m Central BusinessQuarter early next year.

Manchester-basedMuse Developmentsrevealed the start dateafter winning backingfor the first phase of theiconic scheme fromCheshire West andChester’s Strategic Plan-ning Committee.

The six-storey environ-mentally-friendly 70,000

sq ft office block nearthe city’s railway stationis due for completion in2015.

The scheme, a majorpart of Chester’s One CityPlan, also includes theremodelling of part ofthe Grade II-listed stationand adjoining QueenHotel complex.

Phil Mayall, develop-ment director at MuseDevelopments, said: “TheCentral Business Quarter

is of huge strategicimportance to Chester.

“It will deliver hugebenefits to the cityensuring quality regener-ation, the retention ofexisting businesses andthe promotion of growthand inward investment.”

Planners hopeChester’s Central Busi-ness Quarter will offer atotal of 440,000 sq ft ofoffice space by 15 yearstime. Split between

seven office blocks, it ishoped the scheme willhouse around 3,500 jobs.

Stephen Broomhead,Chairman of ChesterRenaissance, said: “Thisis an excellent result. Itshows the strength thatChester has as a key stra-tegic employment site inCheshire and the NorthWest. We will continue towork with Muse as thisscheme moves fromplanning to delivery.”

I’VE never really consideredmyself an entrepreneur, though Ihave just about always workedfor myself.

I’ve tried to keep my eyes andmind open to opportunity andnever set an end goal other than toenjoy what I was doing.

The idea of opening a wine mer-chants only came along about 18months ago. I had worked for 15years or so as a musician and DJ.

I do feel that I was lucky a greatdeal of the time. I had a prettysteady, diverse stream of workwhich took me far and wide. But Ialso believe in making your ownluck and I’ve always been willingto stick my neck out, shake somehands and keep my ears open.

I had taken up studying lawafter my wife announced we hadtwins on the way. I decided to leavethe music behind. I’d had parttime work off and on at Oddbins aswell as bars and restaurants andI’d always been interested in wine.

When we moved to Liverpool tobe closer to the grandparents theOddbins shop in Castle Streetneeded a manager. The timing wasjust about perfect.

I really enjoyed running theshop but by then Oddbins was justabout ready to fold.

I took my severance pay andstarted R & H Fine Wines, buyingand selling wine to the people I’dgot to know through Castle Street.

Within six months my studieswere overtaken by the businessand I decided I would focus onthat.

I was fortunate to have metsome very enthusiastic people inthe trade and those who becamemore than just customers. Theirencouragement and help withtime and effort, connections andgoodwill was humbling and had agreat deal to do with my gettingon.

The idea of taking on the unit inQueen Avenue was mentioned butthe timing wasn’t right. I wouldconcentrate on the private sales – Iwas selling to a couple of restaur-ants and bars as well as to a grow-

ing number of private clients.I still wasn’t paying myself very

much but turnover was on theincrease. I was travelling aroundthe country to meet importers andwholesalers and finding some fant-astic wine along the way. Withoutever setting any kind of agenda Ifound myself drawn to organic andbiodynamically produced wines.

I found myself interested in thediversity of soils and methods ofproduction, and this was this kindof wine that I wanted to be asso-ciated with– hand made wines thatspeak of the place they are from.

Also, it made sense from a busi-ness point of view – giving R & HFine Wines a real point of differ-ence to what is generally availablein Liverpool.

I had started looking around atpossible sites for a shop withoutgetting very far when I started toconsider the Queen Avenue unitagain. I had taken some advice onthe kind of deals that were avail-able and we managed to find anagreement without too much fuss.I even managed to get access to thematerials in the old Oddbins unitthrown in.

My shop is just about entirelyrecycled – the shelving, the woodflooring, the counter – and withthe help of friends and family Imanaged to get the shop set upwith change from £30.

My suppliers got on board andthe relationships that I’d nurturedfor the year or so came in to fulleffect. The doors opened for tradeon November 1, 2012, and, touchwood, so far so good.

I’ve really enjoyed being back inLiverpool these last few years. Thecity feels good and the people I’vemet have been fantastic.

I’m still not paying myself agreat deal but nor am I beingchased for money. The rent is paidand my tight-fisted set up means Ihave no debt to service. Turnoverhas been solid and seems to begrowing as word of mouthspreads.

Devin Stewart is founder ofR&H Fine Wines

Devin Stewart of R&H Fine Wines


post business professional

Merseyside strong contenderfor share of £225m fundraiser

Grant Berry, left, and Andy Ball of NorthEdge Capital

onthemove■ JOCKEY Club Race-

courses has appoin-ted a head of sales toforge further growth fortheir sports, hospitalityand conference and eventservices.

Jeff Evans will be thehead of sales for theNorth West, coveringAintree racecourse, Carl-isle and Haydock.

He has almost 14 years’experience in sales, com-ing from a recruitmentbackground, where he

worked as regional busi-ness development man-ager for Fircroft, headingup recruitment for the oiland gas industry.

He said: “As a hugehorse racing fan and aregular at Aintree race-course I am really excitedto be joining the JockeyClub and heading up thesales division for theNorth West.”

■ THE North WestAerospace Alliance

(NWAA) has announced

Sharon McDonald as itsnew marketing andevents manager

Ms McDonald will leadthe marketing of theNWAA, including pro-moting its services andprogrammes to membersand heading up its pres-ence at international airshows.

She was formerly withOn Demand Communica-tions, owners of theProntaprint and KallK-wik brands.

■ NATIONAL marketresearch specialist

Vision One has made twoappointments at its Liv-erpool office.

The group has appoin-ted Kate Spicer to therole of client services dir-ector, while ClaireMcCartan has also joinedas a research executive.

Vision One countsGlaxoSmithKline, O2,First Choice and the Lib-eral Democrats among itsclients.

Jeff Evans – in theJockey Club saddle

Sharon McDonald –new aerospace role

Claire McCartan –joins Vision One

Event tooutlineopeningsOPPORTUNITIES forfinancial and profes-sional services busi-nesses in India andChina will be outlinedat a special event cov-ering the North Westnext Friday.

UK Trade & Invest-ment (UKTI) is holdinga Financial and Profes-sional Services Show-case on April 26, wherebusinesses can hearfrom internationaltrade experts about therange of opportunitiesin the rapidly expand-ing markets of Chinaand India.

The event offers thechance to gain aninsight from experts onhow the financial andprofessional servicessector is maturing, andon how that can benefitNorth West firms.

Attendees will learnabout business cultureand attitudes in themarkets, collect tips onhow to conduct success-ful business relationswith clients, and gainaccess to a ready-madenetwork of contacts.

There is also theopportunity to haveone-to-one appoint-ments with keyindustry experts whereparticipants can askspecific questions relat-ing to their business.

The event takes placeat DLA Piper, 101 Bar-birolli Square,Manchester, from 9amto 3.30pm.

China offers somemajor opportunities

MERSEYSIDE will featurestrongly in the plans of aprivate equity firm that has£225m of funding at its dis-posal.

NorthEdge Capital, the UKlower middle market privateequity firm focused on theNorth of England, achieved afinal close on its maiden fund,NorthEdge Capital Fund I LP,at the full fund size of £225m.

It marks one of the largestfirst-time fundraisings inEurope since 2008 and meansalmost a quarter of a billionpounds is available for invest-ment into businesses acrossthe North of England.

NorthEdge, based inManchester and Leeds andheaded by partners GrantBerry, Andy Ball, RayStenton, Dan Wright andMichael Joseph, has betweenthem more than 100 years ofprivate equity investmentexperience.

Prior to foundingNorthEdge the senior teaminvested more than £400m inmore than 30 transactionsacross the North.

Mr Ball, NorthEdge partnerand chief investment officer,told The Post: “HistoricallyMerseyside has been a keyregion for us and we have hadsome recent good introduc-tions from advisers on Mer-seyside and starting to getsome traction.

“We backed Ethel Austinand Mersey TV as individu-als, so it is a good region forus in terms of getting aroundthere.”

He added: We are looking toback established businessesthat want capital to grow, usu-ally effecting changes of own-ership, either complete or par-tial, or businesses looking forcapital to grow.”

NorthEdge raised fundsfrom 15 leading, global blue-chip institutional investors,including CNP Assurances,European Investment Fund,Industriens Pension, MLCInvestments, Pathway CapitalPartners and West Yorkshire

Pension Fund. Some 48% ofcommitments came fromEurope, 42% from the USAand 10% from Australia.

NorthEdge completed itsfirst deal in February afteracquiring a significant stakein FPE Global, a high-growthspecialist engineering busi-ness in Stockport.

The NorthEdge fund targetsinvestments of between £5mand £35m in businesses withenterprise values of between£10m and £100m.

Grant Berry, NorthEdgemanaging partner, said: “Weare delighted to reach finalclose at the maximum leveland to comfortably exceed ouroriginal target of £200m dur-ing such a challenging fun-draising environment.

“All our investors haveshown great confidence in theNorthEdge team and, moreimportantly, great confidencein the quality of the busi-nesses and advisers based inthe North of England.

“In particular, this fun-draise has really put theNorth on the map for insti-tutional investors who look atglobal investment opportunit-ies, and they have liked whatthey have seen.

“We are looking for pas-sionate, dedicated manage-ment teams who want capitalto maximise the potential intheir businesses.

“In return we bring a pos-itive, creative and straight-talking approach.

“Crucially, NorthEdge alsooffers local decision-making.

“The North is our homeand where our network is,and this is where the invest-ment decisions are taken bythe partners.”

Mr Ball added: “Investorshave shown a huge appetitefor our maiden fund and thisfinal close is a very proudmoment for us.

“Our team knows theNorth.

“It is where we have spentmost of our careers, where welive and where we have inves-ted.

“The North remains an eco-nomic powerhouse with fant-astic businesses, hungry forcapital.”

[email protected]


Petrol prices saw slower rises but inflation was kept high by an increase in insurance premiums

post businessnews

Tough times for consumersas inflation remains at 2.8%SHARP rises in car insurance premi-ums piled further pressure on house-hold budgets last month as inflationremained at its highest level since lastMay.

The Office for National Statistics(ONS) said Consumer Prices Index(CPI) inflation stayed at 2.8% in Marchafter a 5.8% increase in the cost oftransport insurance offset slower risesin diesel and petrol prices.

While inflation remainedunchanged on February, there arefears over a summer of financial painfor consumers ahead as economistspredict CPI to hit 3.5% over the nextfew months.

The ONS said price hikes for digitalcameras, books and DVDs also keptCPI stubbornly above target lastmonth, while the recent round ofenergy bill increases added to infla-tionary pressures.

But inflation eased at the fuelpumps as petrol prices rose by 2.2p alitre against 3.3p a litre a year earlier.Diesel increased by 1.9p a litre com-pared with 2.6p last March.

Furniture prices also rose at aslower pace than a year ago, whilecheaper vodka and lager helped see a0.5% fall in alcoholic drink andtobacco costs.

This month’s unchanged rate ofinflation is set to be a temporaryreprieve as food inflation, higher gasand electricity tariffs and upcomingwater bill rises are expected to sendCPI up even further.

Inflation has remained above theGovernment’s 2% target since Decem-

ber 2009, pushed up in recent monthsby the weakness of the pound at thestart of the year.

Better-than-expected figures fromretailers, manufacturers and servicesfirms have suggested Britain has nar-rowly avoided a triple dip recession,

with most economists expectinggrowth of 0.1% in the first quarter.

The Bank of England has alreadysaid it stands ready to take furtheraction to boost recovery efforts, but itis expected to hold off from more QEuntil next month’s inflation report or

even the arrival of new Bank GovernorMark Carney in July.

The figures from the ONS alsoshowed that Retail Prices Index (RPI)inflation, which includes housingcosts, rose to 3.3% in March from 3.2%in February.

pastbusiness–nostalgia

Mrs Thatcher ‘carefree as a Wirral housewife’ on torpedo factory tour

‘More risesto follow’

■ HOWARD ARCHERchief UK and

European economist atIHS Global Insight, saidthe unchanged CPI datawill offer “limited relief ”for consumers ahead offurther rises to come.

He added: “Consumerprice inflation of 2.8% inMarch is still putting a sig-nificant squeeze on house-holds’ purchasing powergiven that it is nearlythree time annual averageearnings growth of 1% inJanuary.”

The Treasury shruggedoff inflation fears, stress-ing that CPI is still downby almost a half from itspeak of 5.2%.

James Knightley, INGBank economist, said lastmonth’s lower fuel priceinflation and the pound’srecent bounce back sug-gested concerns over CPImay be overdone.

“We suspect that theBank of England’s viewthat inflation is likely toremain above 2% forpretty much all of the nextcouple of years could be alittle too negative,” hesaid.

Margaret Thatcher inspects a torpedo at Marconi’s Neston plant, 1981

EVEN as early as 1981, the lateMargaret Thatcher was arousingstrong feelings in and around Liv-erpool.

In April, 1981, Mrs Thatchertravelled to Wirral, to open the£13m Marconi Space and Defencesystems torpedo factory inNeston.

She was met by several hun-dred demonstrators from acrossMerseyside who were protestingagainst nuclear weapons andspending cuts.

The Liverpool Echo reportedthat, just six months after herfamous “The lady’s not for turn-ing” speech, the protstors jeered“another U-turn” after shearrived late and was rushed intothe plant through the backentrance.

Once inside, Mrs Thatcher saidthe plant’s 200 workers should beproud their torpedoes “will makea really vital contribution todeterring and countering theSoviet military threat at sea”.

The Echo’s Diana Pulson wasimpressed by the PM’s energy,confidence and elegance, writing:“She looked as carefree as a Wir-ral housewife who had juststepped out of her bath and was

en route to a Heswall coffeemorning.” Mrs Thatcher dis-missed concerns the event wasrunning late. Pulson noted: “Thewords were said with a smile butwith the bossy sort of imperious-ness which made anotheronlooker groan ‘God, I bet she’shell to live with’.”

Pulson said Mrs Thatcher’sface was full of character and con-cern. “But,” she added, “her head-mistressy bossiness does keeptaking over to the extent that youfeel if she had been around at thetime, we would never have lostIndia.”

The PM gave no clues as towhether the Government wouldaward an upcoming torpedo con-tract to Marconi or to US rival,Gould Incorporated.

But a draft of her speech,archived by the MargaretThatcher Foundation, shows shewarned workers: “Marconi willrealise that price will be animportant factor in decidingwhere the order will eventuallybe placed.”

In an ominous warning on theday of the visit, the Post’s leadercolumn said: “Mrs Thatcher, asPrime Minister, has visited the

North West only twice and thisneglect is deeply resented in Mer-seyside where it is creating a hos-tility which will be hard tobreach. Furthermore, this lack ofattention to severely depressedareas is causing Mrs Thatcher tolose touch with the traumaticeffect her policies, whether theybe right or wrong, are having oncommunities.”

The Toxteth Riots broke outthree months later.

ALISTAIR HOUGHTON

Protestors jeered MargaretThatcher as she visitedMarconi’s Neston site

Howard Archer

[email protected]


tradinggossip

post business endpiece

mydayoff

Peter’s passion for promotingthe glories of classical music

AS A classically-trainedmusician andentrepreneur, I enjoybeing able to combine mymusic skills and financial

acumen to develop viable musicalprogrammes; something which isessential in times of decliningsubsidies for the arts and music.

I have applied these skills to manymajor organisations in my role as aNational Lottery assessor and as adevelopment consultant.

I was formerly the director of devel-opment at the Liverpool Philharmonicand now run my own arts manage-ment company. I am also the artisticconsultant at Manchester’s Bridgewa-ter Hall, developing the venue’s clas-sical programmes, having also helpedto create the financial model for theorganisation before it first opened in1996.

Outside of my professional capacity,my real passion is to make classicalmusic more accessible for people whohaven’t heard it before or may thinkthey dislike the style of music. This iswhy in my spare time I co-manage afestival in Wirral called the TwoRivers Festival, which each year runsa series of classical programmes forthe people of Merseyside and Cheshire.

I have been incredibly privileged inmy career and I have worked withsome of the leading names in the clas-sical world – ranging from Daniel Bar-enboim to the Vienna PhilharmonicOrchestra.

Twenty five years ago I made Wirralmy home and it has always provided awelcome base for me. In 2008, I madethe conscious decision to givesomething back to the area and cameup with the concept of theTwo Rivers Festival. TwoRivers is a joint collaborationwith Birkenhead School andAndrew Thomson – who hasheld many auspicious roles.

Andrew has become a closefriend through our time atthe Royal Liverpool Philhar-monic Society in the earlynineties and he is very com-mitted to the arts, havingacted as chairman of the ChesterMusic Festival and deputy chairmanof the RLPS. Andrew, who is 72, livesin Willaston with his wife Carolineand it has always been his ambition to

set up top quality classical concerts inWirral – he is also closely associatedwith the European Opera Centre inLiverpool.

John Clark, the headmaster atBirkenhead School, kindly agreed tohost our events on the school’s Oxtoncampus and provide the administrat-ive support for the concerts, whilstAndrew and I create the programmesand use our contacts to get the eventsoff the ground.

Two Rivers has been a success, andwe are able to bring some of the lead-ing names in the classical world toWirral. Past programmes have

included appearances bycellist Natalie Clein, sop-rano Dame Emma Kirkby,and the actress, PatriciaRoutledge. Last month,tenor James Gilchristperformed songs by Eng-lish composers to celeb-rate Benjamin Britten’scentenary.

On Friday, April 26, wewill be hosting a concert

by renowned Japanese pianist NorikoOgawa. Noriko will be returning toTwo Rivers to perform pieces byFrench composer Debussy and Japan-ese composers Takemitsu, Fujieda andKanno. East will meet West, as we

explore oriental influences on theinnovative Frenchman. To offer a tasteof Japanese culture, the concertincludes a demonstration by a Japan-ese calligrapher.

Our concerts have been successfulbecause of the intimate setting of therecently refurbished Bushell Hallwhich ensures our performers areaccessible to the audience. Our pricesare not the cheapest, but we offer

half-price tickets for all under-21s – thefestival has never been about us mak-ing money, but giving something back.The festival attracts a range of agesand we encourage families and youngpeople to come along. There issomething special about being able toopen up classical music to a new audi-ence, and we also hope that it inspiresyoungsters to take up learning amusical instrument or to study music.

West Kirby-basedPeter Davison runsHelios Associates, anarts managementcompany, and is theartistic consultant atManchester’sBridgewater Hall

Peter Davison aims tomake classical musicmore accessible to all

■ WITH FredericksDairies hitting the

headlines last week afterit was sold for £49m,Trading Gossip thoughtit would be a good time torelive some of formerowner Frank Frederick’sgreatest interview hits.

In May 2009, forexample, The Grocer metFrederick, below, at hisluxury London apart-ment, where visitorswere “greeted by a wallmirror adorned by a pairof neon ice-creams”.

He was, it’s fair to say,bullish about hisSkelmersdale familyfirm’s battle against theice cream world’s mul-tinationals, insisting thathis firm could take on allcomers –even Magnum.

Frederick started hiscareer driving anice-cream van in Lan-cashire. He said: “Therewas fighting, it was ter-ritorial and I would getbeaten up.”

In the late 70s he andbrother Philip took over

the family firm and,thanks to a focus on chocices and some serioushard work, grew it intoan ice-cream empire.

“All my competitorswere working eight hoursa day,” he recalled. “I wasworking 24.

“The factory was work-ing 24, so I boughtanother machine, a big-ger machine.”

But it’s his answer tothe “snapshot” sectionthat was the most eye-brow-raising.

Asked for his hobbies,he said: “My hobby isladies. Some people liketo hunt and shoot andfish. To me it’s a sport.”

That, by the way,wasn’t his only interviewin 2009. He also spoke towebsite Growthbusinessand, when asked for his“greatest indulgence”,replied, tongue still pre-sumably wedged firmlyin that tanned cheek,“Girls under 30”.

His pet hate was “Any-thing to do with restrict-ing speed limits”.

And on his gravestone,he hopes to have thewords: “The girls heliked, didn’t like him.The girls who liked him,he didn’t like. He diedalone.”

The Frederick brothersare retaining theirKirkby cold storage firmFreezeserve – let’s hopethere are many moreinterviews to come.

Encouragefamiliesand youngpeople tocome along

Peter Davison, right, with Birkenhead School head John Clark


businessdiaryFRIDAY, APRIL 19LIVERPOOL Hope Uni-

versity's Business Gatewayis staging an Entrepren-eurship Trade Fair,sponsored by solicitorsWeightmans, from 12noon to 2pm at its Cre-ative Campus, ShawStreet, Everton. Anyonewishing to attend shouldemail Sarah Atherton [email protected] asnumbers must be mon-itored for catering pur-poses. People are free toattend between 2pm and3pm after lunch has been

served. The event willinvolve students, staff andgraduates setting up tradestands to showcase thework they are undertak-ing. Cash prizes will bepresented on the day forthe best trade stand,which will be voted byattendees, and the mostEnterprising Student ofthe Year, which will bebased on activities under-taken throughout the aca-demic year. There will alsobe a separate prize for theBest Young EnterpriseTrade Stand.

TUESDAY, APRIL 23CHARTERED accountants

Mitchell Charlesworth isstaging a free seminarentitled “How to grow thevalue of your business” atthe Old Hall Street officesof Liverpool Chamber ofCommerce. The event willtake place between8.30am-10am, and isaimed at business ownersand directors. To book callCara Bartlett on 0151-2552300 or email [email protected]

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24SEFTON Chamber of Com-

merce, UKTI and Invest

Sefton, are assisting com-panies in the borough toexplore overseas opportun-ities for the first time andhelp existing exporters tolook at new markets. Thesecond of two free eventsis being held at the SeftonEconomic Forum. As in thefirst event last month theforum is at Aintree Race-course and is themedaround international trade,featuring workshops andexperts from UKTI withspecific support on keymarkets. Sefton Chamberchief executive Steve Dick-son said: “The local author-ity’s Invest Sefton team,who we deliver the forumalongside, are also working

on achieving this targetand this support event willinclude an internationaltrade theme with sem-inars.” To book a place orfind out more details visitwww.events.seftonchamber.org.uk or call01704 531710.

THURSDAY, APRIL 25MARKETING Research for

Exporters is a course beingrun by Liverpool Chamberof Commerce, at its OldHall Street offices,designed to encourage thedevelopment of a struc-tured and objectiveapproach to internationalbusiness development and

to emphasise the import-ance of effective researchin achieving export success.The speaker is John Har-rison, who is an experi-enced trainer currentlyworking in a consultancycapacity with a range oforganisations involved ininternational trade andalso on e-Governmentissues. The course runs from9am to 5pm and costs £200for chamber members and£250 for non-members. Formore information visitwww.liverpoolchamber.org.uk/eventitem.aspx/show/472 or to attendemail [email protected]

TUESDAY, APRIL 30BRAND Ubiquity Ritual’s

next lunchtime network-ing session will take placeat Hanover Street Social,situated in the CasartelliBuilding, 16-20 HanoverStreet, from 12 noon to2pm. The event will cost£5 for Brand UbiquityRitual members, and £10for guests. Please RSVP forthe next event in the net-working schedule to:joel@ubiquitypr. co.uk

■ Send your diaryevents to [email protected]

Wine bar opensPICTURED at the open-ing of City Wine Bar inOld Hall Street lastweek were, from left,Paul Hampson fromHampson Hughes,Edward Leyland andPaul Burgess fromGoodman Wells, Gary

Bond from Bond Mediaand Matt Case from Rus-sell & Case Jewellers.

Chris and Sally Clayof Investec, left, alsoattended the launch ofthe venue and eaterywhich has been openedby Jaf Siddiqi.

China trade viewpointsLIVERPOOL VISION held thelatest It's Liverpool in China eventat Liverpool's Malmaison Hotel.

Among those attending were,from left, David Wade-Smith, boardmember of the Liverpool MayoralDevelopment Corporation, Andy

Snell of Liverpool Vision, RikkiGriffiths, HSBC, Martin Kitney,Thumbstar, Frank Fox, LombardShipping, Andrew Teage, BDP andSteven Foo, Mitchell Charlesworth.

Left, Mr Wade-Smith chaired thepanel discussion

John Welsby, managingdirector of Liverpool-based Conlons OpticiansQ What is your favourite

lunch venue?A The Panoramic restaurant in

West Tower.

Q Why is this your favouritevenue?

A It is a great restaurant and aspectacular way to promoteLiverpool to outside clients.The views really show the cityat its best

Q What is your favouritedish and why?

A This is difficult to answerbecause the food is alwaysbeautiful and varied. If youpush me I’d have to say theslow roasted leg of lamb. I’vealso had the trio of lamb inthe evening which was deli-cious.

Q What is the best bit ofbusiness you have doneover lunch?

A Lunch is not for business butfor enjoying – hopefullyyou’ve completed the dealearly to be rewarded by thelunch.

Q Who would you most liketo have lunch with?

A Any of my friends from Lon-don and the South to showwe can really push the boatout here in Liverpool.

Q Where else do you like togo for lunch?

A Chaophraya in Liverpool Oneis great – it’s got a very livelyatmosphere and deliciousThai food

my favourite lunch

post businessendpiece

networkingPanoramic is Liverpool’shighest restaurant

John Welsby


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Post Business - 18th March 2013