Date: Wed 24th June, 2009
Venue: Ernst & Young, Belfast
Northern Irish businesses are casting off their shackles and becoming far more outward-looking as they respond to the downturn. That was a key theme of an Insider breakfast debate in Belfast attended by leading corporate financiers in June.
Michael Brannigan, director of M&A at Ernst & Young, summed up the mood: “A lot of clients have had a difficult 18 months but we see businesses with sound management teams who have really changed their outlook and strategy, some turning their model on a sixpence.”
Our panel agreed that businesses across the province were becoming far more international.
Ian Coulter, a partner at law firm Tughans, said: “Companies are starting to move further away in terms of their ambition, particularly internationally. Northern Irish businesses are traditionally quite conservative but that is really beginning to change.”
Donal Durkan, director at Invest Northern Ireland, said the current climate was forcing companies to look abroad. “The downturn has changed the psychology of the entrepreneur and looking at international markets has become the norm. This has got to be a good thing, particularly given Northern Ireland’s still strong dependence on the public sector.”
Meanwhile our panel heard how the Northern Irish economy had not suffered the same sharp falls in economic growth as Ireland. Although the property sector had taken a hit as elsewhere, sectors such as food, recycling, waste, energy and printing and packaging were still performing strongly. Clare Guinness, director at Bank of Ireland, added: “It is choppy waters at the moment but many sectors are proving extremely resilient.”
Our forum was also used to help publicise the launch of the government’s new Capital for Enterprise Fund which in Northern Ireland is being run by Maven Capital Partners. The fund provides equity or mezzanine funding from £200,000 to £2m per business, and our panel felt the region should prove a strong source of deals for the fund over the coming year.
