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Lord Jones recently warned that Birmingham is in danger of losing its second city status to Manchester. Although the message for the Birmingham city region should be that we don’t have room for complacency, we don’t have to panic just yet either.

Yes, Manchester has got City and United, Coronation Street and all the associated glamour and buzz. Lord Jones also mentioned Oasis, but I would politely like to point out that the band has split up and had its last number one single in 2005! However, we have still got three premier league teams within a ten mile radius.

The Blues went down but actually got their hands on a trophy this year. The Crossroads motel may have shut some years back but the glamour is here with some of our brighter spots making the backdrop for Hustle. And finally, the shoppers in our business rate the Mailbox and Bull Ring over anything Manchester has to offer.

After some years of decline, Birmingham’s professional community is also back on the up. Private equity houses, such as Bridgepoint, are moving into town rather than leaving as they were a few years ago. Meanwhile, the launch of the government’s bank-backed Business Growth Fund has created a huge wave of excitement. If just a proportion of this fund gets invested into the city, then this can only help.

Amongst professional advisers there has been an excellent change in attitude. The fortress walls have come down and the city is much more open to interest from outside investors. Growth is coming from advisers that are creating national and international reputations for themselves as the ‘go to guy’ for their particular specialist subjects.

Clearwater’s cross border deal-making skills and our Birmingham teams focusing on the consumer, industrials, healthcare and technology sectors are strong examples of this but we aren’t alone. Stand out examples are Pinsent Masons, renowned for its advice to the technology sector and DLA Piper, for its work in healthcare.

To continue the turnaround we must develop a lot more of these ‘go to people’. Being a local adviser is convenient but clients will travel for the best and we want them to travel to Birmingham. With a competitive cost base and real specialist skills, we can pull huge amounts of work from both around the UK and abroad and make our financial services offer a stand-out sector to keep us in a comfortable second place spot.

PS - For the statisticians amongst you, Birmingham’s GDP is £132bn second only to London. Manchester’s is £106bn and the city is not expected to reach Birmingham’s GDP size until about 2025. So we’ve got about 14 years to sort ourselves out! (source: McKinsey)

Phil Burns is managing partner at Clearwater Corporate Finance in Birmingham.