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Top story
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Family businesses urged to plan ahead
Law firm Mace & Jones has issued a warning to family businesses in the wake of the credit crunch. Liverpool’s economy relies heavily on the strength of its many family-run businesses and corporate partner Ian Hodgkinson said that although there has been an increase in the number of family buyout deals this year – with 36 taking place in the North West in first nine months of 2008 - not enough family-run firms are planning for the future. According to the BDO Guide to Family Business, only 24 per cent of UK family businesses survive through to the second generation and only 14 per cent make it beyond the third. “This is a major problem and given the current climate we need to encourage more family-run firms to prepare their succession planning,” he said. “Handing a business over to a younger generation requires a measured and gradual shareholding process. This succession planning takes years rather than months.”
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Deals
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Business
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The web goes 3D
New technology set to revolutionise the way organisations sell and promote themselves on the internet has been launched at the International Centre for Digital Content by Lateral Visions. The Liverpool company has developed software that adds a new dimension to the web and signals a new era in the history of internet marketing. The award-winning company based on Wavertree Technology Park specialises in interactive 3D visualisation, simulation and educational games for five years, with clients including English Heritage, the Liverpool Culture Company, Shell and North Wales Police. Its 3D web technology enables connected, interactive 3D content across the web. 
ICE joins COI roster
Liverpool-headquartered communications agency ICE has been named as one of eight agencies on the Central Office of Information’s new PR roster for the North West. The roster, which comes into force today, covers a range of regional PR requirements for various government departments, and means that ICE will now be able to compete for government and public sector work without having to go through a lengthy procurement process for each contract. ICE is joined on the roster by Bell Pottinger North, Financial Dynamics, IPB Communications, McCann Erickson Communications House, Staniforth, Tangerine PR and Weber Shandwick.
See the wood for the trees
Tens of thousands of new trees are to be planted in Liverpool to create a new community woodland that will form a Capital of Culture legacy. More than £700,000 of regeneration funding is to be spent on transforming 25 hectares of brownfield land in the West Derby area as a showpiece for the city’s Year of the Environment in 2009. The Northwest Regional Development Agency provided £440,000 of funding via a Forestry Commission partnership programme, Newlands. Further funding has come from the Forestry Commission through its English Woodland Grant Scheme, The Riverside Group via the Big Lottery Changing Spaces programme, the Mersey Forest via Objective 1 funding and Liverpool City Council.
E-tailers to get Christmas boost
Online sales are expected to increase by 10 per cent this year as more consumers use the internet for their gift and food shopping, according to research from the business advisory firm Deloitte. Total online spend is estimated to reach £4.7bn this year, from £4.2bn in 2007. But Anish Patel, director in retail consulting at Deloitte, warned: “Although online retailers are well positioned to make the best of a potentially lean Christmas, their online strategies need to be sophisticated and well executed, focusing on better customer insight and innovative marketing.”
Top award for TMP manager
Karen Illingworth, tourism skills development manager at The Mersey Partnership, has scooped a national award for her work in the tourism industry. She was named public sector woman of the year at the Shine Awards 2008 in London on Friday, at an event designed to celebrate the achievements of the UK’s women who work in the travel, tourism and hospitality sector.
Action demanded on ten-day payment pledge
A North West business group says public sector bodies should follow the government’s pledge to pay small firms within ten days rather than 30 days. Private Sector Partners (PSP) North West, represents more than 100,000 firms regionally. Its leader, businessman Len Collinson, said he is determined to see the ten-day pledge adopted across the public sector. “The ten-day pledge is a welcome and vital measure for small firms wrestling with the economic crisis,” said Collinson. “However, not all public bodies are signed up to it. Backsliding and sweeping the pledge under the carpet in this climate is not acceptable. There has been a culture of late payment in parts of the public sector historically. PSP will be watching and listening closely to see how quickly publicly funded bodies are paying their small business suppliers.”
Cumbria limbers up
Cumbria is preparing to make the most of the 2012 Olympic Games after a visit to Kendal by Charles Allen, chairman of the London 2012 Nations and Regions Group and member of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games board. Allen met with Andy Worthington, chairman of the North West steering group for the Games on Friday to highlight the opportunities that the 2012 Games will bring to the county. Cumbria Vision and Northwest Business Network are staging a free seminar and workshop at Rheged, Penrith, on 9 December from 9.30am to 1pm. The event will provide important information on how Cumbrian businesses can compete for business opportunities and other public sector contracts related to the Games.
Deep and long recession awaits
Richard Jeffrey, chief economist and strategist and chief investment officer at Cazenove Capital Management was in Manchester last week to remind everyone how tough things are. He addressed a private dinner at Addleshaw Goddard on Thursday night and an investment conference on Friday at the Midland Hotel. Afterwards, he told Insider the government have only themselves to blame for the mess. “This is going to be a long and painful recession,” he said.
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Property
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JJB pulls out of four leases
Troubled retailer JJB has handed over the leases on four of its stores – in Cardiff Bay, Salisbury, Worthing and York Davygate – to Sportsdirect.com Retail for £3.4m as it seeks to raise funds to reduce its level of borrowings. For the financial year ended 27 January the stores generated pre-tax profit of £1.1m and at 27 July had gross assets of £300,000.
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Events
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Dates for your diary this week
On Wednesday Insider is hosting the final networking event for 2008 for the members of the exclusive 42 under 42 fellowship at Hill Dickinson’s offices on St Paul’s Square in Liverpool, with mulled wine and Christmas canapés. On Friday ICDC, in partnership with social mobile consultancy Kisky Netmedia, is holding The Amazing iPhone Event, a guide to the iPhone for developers and business owners, at Novas Contemporary Urban Centre in Liverpool. And on Thursday, Merseyside football fans are set to welcome Sky TV’s Soccer Saturday team for a live debate at the Crowne Plaza, sponsored by stockbroking and investment management firm Blankstone Sington and featuring some of football’s best-known former players.
Dates for every day
A new online advent calendar has been launched today by ACC Liverpool offering daily giveaways, including tickets to Disney’s High School Musical: The Ice Tour, dinner at Liverpool’s glamorous Alma de Cuba, an iPod Nano and shopping vouchers for the Met Quarter. Meanwhile, the ACC has also launched a new day delegate rate of £45 plus VAT per head for local companies, aimed at single day events for groups of 10 to 200 people. The BT Convention Centre has hosted conferences including supermarket giant Iceland, British Council of Shopping Centres and the Liberal Democrats since opening in January of this year.
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Contact Us
Insider
8th Floor, Boulton House
17-21 Chorlton Street
Manchester
M1 3HY
Telephone: +44 (0)161 907 9711
Email:
nw@insiderdaily.co.uk
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