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Manchester sits behind Liverpool and lags well behind many of its European rivals in the strength of the city's brand, despite having much stronger assets, according to Saffron Brand Consultants' new City Brand Barometer. The study ranks 72 of Europe's largest cities based on a comparison of their assets and attractions against the strength of their brands. In a YouGov poll of 2,000 consumers, Liverpool was ranked 28th and Manchester 32nd on brand strength, while Leeds loitered behind in 64th place. "Barcelona is the leading example of a city that has got its leaders together and focused on what it wants to be known for," said Saffron's head of place branding Jeremy Hildreth. "To a lesser extent Liverpool is successfully doing this - it's decided it wants to be a hip city and has a plan to achieve it. There is a bunch of new European cities that need to get out there and tell their story, and in so doing they can forge ahead of their bland British counterparts." 
Property developer Peel has refinanced two of its businesses to reorganise its property assets and group of companies. Lloyds TSB has led a five-bank £250m refinancing of Peel Land Holdings and Bank of Scotland has pumped £202m into Peel Land and Property (Ports No. 3). The two deals have led to a bumper month for law firm Addleshaw Goddard's banking team, which has completed £530m of refinancing deals in the past month.
Ascribe kickstarts take-private surge The expected surge of take-privates could be about to start after Bolton-based healthcare IT company Ascribe confirmed it is in talks to undertake a management buyout of the company. Shares in Ascribe hit a year high of 45.5p in September 2007 but have since dipped as low as 17p in July 2008. Following this morning's announcement the company is trading nearly 16 per cent up on yesterday at 27.75p - valuing the company at £32.63m. Advisory firm Altium Capital is thought to have been appointed to find potential backers for the deal, although the firm declined to confirm its involvement with Ascribe.
North tops deals table The north of England has come out on top in a regional survey of deals done in the equity gap according to research by Corpfin Worldwide. The research explored all transactions completed between May 2007 and April 2008 with an enterprise value of between £5m and £15m. This highlighted a particularly competitive offering in Manchester and Leeds, where 18 deals completed compared with just 13 in London and eight in the south of England. The study also revealed the leading lenders in the market with Yorkshire & Clydesdale, Barclays and HSBC beating The Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS and Lloyds TSB at the top of the table. BDO Stoy Hayward topped the corporate finance advisory table and Cobbetts and Eversheds led the legal field in this space.
MSS sells Swinton property AIM-listed building services and maintenance group Managed Support Services (MSS), which operates two of its companies in the North West, has sold off an investment property in Swinton, Manchester, for £1.3m. The money will be used to boost existing cash resources and generate an exceptional profit of £290,000 in the period to 30 September 2008. Four companies now make up MSS, after the group's activities were consolidated at the end of last year. These include Bolton-based heating and air conditioning company Woods Environmental and Wilmslow-based building services business Woods Facilities.
AIM-listed business advisory CBG Group is celebrating its buy-and-build approach in the North West after an 80 per cent hike in revenues for the six months to 30 June 2008. The Manchester-based company, which specialises in providing insurance broking, employee benefits, wealth management and sports injury services, also achieved a 69 per cent increase in operating profits to £1.35m from £800,000 in the same period during 2007. CBG also acquired insurance outfits Barclay Brown Holdings and Howgud during the period. Chairman Laurie Turnbull said: "The strong foundations and core business we have carefully built enables us to maintain our selective approach to acquisitions, buying businesses that add to and augment our group for sound business reasons."
Ticket schemes boosting football sales Despite last week's PKF report that the majority of premier league football clubs are deep into their overdrafts and having trouble securing sponsorship, it's not all bad news. New sales initiatives include family-friendly offers such as Bolton Wanderers' cheaper season tickets, which have helped sales rise 3.2 per cent, and Sunderland's interest-free instalment payments. Mark Roberts, senior consultant for the sports business group at Deloitte, said funding sources for football clubs include broadcast contracts, commercial deals and ticket sales on match day - with ticket sales being the easiest to directly affect. "There's still a healthy amount of revenue coming into clubs," he said.
Grant moves to Hill Dickinson Insurance law expert Sarah Grant has joined the professional risks practice group at law firm Hill Dickinson in Manchester. With previous experience at Halliwells and as a partner at James Chapman & Co, Grant represents insurers in the defence of claims against professionals. She will be working alongside Ruth Lawrence, the recently promoted head of Hill Dickinson's professional risks practice group.
Head chef joins new Crowne Plaza Manchester's soon-to-open Crowne Plaza has expanded its staff, hiring its new head chef. Karl Bittner has more than 18 years' experience including working in some of the city's major restaurants and spending two years as a sous chef in Spain. The hotel on Shudehill will contain 228 bedrooms and nine conference rooms, the largest of which will accommodate up to 300 delegates. The Crowne Plaza Manchester City Centre is operated by Liverpool-based hotel developer Centre Island.
Walsh Simmons to produce Harvest DVD Manchester-based design agency Walsh Simmons continues its work with the city's Harvest Housing Group by securing the brief to produce a DVD for the group's Routes 2 Work initiative, which helps people back into employment. The ten-minute DVD focuses on the people who run Routes 2 Work and showcases some of the people who have benefited from the scheme.
Rochdale Council is to rerun its developer selection for the £250m redevelopment of the town centre, having concluded that its agreement with Wilson Bowden (WB) for the scheme would be affected by a European legal test case regarding a Greek development. Chief executive Roger Ellis said: âThis has been a difficult decision to make, but it has been taken with the best interests of the town centre's regeneration and the people of Rochdale in mind." Sultan Properties, which with its joint venture partner Ask Developments was a beaten finalist in the initial procurement process, objected to the selection of WB in April.
Funding partner pulls plug on Vermont Liverpool-based Vermont Developments has been placed into administration by shareholder Downing Corporate Finance (DCF), the London-based venture capitalist behind the £40m Foundry Wharf, a recently mothballed residential scheme in Salford. Vermont’s directors have been instructed not to discuss details, but Insider understands that in June DCF signed an agreement with Vermont to restructure repayment of its £4m funding of Foundry Wharf, at which point the funder became an equity partner in Vermont. The two were also expected to work together on the development of Rumford Court in Liverpool city centre. London-based Wilkins Kennedy has been appointed as administrator. The Quarter development at Sefton Street, where Vermont is a development partner of Ethel Austin Properties, is said to be unaffected.
Blackpool chooses Carillion ReBlackpool and Blackpool Council have announced that Carillion Capital Projects has been appointed as preferred developer for the second phase of road and environmental improvements for the new gateways to Blackpool. The second phase of the Central Corridor Programme centres around Blackpool FC's Bloomfield Road stadium and will involve upgrading car parks, a new pedestrian plaza and road reconfiguration.
The Welsh bring the power Newport-headquartered energy producer Welsh Power has announced plans to build a £600m gas power station on the Fylde coast. The combined-cycle gas turbine will be built on a 35-acre brownfield site secured in a deal with landowner NPL Estates. Welsh Power has applied to National Grid for a connection date of October 2012 for the former ICI site. The development is expected to create 650 jobs during construction, with 40 highly skilled permanent jobs once the power station is in operation.
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