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Top story
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The Quarter back on as Vermont re-emerges
Work is to resume at the £100m Quarter scheme at the junction of Sefton Street and Parliament Street in Liverpool. Construction of the mixed-use scheme, which includes a hotel, apartments and offices, halted in August when Vermont Developments, one of two joint venture partners along with Ethel Austin Properties, was placed into administration by a shareholder, Downing Corporate Finance. Although The Quarter was unaffected, Vermont had to overcome legal issues before committing anew to the scheme as Vermont Capitol. Its chief executive Mark Connor said: “It’s been a difficult few months, but having reached agreement with all the stakeholders we can move forward. I’m obviously grateful to Bank of Ireland and Ethel Austin Properties for their unstinting support.”
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Today's news
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Rice entrepreneur sets sights on Liverpool
Manoj Verma, founder of the expanding Manchester-based Rice Flame Bar and Grill business, has said that a Liverpool site is firmly on his radar as he plans to expand in 2009. He told Insider: “Liverpool’s top of my agenda for 2009. It’s ready for what we offer - good quality, healthy food cooked in front of the customer at an affordable price.” Since opening a “fast casual” outlet in Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens in 2005, Verma has opened in Selfridges, the Trafford Centre and a new restaurant site near the BBC. 
Ineos acquisition blocked
The Competition Commission has blocked the proposed acquisition of Runcorn-headquartered chlorine business Ineos Chlor by global giant BOC. The commission concluded that a merger of the two companies would substantially reduce competition in the market for packed chlorine in cylinders and drums in the UK, leading to higher prices for customers. Ineos Chlor is a division of IneosChlorVinyls, Europe’s largest producer of PVC.
Medicash goes green
Liverpool-based health cash plan provider Medicash has become the first company of its kind to achieve carbon-neutral status. The company offsets its carbon footprint through donations to Cool Earth, a charity that buys endangered rainforest on behalf of local communities. Medicash intends to bolster its green credentials further by limiting its company car policy to those with low CO2 emissions and promoting interest-free loans to its employees using public transport.
New dock link threatened
The new link road to the Port of Liverpool could be under threat following the Highways Agency’s admission that the project will cost between £130m and £200m, rather than the £45m originally stated. The road is intended to run through Rimrose Valley and relieve pressure on Dunnings Bridge Road. Although only an estimated 10 per cent of traffic is dock-related, this is expected to increase when the post-Panamax container dock at Seaforth is complete.
MediaCity could get dash of Lime
Lime Pictures, the Liverpool-based production company behind Hollyoaks, is working closely with MediaCity on the development of a digital content lab. Managing director Sean Marley told Insider: “It’s very early days, but we’ve been successful with Hollyoaks.com and we’re seeing how we can help MediaCity make new digital content commercially viable.”
The Duke opens One Park West
One Park West, the residential scheme at Grosvenor’s Liverpool One scheme, was officially opened yesterday by the Duke of Westminster. The 17-storey building, located on The Strand, will house 326 apartments and is part of a 42-acre site being redeveloped by Grosvenor. One Park West was designed by architect Cesar Pelli, whose previous buildings include the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.
Yorkshire investment in Travel Offers
NJD Capital, a Leeds-based investment fund quoted on the PLUS market, has acquired a 33.3 per cent stake in Repeated Speech, the company that last week acquired Chester-based Travel Offers, a hotel discounts business, from administrators at KPMG. NJD is paying £3,333 in cash for the shares, as well as making two unsecured loans to Repeated Speech totalling £46,667. The remaining shares in Repeated Speech are owned by Lincolnshire-based Richard Crean. Travel Offers maintains two databases of hotels and the 12,000 subscribers pay an annual fee to benefit from discounted room rates at any hotel listed in the UK and Ireland.
New boss for Original Factory Shop
The Original Factory Shop, the Burnley-headquartered value retailer, will have a new chief executive from 5 January - Angela Spindler, former managing director of Debenhams and a former executive managing director of Asda’s George brand. Current chief executive George Foster, the former TJ Hughes chief executive who came out of retirement to join The Original Factory Shop in 2005, is retiring and will remain an investor and non-executive director in the business. In December 2007 Foster led the secondary management buyout of the company, backed by Duke Street Capital.
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Something for the weekend
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Deal of the week
In these credit-crunched times from which we all need rescuing, there are sure to be some puns somewhere when looking at the management buyout (MBO) of a life-jacket manufacturer. But we’ll steer clear of those and just celebrate in style the £4m MBO of Bootle-based life jacket manufacturer International Safety Products. Funding included £1.1m from Alliance Fund Managers through the £40m Merseyside Special Investment Fund. All 95 staff based at the Bootle headquarters and a factory in Birkenhead will be retained under the new ownership.
Call to arms quote of the week
“From the largest to the smallest company, no one will escape this. I know Andrew Nichols and he’s a good man who ran a good business. This is immoral.” Mersey Maritime director David Pendleton quite rightly lambasts the iniquitous backdating of rates for port-based businesses to 2005, a piece of naked tax-taking that has forced Liverpool firm Thomas Nichols Brown to call in administrators this week.
Queen in speech snub shocker
This week’s prize for finding a tenuous news angle goes to Mossley Hill-based The Transaction Partnership. Apparently the online sales gurus have concluded that 3pm on 25 December is the time your average Joe has opened his pressies and had his turkey, but will snub the Queen’s Speech in favour of online bargain-hunting, thanks to stricken retailers starting sales early. Insider would maybe believe this if we knew anyone whatsoever who had watched the Queen’s Speech at any point since the 1970s.
Canapé won’t pay
You can’t go wrong on a damp, chilly Mersey night if you’re offering your canapé-chompers game pie, sausages, mini burgers and mini fish and chips, all washed down with a flood of Prosecco. So big thumbs up to the canapé team at Alliance Fund Managers in the Cunard building on Wednesday night. Well worth getting soaked on the way back to the bus stop. In fact, they were so good that we’d had our fill of canapés and stayed in for the rest of the week to write Christmas cards.
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