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Top story
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Seasons greetings to all our readers
This is our last newsletter of 2008, a year in which Insider went daily with two editions covering the North West and Liverpool, now with 14,000 subscribers across the region. Over the course of what’s been a difficult year, we were the first to bring you a stream of exclusive news from the deals, property and business communities. For example, in October we were first with the news that David McLean, the Flintshire-headquartered property group, had gone into administration and we provided updates as the story unfolded. In August we exclusively revealed that Eamonn Boylan, the deputy chief executive of Manchester City Council, is to leave before the end of the year to become deputy chief executive of the Homes and Communities Agency. And we brought you all the latest news on the unfolding drama that was the Transport Innovation Fund vote. Not to mention examining the regional impact of the banking collapse and subsequent government bailout. Throughout 2009 we will continue to bring you all the breaking news every working day from across the North West. Insider Daily is back on 5 January.
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Today's news
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New Greggs factory complete
Baked goods retailer Greggs’ new £16m North West headquarters in Openshaw has been completed. The site will employ 300 people and will be fully operational by March, when all departments migrate from Greggs’ current site in Clayton. The 75,000 sq ft bakery has been enabled through a joint deal between Manchester City Council, New East Manchester and Greggs, and was assisted by a £7m grant from the Northwest Regional Development Agency.
Funding sought for Solway barrage
Cumbrian entrepreneur Nigel Catterson, who heads social enterprise group nb21c, is seeking up to £200,000 for a feasibility study into a barrage across the Solway Firth that will harness tidal energy and provide a link across the firth not seen since the 1930s when a railway bridge crossed it. The Northwest Regional Development Agency, Scottish Enterprise and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority will be among organisations to be approached for funding. The Solway Energy Gateway scheme has so far involved studies and input from universities in Lancaster and Liverpool, as well as numerous groups on both sides of the border.
Red rose flies over York Brewery
Lancashire-based Mitchells Hotels & Inns has bought York Brewery for an undisclosed sum. The deal adds four pubs and York’s only brewery to Mitchell’s 62-strong network of pubs and marks a return to brewing for the Lancaster group, which closed its brewery nine years ago. The acquisition was funded by The Royal Bank of Scotland. Mitchell’s joint managing director Andrew Barker said it is looking for further Yorkshire pubs.
Retail assets acquired
The administrators of Salford-based Strategic Retail have sold some of the assets of its three trading subsidiaries – Fads, Leveys and Texstyle World – to Divilimit, a company owned by former Fads director Roy Gabbie, for up to £1.5m. The assets acquired comprise one freehold store, the leasehold interests in, or licences relating to, 29 stores, the head office of the company, fixtures and fittings, vehicles and stock with an aggregate estimated book value of £3m. Strategic Retail was formed in 2003 as a cash shell to acquire companies or businesses in the retail sector.
We are the Champion
Champion, the North West group that operates accountancy, consulting and financial services business in Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire and Merseyside, has reported revenues for the year to 30 June up 21.23 per cent to £6.23m and pre-tax profit of £350,000. Over the year it acquired accountancy practice Haworth Moore in Blackpool in July 2007 and then in September 2009 acquired Robinsons Rose of Preston. The number of fee-earners across the group has risen to 149 from 129. Chairman Kevin Philbin said: “We will look to grow organically and will still actively seek further acquisitions of the required quality. At the same time we will take whatever cost-cutting measures are necessary to maintain profitability.”
How does your garden grow?
The Klondyke Group of garden centres, including Strikes Garden Centres, has acquired Brookside Garden Centre in Poynton, Cheshire, from administrators. Klondyke chairman Bob Gault said: “The acquisition of Brookside further consolidates our presence in Cheshire and we look forward to exploiting the full potential of the site over the coming months.” The acquisition was part-funded by Allied Irish Bank. The group already has five centres in Cheshire as well as Carlisle, Blackpool and Merseyside.
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Something for the festive season
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Who’s charted?
Trepidation was in the air at Insider HQ yesterday as a parcel arrived from the boys and girls at Manchester PR agency Mason Williams, which turned out to be volume three of the firm’s Christmas album Pigs Might Fly. Unfortunately, all the staff have done is choose their favourite festive hits, so the world has been denied the chance to hear bosses John Williams and Rita Rowe crooning and warbling along to the likes of White Christmas and Feed the World.
Bigger breasts for Christmas…
…turkeys, thanks to Manchester scientists. Yes, we were nearly fooled by the headline, too. The good news is that University of Manchester researchers are investigating the breathing mechanics of birds to help farmers breed fit, healthy turkeys with “bigger, juicier breasts”, says the release. Dr Jonathan Codd and Peter Tickle at the University’s Faculty of Life Sciences are researching how changes in breathing mechanics in developing birds may be able to be used to ensure turkeys stay healthy, while being bred to grow more efficiently, to take their top billing in the Christmas dinner.
Enjoy that turkey curry
Thanks to the Food Standards Agency (FSA) for the cheery news that one in five of us will risk food poisoning this year by eating old turkey leftovers. Apparently 22 per cent of people in the North West keep leftovers for more than two days. Perhaps unsurprisingly, only 7 per cent of Scots and 10 per cent of Geordies break the FSA’s two-day limit. And 80 per cent of people wash their turkeys before cooking them, significantly increasing the risk of food poisoning. Eat safely this Christmas.
Odd survey of the month
Thanks to the cheery souls promoting the Business Travel Show – it’s at Earls Court in February, if you’re interested – for their survey that reveals more than a third of business travellers regularly “play away” and 8 per cent have confessed to “joining the mile high club”, though not with their regular partners. There is some good news in the survey of 500 travellers if you keep on reading – after the stuff about technology wants and stealing towels from hotels – as 44 per cent apparently sneak their partners along on business trips, too. Lucky them.
Bob’s yer uncle
Anyone will tell you that the best business networking to be had at this time of year is quite literally out in the field, as the shooting season reaches its peak. Some Insider spies have been donning the hacking jacket recently at shoots including Dave Whelan’s and that hosted by Cumbrian kingpin Brian Scowcroft, where it seems the finest marksman was Bob Dyson, the ever-popular “wire-haired terrier of Manchester property” and regional chairman of Jones Lang LaSalle. Boom!
Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me
Seeing as it’s a time for goodwill, we’ll go easy on the PR who sent the week’s most puzzling press release, which publicised the sponsorship by Smith Metals of “the infamous speedway team Belle Vue Aces”. Unless we’ve missed some scandal, that’s downright libellous. Surely the Aces are just "famous", although even that’s a moot point considering speedway’s struggles.
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