MAN BUSINESS MAIN 07-28-08 A 1 MBDB.qxd - Edocr

FOCUS Page 11 

Sport 

Dream new 

venture 

for sleep 

coach 

What’s News 

■ The majority of consumers say 

the Co-operative Group’s ethical 

stance makes no difference to 

whether they shop there, an ICM 

poll for Retail Week reveals. Around 

61 per cent said its ethical trading 

policy made “no difference”, 

compared with 32 per cent who 

said it did. Three per cent said they 

were “less likely” to shop there 

because of the policy. Those who 

favoured the Co-op’s ethics were 

more likely to be between 18 and 

24, the report said. Asked if the Coop 

offered better value for money 

than other retailers, 41 per cent 

said “about the same”, 9 per cent 

said “better value” and 40 per cent 

said the retailer was “worse value” 

for money. One thousand people 

over the age of 18 were surveyed. 

■ Thistle Hotels wants to introduce 

its luxury Guoman brand into 

Manchester. The Malaysian-owned 

company runs three Guoman 

properties in London and a resort 

in Malaysia. Sanjay Nijhawan, chief 

operating officer at Thistle Hotels, 

said: “We will look and as long as it 

doesn’t conflict with the Thistle 

brand we will go ahead with it. Big 

cities, where the two can sit side by 

side like Manchester and 

Birmingham, are definitely an 

option for the Guoman brand.” 

■ The average salary for a job 

advertised in Manchester has gone 

up £1,926 over the last six months, 

and currently stands at £30,434, 

according to jobs search engine 

AllTheTopBananas.com. This 

compares with the national 

average, excluding London, of just 

£30,450, but is well behind the 

£41,079 that Londoners can expect 

to receive. Dave Martin, managing 

director at AllTheTopBananas.com, 

said he expects the gap between 

salaries in Manchester and the 

capital will continue to rise. 

■ Bolton-based Seddon Kings 

Reach has been given planning 

approval for an office-led business 

park in Stockport. Outline 

proposals to develop a commercial 

scheme at Kings Reach on Yew 

Street were given the go-ahead by 

Stockport Metropolitan Borough 

Council last week. The compamy 

can now proceed with landscaping 

work on the site. 

■ Plans to extend an industrial 

park at the former BAE 

Chadderton site in Oldham have 

been scrapped by the developer. 

The Royal Mutual Insurance Society 

has withdrawn plans to turn the 

site on Greengate into a trailer park 

which would have included vehicle 

wash and fuelling facilities, office 

accommodation to serve a main 

warehouse unit, an ancillary 

welfare facilities. The proposals 

would also have seen an existing 

warehouse extended. 

■ Manchester nightclub Sankey’s 

SEE WHAT’S NEWS, PAGE 2 

CRAIN’S LIST Professional Sports Clubs Page 14 

CRAIN’S 

CRAIN’S 

MANCHESTER BUSINESS 

ISSUE 29, JULY 28 - AUGUST 1, 2008 CrainsManchesterBusiness.co.uk £2 

Live Nation aims to add fourth 

venue to Manchester portfolio 

BY CRAIN’S STAFF REPORTER 

Global entertainment group Live 

Nation wants to add to its Manchester 

portfolio. 

The owner of the Palace Theatre, 

Opera House and Manchester Apollo 

is looking to acquire a 1,000 to 2,000capacity 

venue. 

Paul Latham, Live Nation’s president, 

UK music and venues, said the 

fourth property would be smaller 

than the Apollo, which holds 2,641 

seated and 3,500 standing. 

In March 2007, Live Nation 

acquired a majority stake in the 

Academy Music Group, which has 12 

venues in the UK. 

“We don’t have one in Manchester 

and there may well be scope for 

another venue within that remit,” 

said Latham. He said the company’s 

preference would be to acquire an 

existing venue rather than embark- 

ing on a new build. Academy Music 

Group venues include the Carling 

Academy Brixton and the Shepherd’s 

Bush Empire in London and there 

are Carling Academy venues in Glasgow, 

Newcastle, Liverpool, Birmingham, 

Bristol, Islington (London) and 

Bar Academy venues in Birmingham 

and Islington and Oxford. They operate 

a mix of live music shows and 

NOT FIRED, GOING ANYWAY 

Kristina Grimes, the runner up in last year’s 

series of reality TV show The Apprentice, is 

leaving her job as investment sales director at 

the Manchester office of property development 

firm Dandara. 

Grimes’ departure comes after just one year at the 

company and it is understood the decision has been 

motivated by the decline of the residential property 

sector, especially the weak investment market. She is 

leaving to set up her own business. 

The decision also comes just six weeks after Grimes 

publicly committed herself to the company. In an 

interview published last month in the Daily Telegraph, 

Acquisition would create strong competition 

for revamped students’ union complex 

BY SIMON BINNS 

The Apprentice 

runner-up 

Kristina Grimes 

Grimes said Dandara was facing “no problems whatsoever”, 

thanks to the success of its lettings business. 

“Manchester is the best place in the UK to invest 

in,” she was quoted as saying. “When people talk 

about the Manchester buy-to-let crash, they mean 

overdeveloped patches in the outskirts. In Manchester 

city centre, there are waiting lists.” 

However, Dandara has in fact suffered from falling 

demand along with the rest of the property sector and 

has had to offer big incentives to tempt buyers into its 

ixed-use residential and commercial developments in 

SEE GRIMES, PAGE 17 

Leading Page 3 WILKINSON GETS REWARD FOR YEARS OF SUPPORT AT SALFORD CITY REDS 

 

club nights and seek to showcase 

breakthrough brands. 

Latham may not need to look far 

from the Palace Theatre for a possible 

acquisition. The Ritz, on Whitworth 

Street, is currently in the 

hands of administrators. 

The company which owned it, 

Candu Entertainment Ltd, went into 

administration in March. Its business 

and assets were sold for £11.5m 

to London-based Company Time 

SEE VENUE, PAGE 17 

Rash of sales 

knocks King 

Street off 

its throne 

BY JAMES CHAPELARD 

Manchester’s King Street, once the 

jewel in the crown of city centre shopping, 

has fallen on hard times. Nearly 

a third of all shop leases — a total of 16 

— are currently for sale. 

Three other shops, Armani 

Collezioni, Emporio Armani and 

DKNY have signed for outlets in Allied 

London’s The Avenue, leaving a question 

mark over their future presence. 

Diesel is the latest business to put 

the lease of its 3,800 sq ft King Street 

store on the market. 

Timberland, Tommy Hilfiger, All 

Saints, Mulberry, fashion retailer 

Flannels and Dorothy Perkins, currently 

have leases on offer while empty 

units include the former Starbucks, 

Virgin Brides, Lotus Bar & Dim Sum, V 

Shop and Jake Shoes. 

Agents say that some King Street 

shops are trading poorly while 

demand from potential newcomers is 

low. 

The street has 54 units altogether 

and rents range from £235,000 per 

year to £69,000 for smaller units, only 

slightly cheaper than Market Street. 

In recent years the street has also 

suffered as new, more modern space 

has become available, notably Manchester 

Arndale’s extension, New 

Cathedral Street and now The Avenue, 

which is sucking up interest for any 

new entrant to Manchester. 

Andrew Hynes associate at Cushman 

& Wakefield, admitted things 

were tough on King Street. He said: 

SEE STREET, PAGE 17

2 NEWS 

What’s News 

FROM PAGE 1 

has been given the green light by 

Manchester City Council to transform 

Hardman Square, part of Allied 

London’s Spinningfields development, 

into an urban beach. The square will 

include sandpits, boardwalk, decking, 

bar and stage until September 14, 

2008. Live music events are also 

planned for Hardman Square 

throughout the summer. 

■ Professional indemnity lawyer 

Elisabeth Taylor is leaving Halliwells in 

Manchester to join Mills & Reeve. She 

starts on September 1 and will be joined 

by a team including an associate, a 

senior lawyer and a paralegal. Taylor 

was managing partner and head of 

professional indemnity at James 

Chapman & Co before it merged with 

Halliwells in 2006. Guy Hichley 

managing partner of Mills & Reeve, 

which opened in Manchester six 

months ago, said: “Insurance is a major 

strand in our strategy and a key driver 

to our business. We are delighted to 

have attracted an individual of Taylor’s 

quality and profile and look forward to 

expanding the team further in the near 

future. 

■ Mandata Contracts,the Manchesterbased 

storage and transport company, 

has been appointed by Endsleigh 

Insurance Services to work on its 

branch closure programme in the 

North West and Yorkshire. The 

specialist student insurance broker is 

closing all 90 of its UK branches this 

summer as it moves to a web-call 

centre-based business model. 

■ Gorton Monastery has won a 

£10,000 grant from Barclays Wealth for 

a course designed to support 

marginalised and hard to reach young 

people to build their self-esteem and 

address the emotional and behavioural 

issues that can block their route to 

training, education and employment. 

Andrew Houston, regional director at 

Barclays Wealth in Manchester, said: 

“We are strongly committed to 

supporting local communities where 

we have a Barclays Wealth presence. 

Our community investment 

programme aims to help people break 

out of the cycle of poverty and give 

them a better future by realising their 

own potential.” The new project aims to 

reach up to 70 people over the next 

few months, 

■ Two car hire companies have won 

business from Greater Manchester 

Police Authority. Watford-based 

INDEX 

Taking Stock Page 6 

Opinion/Editorial Pages 8, 9 

Focus: Sport Pages 11-15 

Crain’s List Page 14 

The Business of Culture Page 16 

For the Record Pages 18-19 

Business Lives Page 16 

Events, People, Gossip Page 23 

National Car Rental has been awarded 

a contract worth £2.04m and a 

£412,000 deal has gone to Ember 

Lathom Vehicle Rental of Lostock, 

near Bolton. Both agreements are 

over four years and cover saloons, 

estates, vans and mini-buses, including 

unmarked cars and vehicles with 

blacked-out windows. 

■ Manchester Airport says the trial of 

a small-scale wind turbine on the roof 

of Terminal Two has “proved 

successful” with no impact on 

operations. A feasibility study is being 

prepared to examine the benefits of 

erecting a number of these turbines 

on Terminal Two to reduce the 

airport’s reliance on supply from the 

grid. From the beginning of April 

2008, 30 per cent of the airport’s 

electricity supply came from 

renewable resources the airport said. 

■ Accountancy firm Saffery 

Champness is urging all North 

West business owners that saw their 

profits fall last year to make sure they 

reduce their tax payments. Mike 

Harrison, head of the firm’s 

Manchester office, said that payments 

on account are based on the previous 

year’s income and therefore could be 

too high if profits have fallen in the 

Our coverage at-a-glance 

BOLTON 

Charles Topham joins 

P7 firms cutting jobs 

BURY 

Muckers directors 

P3 fined for dumping 

controlled waste 

CHESHIRE 

Bodycote shares 

P6 continue to climb 

MANCHESTER 

Developer plans 

P5 £40m scheme for 

canalside 

OLDHAM 

Industrial park 

P1 plans scrapped 

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS PLAN INTERNET TV STATION FOR OLDHAM 

A new internet television station will start broadcasting in 

Oldham from January 2009. Channel O, based at Earl Mill 

in Hathershaw, will show music videos, short dramas and 

factual programmes. Content will be decided by the 16 to 

19 year-olds involved, none of whom are in training, jobs or 

education. Two of the three directors are involved in social 

enterprise businesses based at the mill but say the channel 

will be run as a commercial venture. Keith Lucas is the 

founder of Street College, a media production and training 

company, and Bob Bell is a director at Enterprise Factory, 

which helps new businesses. The directors have invested 

their own money in the venture, although they would not 

ROCHDALE 

Land around River Roch 

P2 to be redeveloped 

SALFORD 

Salford City Red promoted 

P3 to Super League 

STOCKPORT 

P6 ServicePower 

Technologies 

shares up 25 percent 

TAMESIDE 

Buyer found for 

P23 failed firm’s 

90,000 handbags 

TRAFFORD 

Procter & Gamble 

P4 fined £40,000 after 

warehouse accident 

Keith Lucas, left, Esther Shepley and Bob Bell with two of the trainees 

11 

current year. He said a reduced 

payment could help with cashflow for 

a business owner who has suffered a 

downturn and is feeling the heat in 

the current economic climate. 

Payments must be made by July 31 

and forms to reduce the amount owed 

are available on the HMRC website or 

at your local tax office. 

■ Richard Harvey, who quit last 

year as chief executive of insurance 

group Aviva in order to do charitable 

work in Africa, is this year’s recipient 

of The University of Manchester 

Alumni Association’s Outstanding 

Alumnus Award. He graduated in 

1971 with a degree in mathematics 

and went into insurance when his 

sponsors, the Atomic Energy 

Authority, cut back on its recruitment 

plans. 

CORRECTIONS 

WIGAN 

New owner brings 

P11 struggling club back 

into play 

7 

say how much. The company’s social agenda means it will 

initially make money through public sector sponsorship 

and by larger companies fulfilling their corporate social 

responsibility agendas, according to the directors. The plan 

is to grow the channel’s audience virally as Oldham’s youth 

spread the word through other online social sites. It will 

then start placing adverts that target the youth market. 

Earl Mill is getting £1.3m redevelopment funding as part of 

the Hathershaw and Fitton Hill New Deal for the 

Community. A planning application is in to turn part of the 

mill into a video and audio recording studio for Channel O, 

utilising some of that cash. 

3 

4 

3 

■ Manchester-based freight forwarder 

Cardinal Maritime has signed a new 

agency agreement in the US with 

Troy Container Lines. Troy and Cardinal 

will work together on an exclusive 

basis for all for their weekly US 

consolidation containers, both east and 

westbound. “This is another 

progression for us in establishing 

ourselves as a major player in the US 

trade,” said managing director Andrew 

Smithurst. 

■ Land around the east bank of 

Rochdale’s River Roch will be 

redeveloped to make way for a new 

transport interchange and civic offices 

in the town. A new restaurant and café 

area is planned for the west bank. Work 

finished last week on clearing and 

remediating the site to prepare it for 

construction work. 

Tony Rafferty, founder of Printing.com, attended Sheffield University not Manchester 

Business School, as stated in the story headed “University graduate start-up 

numbers don’t add up” in the July 21 issue. 

A story in the July 21 issue should have said that Energos has submitted plans for 

an energy from waste plant in Knowsley, Merseyside. 

● Crain’s Manchester Business has a policy of correcting errors in the next available 

issue. To bring them to our attention, email manchesternews@crain.com or 

call 0161 209 5804 

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Crain’s Manchester Business / July 28, 2008 

Mentioned in this Issue... 

Company/Organisation Page 

AB World Foods 

Academy Music Group 

AGMA 

AGP Architects 

All Saints 

Armani Collezioni, Emporio Armani 

Associated British Foods 

Baker Tilly 

Begbies Traynor 

Begbies Traynor 

Blue Bell 

Bodycote 

Bolton University 

Boodles 

Braemar Estates 

British Land 

Bury FC 

Caledonia Motor Holdings 

Candu Entertainment Ltd 

Cardinal Maritime 

Charles Topham Group 

Cityco 

Clough & Willis Solicitors 

CMS Group 

Colliers CRE 

Comfy Quilts 

Company Time 

Contact Theatre 

Co-operative Group 

Cranford Communications 

Creative Suit 

Cushman & Wakefield 

Dandara 

Davis Blank Furniss 

Debenhams 

Deloitte 

Destinology 

Diesel 

DKNY 

Dorothy Perkins 

Driver Jonas 

Droylsden FC 

Ember Lathom Vehicle Rental 

Enegi Oil 

Expansys 

Flannels 

Formation Group 

GL Hearn 

Gorton Monastery 

GVA Grimley 

Halliwells 

Holidaybreak 

Horners Motor Group 

Individual Restaurant Company 

Introbuild 

James West 

JJB Sports 

JMW Solicitors 

Karpelle 

Keoghs 

Laxmi Enterprises 

Le Mange Tout 

Leigh Genesis 

Leigh RMI 

Leonard Curtis 

Live Nation 

Lookers 

Made in Manchester 

Manchester Airport 

Manchester Enterprises 

Manchester United FC 

Mandata Contracts 

McEwen Transport 

Mills & Reeve 

MMU Business School 

Muckers 

Mulberry 

N Brown 

New Car Discount.com Ltd 

Nicholls, Lindsell & Harris 

NWDA 

Oracle Trading Co 

Oriel 

Patak Food India Pvt 

Patak’s Chilled Foods Ltd 

Patak’s Foods Ltd 

Patak’s Frozen Foods Ltd 

Peel Holdings 

Premium Bars & Restaurants 

PricewaterhouseCoopers 

Proctor and Gamble Product Supply (UK) Ltd 

PSD Group 

Redcity Developments 

Reflec 

Rider Levett Bucknall 

RMS PR 

Rochdale Development Agency 

Royal Bank of Scotland 

Royal Mutual Insurance Society 

Saffery Champness 

Salford Business School 

Salford City Reds 

Salford University 

Sankey’s 

Seddon Kings Reach 

ServicePower Technologies 

Shore Capital 

Shree Balaji Gums & Spice Stuff Pvt Ltd 

Sleep Active Ltd 

Speedwell Tool Company 

Stockport County FC 

Thistle Hotels 

Timerbland 

Tommy Hilfiger 

Trafford Community Leisure 

Travel Counsellors 

Travelodge 

U of Manchester Students’ Union 

UKFast.net 

Unitown Hire Ltd 

Velvet 

Vermont Developments 

WH Ireland 

Wilkinson Corporation Ltd 

Worldwing Investments Ltd 

WSP 

WWB 

Yorkshire Bank 

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EDITOR IN CHIEF 

Christopher Crain ccrain@crain.com 

PUBLISHER 

Arthur Porter aporter@crain.com 

EDITOR 

Steve Brauner sbrauner@crain.com 

DEPUTY EDITOR 

Michael Fahy mfahy@crain.com 

RESEARCH EDITOR 

Angela Tattersall atattersall@crain.com 

DESIGN EDITOR 

Craig Gaymer cgaymer@crain.com 

BUSINESS LIVES EDITOR 

Shawn Selby sselby@crain.com 

COPY EDITOR 

Alison Bell abell@crain.com 

REPORTERS 

Simon Binns sbinns@crain.com 

James Chapelard jchapelard@crain.com 

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Joanne Birtwistle jbirtwistle@crain.com 

DESIGNER 

Annie Carpenter acarpenter@crain.com 

WEB EDITOR 

Steven Connor sconnor@crain.com 

ADMINISTRATIVE DIRECTOR 

Robin Taylor rtaylor@crain.com 

PRODUCTION MANAGER 

Jeff Downs jdowns@crain.com 

MARKETING EXECUTIVE 

Paul Lee plee@crain.com 

ADVERTISING EXECUTIVES 

Sarah Bell sbell@crain.com 

Kathryn Toledano ktoledano@crain.com 

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Graham Tocher gtocher@crain.com 

CIRCULATION 

Steve Clarke sclarke@crain.com 

Trish Peters tpeters@crain.com 

Crain’s Manchester Business 

ISSN 1756-056X 

Entire contents © 2008 by Crain 

Communications Ltd, unless otherwise 

stated. All rights reserved. 

City Tower, Suite 22A, Piccadilly Plaza, 

Manchester M1 4BD 

Telephone: 0161 209 5800

Crain’s Manchester Business / July 28, 2008 NEWS 3 

Licence is Wilkinson’s reward 

for years of support 

Promotion expected to bring in new revenue for Salford City Reds 


It is payback time for John Wilkinson, 

the welding equipment distributor 

who has poured millions of pounds 

into Salford City Reds rugby league 

club. 

The club was last week named as 

one of 14 to get licences in the Super 

League under a new US-style system 

which gives them greater protection 

from the risk of relegation. 

The club was one of only two to be 

promoted from National League One 

and the selection was based on attendances, 

finances, player performance 

and the club’s facilities. Under the 

licensing system, it cannot be relegated 

for three years. 

For Salford City Reds it is a major 

step towards financial independence 

from Wilkinson, 63, who has owned 

the loss making club for 26 years, indirectly 

subsidising it through his £16m 

turnover Wilkinson Corporation Ltd. 

The Worsley-based company’s main 

arm is Wilkinson Star, a wholesaler of 

welding equipment, compressors and 

other products. 

A key factor in the club’s licence 

application was its plan to move to a 

new ground in Barton, a project 

Wilkinson has been working on for 

more than eight years. 

Super League membership means 

the club will get £1.2m in revenue 

from Sky Sports for the 2009 season 

and other revenues are expected to 

grow. 

Wilkinson said: “That is a massive 

influx of money. With the new TV deal 

there is an increase in revenue from 

Sky and that will make such a difference 

to the club. It will improve revenue 

streams. 

“Now we are there for three years 

we will be able to look at sponsorship 

deals for that period of time. We will 

maximise on every level. There will be 

many opportunities for Salford City 

Reds. The commercial team has a new 

portfolio to sell.” 

Despite Wilkinson’s optimism, the 

club still faces financial pressures. It 

will need to spend £1.7m on players’ 

wages — the maximum allowed 

under the Super League salary cap — 

in order to succeed on the pitch. 

If attendances go up next year to 

7,000 from 4,000 as expected, this will 

push up ticket income to £600,000 

from the current £400,000. TV money 

and ticket sales will not pay the players’ 

wage bill, making it essential that 

the club boosts its advertising and 

sponsorship revenue, which currently 

stands at £1m per annum. The club 

hopes attendances at the new stadium 

will hit an average of 10,000, 

bringing in £1.2m, which compares to 

17,374 at Leeds Rhinos, the best supported 

Super League club. 

Salford City Reds are projecting 

turnover to increase to £3m in 2009 

and then to £4m in 2010 once the 

move from the Willows to the new 

ground is completed. 

The £130m Barton development, 

which includes a stadium, hotel and 

conference centre, is a joint venture 

between Peel Holdings and Redcity 

Developments, a company controlled 

by Wilkinson and business partner 

Howard Clague and other smaller 

shareholders. 

Despite Redcity being taken into 

administation on Friday because of 

“restructuring”, the club insisted the 

development would still be delivered 

by 2010. The insolvency was linked 

to issues relating to a minority 

shareholder. 

The club will be charging more — it 

will not say exactly how much — for 

advertising boards around the ground 

and for various sponsorship packages, 

although some deals have 

already been agreed for 2009 and 

beyond. 

Paul Snape, the club’s finance 

director, said: “For the first time ever 

we can plan properly without the 

threat of relegation. We can invest our 

revenues and our sponsorship. We are 

in the big league. The club has traditionally 

been loss making but when 

we get to the new stadium it will be 

profitable.” 

Dave Hutchinson, commercial 

director of Super League team Warrington 

Wolves, said licensing would 

boost Salford’s revenues although his 

own club, partly owned by music promoter 

Simon Moran, breaks even on a 

turnover of £5m. Average attendance 

for 2007 was 10,845. 

Hutchinson said: “Licensing gives 

everyone a standard to work to. You 

do see your merchandising, your lottery 

and your attendance all rising 

when you move to a new stadium. 

And being in Super League you see 

bigger crowds. Salford will see organic 

growth. We are about break even point 

at the club. It’s a tough climate at the 

moment. Just because we are in sport 

does not mean we are immune to the 

credit crunch. We are a big part of people’s 

leisure spend.” 

Hutchinson said Super League 

clubs still had work to do in attracting 

even bigger sponsors. He added: “A lot 

of sponsors do not realise how popular 

it is. 

“They see it as having a cloth cap 

image. That is not the reality. For 

example 40 per cent who watch it are 

ABC1s. Super League has attracted 

some big sponsors and we need to up 

the ante.” 

Alex Byars, senior manager in the 

Sports Business Group at Deloitte said 

potentially the licensing system could 

pour fresh money into the sport. He 

said: “The greater stability could lead 

to more investment from outside of 

the sport as the removal of dramatic 

revenue changes due to relegation 

could also increase investor confidence.” 

Richard Lewis, the Rugby Football 

League’s executive chairman, said: 

“We believe licensing will galvanise 

the sport, stimulating clubs into 

addressing the issues of facility 

improvements, spectator comfort and 

the production of more players. 

SEE OUR VIEW PAGE 8 

COMMENTS? jchapelard@crain.com 

Owner sounds out market for Debenhams building 

Upper floors of the Rylands 

building are unused 

John Wilkinson at the Salford City Reds rugby league club 


The Rylands Building, home to the 

Manchester branch of Debenhams, 

has been informally offered 

to potential buyers for £60m. 

Owner British Land has sounded 

out investors about the Grade II 

listed building on Market Street 

after talks fell through with a 

potential buyer earlier this year. 

In February, British Land — 

which owns the Meadowhall shopping 

centre in Sheffield — admitted 

that the credit crunch had wiped 

£1.3bn off the value of its portfolio. 

Since September it has sold £600m 

of low-growth property. 

British Land bought the freehold 

to the 466,540 sq ft building 

in 2005 from Debenhams, as part 

‘We are in the big 

league. The club has 

traditionally been loss 

making but when we 

get to the new stadium 

it will be profitable’ 

PAUL SNAPE 

of a £495m sale-and-leaseback 

deal in which it acquired 23 

department stores. 

The building was the biggest in 

the portfolio in terms of floor 

space, even surpassing the Debenhams 

Oxford Street store in London 

by 100,000 sq ft. 

A person familiar with situation 

said: “It has been offered in recent 

months as an investment. I think 

they are keen to sell it.” 

A sale would be unlikely to 

affect Debenhams, which has 31 

years left on its lease. 

Debenhams shares have fallen 

by a third since the start of June 

and 78 per cent since the company 

was brought back to the market by 

CVC Capital Partners, TPG Capital 

and Merrill Lynch Private Equity 

in May 2006 at 195p a share. 

A new report, Manchester City 

Centre Retail Strategy, commissioned 

by city centre management 

company Cityco, has suggested 

the building should be remodelled 

as a gateway to the Northern Quarter, 

with the unused upper floors 

brought back into use. 

A spokesperson for British Land 

said the property was not formally 

on the market but added: “There is 

not an asset on the portfolio we 

would not consider selling at the 

right price and the right time.” 

The seven-storey building, a 

former warehouse, was built in 

1932 for Rylands & Sons, the cotton 

manufacturers. 


More News 

DEVELOPERS CHECK 

IN TO TRAVELODGE 

Hotel chain Travelodge is targeting 

distressed development schemes 

in Manchester and aiming to cash 

in on falling land values. The group 

will send out letters to property 

developers this week asking them 

to consider Travelodge as an 

occupier. A spokesman for the 

group said Manchester was on the 

list of favoured locations. “Sites 

which previously may have been 

unavailable due to price may now 

be back on the market,” he said. 

“We want to talk to property 

developers who may see a 25-year 

lease on a Travelodge hotel as the 

best way to ensure the viability of 

their site.” A letter from Paul 

Harvey, managing director, 

international and development, at 

Travelodge, will say to developers: 

“Whilst two years ago you may not 

have considered a hotel to be 

optimum use for your 

developments, it is clear the 

landscape has changed.” 

HEGINBOTHAM JOINS 

TIF SCRUTINY PANEL 

Peter Heginbotham, senior 

partner of Davis Blank Furniss and 

chairman of Manchester 

Enterprises, has joined the TIF 

consultation scrutiny panel. The 

appointment has been made “to 

ensure sustained input from the 

business community over the 

summer months,” according to 

official AGMA documents. AGMA 

also revealed in a recent meeting 

agenda that the scrutiny panel 

had requested “significant 

changes” to the draft consultation 

brochure before it was sent out to 

homes and businesses in Greater 

Manchester, as it was deemed “too 

detailed and too long”. “A short 

summary of the information was 

more likely to engage a wider 

audience and promote a greater 

response,” said AGMA. 

COURT SLAPS FINE ON 

MUCKERS SPREADERS 

Two directors of a company called 

Muckers have been fined by Bury 

Magistrates after they admitted 

dumping controlled waste. Sam 

Davenport, 39, and Michael 

Horrocks, 37, both from Radcliffe, 

who run Heywood-based civil 

engineering company Muckers Ltd, 

were reported to the council for 

leaving the waste on land leased 

to Higher Woodhill Farm, Bury. 

Wagons with the Muckers livery 

were seen in the field by the 

investigating officers. Horrocks 

and Davenport said they only took 

topsoil into the field and were 

doing the farmers a favour 

levelling off some previously 

tipped material. They had not 

checked if there was any licence to 

tip waste on the land. Sentencing, 

District Judge Berg said 

Davenport and Horrocks should 

have known that what they did 

was a serious matter. He fined 

each man £750 and ordered each 

to pay £400 costs. 

NO TAKERS FOR REFLEC 

SECURITY BUSINESS 

Reflec said on Friday that so far no 

“serious interested parties” had 

come forward as potential buyers 

for its security business. In May, 

the Winsford-based company 

announced plans to run down 

Perseus Consulting, its security 

division, with a view to stopping 

funding in mid-August and seeking 

a buyer. The company had 

previously pledged much of its 

future growth on expanding the 

business, which carried out 

surveying and risk analysis. Reflec 

told shareholders at its annual 

meeting last week that its other 

UK businesses had had performed 

in line with expectations in the 

first four months of the year and 

that the initial benefits of its new 

strategy were now being realised.

4 NEWS 

More than 20,000 join Facebook c-charge groups 


A website set up to provide information 

on Greater Manchester’s proposed 

£2.7bn Transport Innovation 

Fund bid received 28,583 visits in the 

first month after its launch in June. 

It got 14 per cent of those visits via 

referrals from Facebook, the social 

networking site, whose Manchester 

network members all received an 

advertisement for site — www.gmfuturetransport.com 

— on their home 

pages. 

However, Facebook users who 

have expressed an opinion online are 

almost 13-1 against congestion 

charging, a key part of the TIF bid. 

BY CLAIRE SHOESMITH 

Increased demand for insolvency 

practitioners is pushing up salaries by 

as much as 15 per cent in the Greater 

Manchester area, say recruiters, who 

are struggling to satisfy the growth in 

demand from accountancy firms. 

“Six months ago the insolvency 

recruitment market was quiet, with 

about 10-15 per cent of all placements 

being in the area of corporate insolvency,” 

said Russell Corrie, a director 

at WWB, an Altrincham-based recruitment 

consultancy that has an insolvency 

division. 

“But now 80 per cent of the jobs we 

are dealing with are in corporate 

recovery and we are struggling to keep 

up with the market.” 

Earlier this month Manchesterbased 

insolvency firm Begbies Traynor 

announced it was introducing a new 

reward scheme for its 80 partners to 

encourage them to stay with the company 

after Ric Traynor, the group’s 

executive chairman, said he expects it 

to become more difficult to retain and 

attract new staff as the industry 

booms. 

Meanwhile accountancy giant 

PricewaterhouseCoopers is planning 

to double the size of its Manchesterbased 

business recovery team ahead 

of an anticipated increase in the number 

of firms getting into difficulty. Others 

are doing the same, although in 

some cases they are likely to transfer 

staff from quieter areas of the business, 

such as corporate finance. Those 

who do go out to recruit are finding 

candidates thin on the ground. 

Candidate shortage 

“Those that are any good are being 

enticed to stay within their organisations,” 

said Jonathan Abelson, a director 

at Manchester-based recruiter PSD 

Group. “As a result there is big demand 

but a candidate shortage.” 

Last week Deloitte said that the 

number of North West companies 

going into administration was up 

more than 44 per cent in 2008 compared 

with the first half of last year and 

a separate survey by Begbies Traynor 

found that more than 600 companies 

in the North West and North Wales 

faced what it called “critical problems”. 

Based on previous experience, Begbies 

estimates that 15 per cent of 

those, equal to about 90 companies, 

will enter formal insolvency within 12 

months. While this may be bad news 

for the companies involved, it is good 

news for anyone working in the sector. 

According to Corrie, insolvency 

practices are now offering to pay a 10- 

15 per cent premium for quality staff, 

where six months ago individuals were 

moving jobs but staying on the same 

salary. In addition, employers are seeking 

to improve the benefits packages 

they offer in a bid to retain and attract 

the best staff. 

“There is a real shortage of staff in 

this area,” said John Wood, a specialist 

markets consultant at Michael Page in 

Manchester. “We haven’t seen it so 

much in the past few months but we 

are doing now and expect demand to 

increase further in the coming 

months.” 

In addition, Abelson said that the 

shortage of good staff with insolvency 

experience means that many newly 

qualified accountants may be enticed 

into the insolvency sector at the start 

of their careers as the amount of interesting 

corporate finance work diminishes. 

A recent salary study by Michael 

Page found that the going salary for a 

newly qualified corporate recovery 

specialist is between £26,000 and 

£34,000, while someone with two 

years experience could expect to 

receive between £35,000 and £44,000. 

This rises to between £48,000 and 

£70,000 for a senior manager and to 

upwards of £70,000 for a partner or 

director. 

A survey published last August by 

the Institute of Chartered Accountants 

in England and Wales found that the 

average chartered accountancy salary 

in the North West was £72,000, with 

the highest pay going to those working 

in Manchester’s financial services sector. 

COMMENTS? cshoesmith@crain.com 

Shrinking legal aid fees now hitting civil cases 

BY JOANNE BIRTWISTLE 

Law firms in Greater Manchester are 

turning away civil cases because profits 

are too low under the new legal aid fee 

structure. 

Clough & Willis Solicitors, based in 

Bury, decided not take on any more 

legal aid work after the Legal Services 

Commission changed the system in 

October 2007. 

Fixed fees had previously been tailored 

to each law firm and calculated 

on the basis of the average case costs 

for the category of work, but now all 

firms are paid the same. 

Shefali Talukdar, managing partner, 

said: “With the time we were spending, 

we were making about £10,000 profit 

on a billing of £250,000 to 280,000 a 

year. We might have broken even 

but we felt we could make a loss on 

the work. We are already seeing our 

profit increasing by taking away 

that drain.” 

Work is not cost effective because it 

is so time consuming, added Taludkar. 

“The public perception is that you are 

A search of Facebook last week, 

using AGMA’s most popular suggested 

search term “Manchester congestion 

charge”, showed that more than 

25 groups totalling 20,316 members 

were protesting against the scheme, 

while four groups with a collective 

membership of 1,575 were in favour. 

The largest protest group had 10,573 

members, while the biggest support 

group had 1,163 members. 

The traffic figures for the gmfuturetransport 

site are revealed in agenda 

papers from last Friday’s meeting of 

the Association of Greater Manchester 

Authorities, which set up the website 

as part of its £3m TIF consultation 

exercise. Average time spent on 

the site was three minutes and 20 

seconds. 

Matt Ryecroft, marketing manager 

at Altrincham-based web design and 

management agency Creative Suit, 

which also advises on search engine 

optimisation, said the site should be 

attracting more visitors. 

Visits 

“The amount of visits should be a 

lot higher for the amount of homes in 

Greater Manchester,” he said. “But 

just over three minutes is a good 

average time on site and about in line 

with what they should be expecting 

— there’s a lot of information on 

Scramble for bodies 

boosts insolvency pay 

Downturn means more work and a candidate shortage for firms 

at their beck and call. A private client to be made in legal aid. You have to be 

knows how much it is costing them,” very efficient and understand how it 

she said. “The time legal services work works,” said Sandler. 

takes, with all the admin work as well, He argued that it’s worth using 

was stopping the younger solicitors experienced solicitors, rather than 

from building up work on the private 

paralegals, because they will 

side.” But Altrincham-based 

spot things at that initial 

Keoghs and Nicholls, Lindsell & 

meeting that juniors might 

Harris has taken on more ini- 

miss, which increases 

tial legal aid case consulta- 

the chances of litigations, 

called new matter 

tion — at which point 

starts, and still believes 

the firm would apply 

the work can deliver 

for further funding. 

sufficient profit. 

But for Talukdar 

According to man- 

the numbers just 

aging partner Michael 

don’t add up. “It’s 

Sandler, around a 

certainly not cost 

third of its £1.5m 

effective to have 

annual turnover 

a senior part- 

comes from legal 

ner who 

aid but he plans 

w o u l d 

to grow that. 

charge 

“It is hard 

£150-200 

work at about 

an hour 

£50 an hour 

doing the 

with these 

work 

fixed fees. But 

there is money 

Shefali Talukdar 

when 

y o u 

there and people are probably 

spending a fair amount of time trying 

to find the relevant bits of information 

for them. They need to increase 

traffic though.” 

Ryecroft also said it can be difficult 

to gauge why people are linking in 

from external sites. 

“The Facebook referrals could be 

working one of two ways,” he said. 

“People are either linking in from the 

advert or being directed there by the 

huge amount of protest groups that 

have been set up on the site. There 

are no guarantees the viewers are 

interested residents. 

“But saying that 14 per cent of 

referrals from Facebook equals suc- 

‘80 per cent of the 

jobs we are dealing 

with are in corporate 

recovery and we are 

struggling to keep up 

with the market’ 

RUSSELL CORRIE, ABOVE 

get £65 to 80 per hour for it. You just 

can’t match that up. No matter how 

efficient you are,” she said. 

Earlier this month, the Legal Services 

Commission announced that as a 

result of “ongoing efficiencies” an extra 

40,000 civil new matter starts, worth 

£10m, were available for tender. But 

spending is limited, particularly for civil 

work. In 2006/07 total UK spend for 

civil legal aid was £817m. Spend for 

2007/08 is currently being audited but 

the pot of money available for 2008/09 

is around £900m. 

“It’s not a bottomless pit. We have to 

look at the best way to purchase services,” 

said Rowena Foxwell, contracts 

manager for North West legal services 

at the Legal Services Commission. 

She added news that more and 

more law firms are dropping legal aid 

work is mostly anecdotal. “It’s been an 

expression of wish, rather than a reality. 

People say they are leaving in droves 

but we’ve not seen that impact this 

year.” 

COMMENTS? jbirtwistle@crain.com 


cessful advertising is skewed. It’s not 

necessarily down to great advertising.” 

Ryecroft said the site design was 

“good, but messy in places”, adding 

that search engines found it easier to 

read some sites than others depending 

on their design and content. 

“This site has a lot of flash animation 

on it,” he said. “That could make 

the site hard to read for some search 

engines, which are better at picking 

up sites that tend to be more static — 

just using text and photographs. 

“The homepage is good, but the 

rest of the site might be a bit messy 

from a search engine’s point of view.” 

The freephone telephone helpline 

number launched on the first day of 

the TIF consultation received 278 

calls in its first week. 

COMMENTS? sbinns@crain.com 

£40k fine 

over P&G’s 

lift plunge 


A court has slapped a £40,000 fine on 

the distribution arm of consumer 

products giant Procter & Gamble after 

an accident at its Old Trafford warehouse 

that left three people injured. 

The Health and Safety Executive 

prosecuted the company over an 

incident in July 2006 in which three 

maintenance workers were hurt after 

the brakes on a warehouse lift failed 

and they fell 25 metres. One of the 

workers broke a leg, a second suffered 

ankle injuries and the third 

compression injuries. 

Procter & Gamble Product Supply 

(UK) Ltd, based on Trafford Park 

Road, pleaded guilty to breaching 

health and safety law at Trafford Magistrates 

Court and was ordered to pay 

full costs of £2,738 as well as the fine. 

The company was fined £20,000 

under both Sections 2(1) and 3(1) of 

the Health and Safety at Work Act 

‘This incident should 

serve as a lesson to all 

companies to ensure 

that they have proper 

maintenance regimes’ 

RICHARD CLARKE 

1974 that they failed to ensure the 

safety of maintenance workers by not 

adequately maintaining the lift 

brakes. 

HSE Inspector Richard Clarke said: 

“Failure by the company to ensure 

that this lift was properly maintained 

resulted in these three workers suffering 

injury. Their injuries could have 

been far worse. 

“This incident should serve as a 

lesson to all companies to ensure that 

they have proper maintenance 

regimes to avoid similar incidents in 

the future. This was a wholly avoidable 

accident had a proper maintenance 

regime been in place.” 

A spokesman for Procter & Gamble 

said: “The safety of our employees is a 

number one priority. The incident 

that occurred in 2006 was very unfortunate 

and we took immediate steps 

to strengthen our maintenance and 

inspection systems. 

“We have an excellent track record 

of health and safety in the workplace 

and incidents like this are very rare. 

Over the past 11 years, our Manchester 

plant has achieved recognition of 

its safety standards through the 

British Safety Council and by winning 

international safety awards.” 

COMMENTS? sbinns@crain.com


Terry Hogan, left, and David 

Schofield of New Car Discount 

Developer plans 

£20m scheme 

for canalside 


A Manchester-based developer is aiming 

to defy the downturn in the property 

sector with a £20m investment in 

a 10-acre office scheme in East Manchester. 

Introbuild, based on Apsley Grove 

in Ardwick, completed work on a 

50,000 sq ft business centre on Varley 

Street in Miles Platting in February. 

The final units on the 1.2 acre site 

are under offer and the company, led 

by managing director Zahid Anwar, is 

keen to transform an adjacent 10-acre 

site with its partner companies, 

which takes in the full stretch of Varley 

Street, crosses the Rochdale Canal 

and goes as far as Holland Street. 

The site is near to the City of Manchester 

Stadium. 

Ambitious plans include curved 

buildings on either side of the canal 

that will arc over the waterway and 

almost touch each other. 

“Varley Street was just the pilot 

scheme,” said Carla Holt, Introbuild 

spokesperson. “We have seven acres 

on one side of the canal and 3.5 acres 

on the other side and I know the model 

can work on a bigger scale. We want 

the buildings to be as close as they can 

within building regulations, to look 

really spectacular. 

“We think the scheme will cost 

around £20m but we are looking at a 

high density development of around 

three or four storeys that will provide 

around 1,000 jobs. 

“We’ve provided 140 jobs on one 

acre, so we are confident this type of 

development is scaleable and the 

demand is there for more.” 

Well-funded 

Holt said the company was well 

financed and would not be relying on 

bank debt to fund the project. 

“Introbuild will not be relying on 

bank debt for the Varley Street expansion,” 

she said. “Introbuild and its 

partners are well-funded companies.” 

Companies currently occupying 

space at Varley Street Business Centre 

include clothes manufacturer 

Karpelle, food supplier Le Mange Tout 

and Unitown Hire Ltd, which provides 

replacement private hire cars and 

black cabs to operators if their vehicles 

are involved in an accident. 

Jonathan Rose, managing director 

of Unihire, said his company had 

moved from Salford to East Manchester 

because of a lack of similar developments 

in the city. 

“It was a shame to move out of Salford, 

but the sort of premises we were 

after just weren’t available,” he said. 

“East Manchester has been a good 

move for us.” 

Holt said Introbuild wanted to 

encourage a diverse mix of companies 

into all of its developments and would 

look to support local companies if they 

get the green light to start the project. 

Oldham-based design and build 

JJB chief: ‘We are not going private’ 


Chris Ronnie, chief executive of JJB 

Sports, wants to kill the rumours that 

he is planning to take the Wiganbased 

retailer private. 

Speaking to Crain’s last week after 

the group’s annual meeting last 

Thursday, he dismissed the talk as 

“pure press speculation” and said 

there was no truth behind it. 

“I am very happy heading up JJB as 

a Plc,” Ronnie said. “The priority is to 

make sure that we reorganise the 

business so that we are ready to make 

the best of the improvement in the 

high street when it comes.” 

Shares in the sports retail group, 

which last week revealed a 1.25 per 

cent drop in revenues in the 12 weeks 

to July 20, have had a bumpy ride in 

recent months, with much of the 

movement prompted by takeover 

Two banks 

ditched car 

sales firm 

BY CRAIN’S STAFF REPORTER 

Two banks withdrew support from 

online motor dealer New Car Discount.com 

Ltd in the months before 

it folded, according to an administrator’s 

report. 

The Royal Bank of Scotland lowered 

its overdraft facility towards the 

end of 2007, causing cheques to be 

returned and leading to a cut in credit 

offered by suppliers. 

The company, which undercut 

forecourt prices but operated on very 

thin margins, turned to Yorkshire 

Bank, which agreed a £250,000 overdraft 

in January. New Car 

New project follows East Manchester pilot 

speculation. Mike Ashley, founder of 

the rival Sports Direct chain and a former 

colleague of Ronnie, has also had 

to deny rumours that he was planning 

a bid. 

Since becoming chief executive in 

August last year, Ronnie has made his 

mark on the company, in which he 

has a 33 per cent stake. The number of 

stores has been cut to just under 300 

from about 400 and re-fits are 

planned for most that remain. A new 

training academy for store managers 

and bonus scheme for shop staff are 

other innovations. 

Chairman Roger Lane-Smith said 

last week that he expected the “full 

turnaround” of the company to take 

up to three years to complete. He said 

that so far about 30 of the 72 store closures 

announced in April had either 

already been disposed of or talks were 

in progress to exit the leases. 

Discount.com, run by Terry Hogan 

and David Schofield, then moved the 

business from Ashton-under-Lyne, 

where it was set up in 2002, to Nelson 

in Lancashire in order to cut costs. 

Joint administrator Andrew Poxon, 

of Leonard Curtis, said in his 

report that this led to the loss of key 

staff. The administrator said Hogan 

resigned in February and in May 

Yorkshire Bank reduced the overdraft 

facility “due to poor financial reporting”. 

The report adds: “The directors 

met with Yorkshire Bank on May 12, 

2008 and were then informed that 

the bank had no appetite to fund the 

company in future.” The directors 

then put the company into administration. 

From 2004 to 2006, New Car Discount.com 

made losses totalling 

£302,000 but the management 

accounts up to October 8 last year 

showed a profit of £97,749 on 

turnover of £12.8m. 

The statement of affairs drawn up 

by the administrator reveals an estimated 

deficiency of £1.63m, includ- 

JJB’s property director Barry Dunn 

said the company was progressing 

well with plans to open a chain of lowcost 

fitness clubs, to be known as My 

Fit, with openings due in Edinburgh 

and Cardiff. 

Dunn revealed that the idea came 

about partly as a way of getting 

around planning regulations. Rules 

prevent the company from creating 

new retail space on mezzanine levels 

at its existing out of town outlets but 

the same space can be used for leisure 

purposes. The My Fit outlets have no 

swimming pools and are marketed at 

women, costing between £12 and £15 

per month to join. This compares with 

upwards of £30 a month for JJB’s original 

fitness clubs, where rising revenues 

are the one bright spot in the 

group’s accounts. 


ing £166,199 owed to Yorkshire Bank, 

on which the directors gave personal 

guarantees. 

The failure of New Car 

Discount.com is one of several to hit 

the retail motor trade in the region 

this year. 

Falling sales 

Warrington-based Caledonia 

Motor Holdings, which collapsed in 

January, was losing between 

£100,000 to £150,000 per month, as 

falling sales meant income was swallowed 

up by rental payments. 

Nearly three weeks ago, Horners 

Motor Group, which operated Skoda 

and Mitsubishi showrooms on Bury 

New Road, Manchester and 

Queensway, Rochdale, went into 

receivership with the loss of around 

70 jobs. Horners, owned by managing 

director John Haytack, lost 

564,000 on turnover of £38.3m in the 

year to June 2007. 

Joint administrative receiver 

Matthew Dunham, of BDO Stoy Hay- 

‘We are looking at a 

high density 

development of around 

three or four storeys 

that will create around 

1,000 jobs’ 

CARLA HOLT, ABOVE 

company James West could act as 

development partners on the scheme, 

after it helped to create the first park. 

John Walley, head of the Manchester 

office of Drivers Jonas, said the 

scheme should have plenty of appeal 

to local planners but the developer 

may have to be patient during site 

ward, said the business had fallen 

victim to increased competition, 

with margins getting even tighter due 

to the economic downturn. 

Stock market quoted Lookers 

admitted on July 1 that sales were 

down on a year ago and it will be surprising 

if the deadly cocktail of falling 

volumes, rising costs and price deflation 

does not claim more victims in 

the middle market. 

Sue Brownson, managing director 

of Wilmslow-based BMW dealers 

Blue Bell, said she had noticed customers 

trading down or looking for 

an extra ten miles per gallon of fuel 

efficiency. 

“I think the market is a challenge 

but we’re okay,” she added. “We’re 

not seeing huge growth — we’re on 

line with the same figures we did last 

year. Mini is doing extremely well. 

“There has been a downturn in the 

volume market and Horners got 

caught up in that. I feel very sorry for 

them.” 

COMMENTS? manchesternews@crain.com 

preparation. “For it to be a successful 

office site, the surrounding area has to 

have good prospects of being the right 

environment,” he said. 

“On the face of it, a large scheme 

done properly ought to have a place in 

the market, but timing is crucial in 

these schemes as is the level of competition 

and how much of a head start it 

has. 

“To get planning consent may take 

several years if the site needs a lot of 

remediation work to clean it up, but 

Manchester City Council is looking for 

schemes that can bring quality jobs, 

and if it can deliver, it has every chance 

of getting through.” 


6 NEWS 

Winners 

and Losers 

SUMMER HEATS UP 

HOLIDAYBREAK SHARES 

The start of the summer holiday 

period was a good week for 

Holidaybreak. The Northwichbased 

company saw its shares 

rise 7.25 per cent after saying 

that the business continues 

to perform well in what is a “more 

difficult” trading environment. It 

also said the prospects for the 

current financial year remain 

“broadly satisfactory”. 

Conversely things were not 

looking so good for those 

with shares in Enegi Oil. The 

Manchester-based oil and gas 

exploration group that listed on 

AIM in March last week said it 

had abandoned one of its wells 

after failing to find any 

hydrocarbons. The shares fell 31 

per cent. 

Meanwhile shares in insolvency 

specialist Begbies Traynor rose 

8.9 per cent. The Manchesterbased 

company is one of the 

few beneficiaries of the 

negative economic 

sentiment as this increases the 

number of companies getting into 

financial difficulty and in turn 

boosts Begbies’ business. Last 

week it said that more than 600 

companies in the North West and 

North Wales faced critical 

problems in the three months to 

the end of June, a near 10-fold 

increase over the number in 

trouble in the same period a year 

earlier. About 15 per cent of these 

are expected to go into formal 

insolvency. 

Things were looking up for those 

with shares in Lookers. The 

Manchester-based car 

dealership has struggled in 

recent weeks after saying that 

trading was more challenging, 

but last week the stock climbed 12 

per cent to close at 58p on 

Thursday. 

Elsewhere shares in Expansys fell 

12 per cent. The Manchesterbased 

online mobile phone 

retailer revealed a tripling of 

its pre-tax losses to £2.5m in 

the year to April. The company 

said that US and UK sales had 

been hit by the credit crunch 

while Europe was more resilient 

and Asian markets were stronger. 

It was a good week for Bodycote. 

Shares in the Macclesfieldbased 

engineering company 

climbed 8.9 per cent to close 

at 183p. The stock has been 

steadily rising since the 

company revealed it had made its 

first foray into France with the 

acquisition of Centech, a 

Toulouse-based materials testing 

laboratory. Bodycote is also 

currently considering bids for its 

own thermal testing division, 

which it put up for sale with a 

price tag of at least £400m in 

May. 

Shares in ServicePower 

Technologies put in a rare 

positive performance, climbing 

25 per cent after several 

weeks of heavy losses. 

Analysts may now be starting 

to see some value in the 

Stockport-based company which 

last month announced plans to 

move from the main market to 

Aim and said it had agreed a new 

loan facility to fund the group’s 

working capital needs. 

Individual Restaurant Company 

again had a bad week, with 

its shares falling 13 per cent 

to 55p. There was no company 

specific news to prompt the 

decline, but the shares have 

been under pressure recently 

amid concerns that a slowdown in 

consumer spending will mean a 

fall in the number of people 

choosing to eat out. 

● Closing prices as of Thursday. 

Taking Stock 


The rollout of one of its catalogues 

into Germany next year may be just 

the tip of the iceberg for Manchesterbased 

home shopping group N 

Brown, which has its longer term 

sights on North America. 

“Germany is all about learning,” 

chief executive Alan White told 

Crain’s, adding that the company 

hopes by next March it will have 

adapted its website to enable people 

from all over the world to order N 

Brown items online. For the German 

market it is translating its Spring- 

Summer Simply Be catalogue. 

White said he expects the move to 

add a “few per cent” to group sales, 

but more importantly to give the company 

an idea of where future demand 

growth may come from. 

John Stevenson, an analyst at Shore 

Capital in Liverpool, welcomed the 

development, saying that it required 

no capital investment and as such was 

a good way to seek to grow the business. 

“It’s a relatively easy thing to do,” 

he said, adding that a similar move 

into Europe has already been successfully 

executed by internet clothing 

retailer Asos. 

Unsure 

However, Jonathan Pritchard, an 

analyst at Oriel is not so sure about the 

move into the USA. “The American 

market is a pretty tough market to 

crack,” he said, adding that there is a 

long list of UK retailers that have tried 

and failed. In addition, there are 

already several big players in the catalogue 

and online clothes 

retailing market in the US 

such as L.L. Bean and Land’s 

End, which already offer 

plus-sized clothing. 

Still, with an estimated 62 

per cent of American females 

and 67 per cent of males 

classed as overweight, 

there is no doubting 

the potential for N 

Brown’s niche focus 

on larger, older customers. 

N Brown is 

bucking the general 

negative 

trend in the retail 

sector at the moment 

thanks to its niche 

focus and its suc- 


The share price of Premium Bars & 

Restaurants’ collapsed after a forced 

stock sale by troubled banking and 

property conglomerate Dawnay Day, 

its second largest shareholder. But 

analysts familiar with the situation 

see a silver lining. 

“It has traditionally been a very 

illiquid stock, with more than 60 per 

cent of the shares in the hands of two 

stakeholders,” said one City analyst 

who declined to be named. “The 

forced sale of a near 30 per cent stake 

should improve the liquidity as the 

shares are likely to be bought by a 

series of smaller investors or institutions.” 

Mark Jones, executive chairman, 

is also hoping that the increased liquidity 

will in turn encourage more 

individual investors to tap into the 

stock and in the long run make it a 

more attractive investment. Londonbased 

property investors the Reuben 

brothers remain the group’s largest 

shareholder with a 32.5 per cent 

stake. 

Premium Bars, which owns the 

Living Room and Bel and the Dragon 

chains, saw its share fall 45 per cent 

on July 18 when Dawnay Day was 

N Brown casts 

its eye on USA 

Catalogue retailer to try on Germany first 

cessful adoption of the internet as an 

advertising and sales channel. 

Last month it 

revealed a 12.3 per cent 

increase in turnover in 

the 17 weeks ended June 

28, citing the strong sunny 

spell in May which 

coincided with the mailing 

of its summer catalogues. 

It said 31 per 

cent of total 

sales came from 

the internet, a 

number that White 

expects to increase to 

about 45 per cent over 

the next three years, 

Left and top, 

clothing from N Brown 

forced to offload more than 2m 

shares after failing to meet margin 

calls on contracts for difference. 

“It is not a surprise that the share 

price took a battering,” said the analyst. 

“The market just needs to think 

there is going to be a forced sale and 

a share price will fall.” The forced sale 

had nothing to do with the performance 

of Premium Bars and the disposal 

was one of a series of investments 

dumped by Dawnay Day 

because of its financial difficulties. 

Jones told Crain’s it was business 

as usual at the company, which has 

recently moved its headquarters to 

although he would like even more. 

“Among our younger customers — 

those aged 30-45 — I can see that getting 

to between 75 and 80 per cent,” 

he said. 

Even though the shift into online is 

proving good news for N Brown, 53year-old 

White said he would be “very 

surprised” if the company were to get 

rid of its catalogues during his tenure. 

Online orders are on average 24 per 

cent higher than those made on the 

telephone and the company is able to 

tailor its advertising to suit the weather 

and trends more quickly than in 

catalogues, which take several 

months to put together. As a result it is 

now seeking to increase cross promotion 

by encouraging catalogue customers 

to look on line for wider product 

ranges and reductions. 

Still, while the outlook is currently 

Hale from Newcastle upon Tyne. Its 

finances and future plans remained 

unaffected by the share price decline, 

he added. Since the drop, the shares 

have climbed 3 per cent, and are currently 

trading at 35.5p — a marginal 

improvement on the 34.5p they hit 

on July 18, but well off the 155p level 

where they stood at the start of the 

year. 

“On a day to day basis it does not 

affect the business,” Jones said, but 

added: “As far as the share price is 

concerned we are in completely 

uncharted territory.” 

Unfortunately for Jones, the com- 


Alan White 

rosy — analysts are upbeat on the 

company’s prospects — there is one 

blip on the horizon. To cater for the 

expected growth from the current 

5.5m-strong database, N Brown is 

seeking to expand both its warehouse 

sites at Shaw, near Oldham, and Hadfield. 

The initial planning permission 

for a £20m expansion at Shaw was 

rejected and the company will resubmit 

its updated plans in the next 

month or so. 

If this were to fail too, White said it 

could force the group to relocate to a 

new site. 


Analysts see silver lining for Premium Bars 

Premium Bars & Restaurants executive chairman Mark Jones and The Living Room restaurant in London 

pany is in a close period, meaning 

that he and the other directors are 

not able to buy stock themselves in a 

bid to show support for the company 

and in turn shore up the share price. 

As a result all he can do is sit tight 

and wait to see in whose hands the 

remaining shares end up. Still, with a 

usual average of between 10,000 and 

20,000 Premium Bars & Restaurants’ 

shares trading each day, getting rid of 

several million could prove difficult. 

Neither Dawnay Day nor the Reuben 

brothers returned calls for comment. 

COMMENTS? cshoesmith@crain.com


New academy 

to take more 

students 


The British Telecom-sponsored Communication 

Academy planned for the 

Harpurhey district of North Manchester 

is to take 300 more students than 

expected. 

The new school, to be built at the 

corner of Rochdale Road and Queens 

Road, is set to open in September 2010 

and will now have 1,200 places. 

The reason for the increase is to 

absorb the overspill from two new single-sex 

Creative and Media Academies 

being built to replace the North Manchester 

High School for Boys and the 

North Manchester High School for 

Girls. It was originally planned to offer 

places for 900 pupils at each academy, 

but this number has been reduced to 

750. The academies will also open in 

2010 and are sponsored by Manchester 

College. 

Mike Blackburn, BT’s North West 

regional director, based in Manchester, 

said: ““BT’s vision is that the Academy 

will transform access to learning 

for students, their families and their 

communities with the support of BT, 

Manchester City Council and Manchester 

College of Arts and Technology.” 

Blackburn said the Academy would 

work “collaboratively” with schools 

across the city to ensure pupils learn 

directly from communications industries. 

There will also be opportunities 

for students to get experience within 

BT. 

Three sites have been short-listed 

for the Creative and Media Academies; 

the existing site of the North Manchester 

High School for Boys; land fronting 

Victoria Avenue East and existing 

school playing fields; land between a 

proposed realigned public footpath 

and the existing North Manchester 

High School for Boys playing fields. 



Manchester-based AGP Architects, 

which has gone into liquidation with 

the loss of 12 jobs, is being marked 

down as another victim of the stalled 

city centre apartments market. 

Administrator Lyndsey Cooper, 

recovery and restructuring partner at 

the Manchester office of Baker Tilly, 

who was appointed in June after the 

firm hit cash flow problems, said in 

her report that the overall deficiency 

was £210,739. 

AGP, which had traded from its 

offices at Albion Wharf since 1993, 

owed £372,791 to unsecured creditors, 

including £110,553 to employees. 

Larger creditors include the 

Profits at Pataks up £5m 

after £100m sale to ABF 


Pre-tax profits at chutney and curry 

paste manufacturer Patak’s Foods shot 

up by more than £5m in the year the 

founding Pathak family sold out to 

Associated British Foods for £100m. 

Newly filed accounts for the 11 

months to last September reveal that 

the main reason for the increase was a 

big reduction in boardroom pay and 

administration costs. 

The accounts also reveal that the 

company’s snack foods operation, 

Patak’s Chilled Foods Ltd, which made 

onion bhajis and other products at a 

factory in Bellshill, Lanarkshire, lost 

more than £3.6m in the two years 

before it was finally closed down. 

Wigan-based Patak’s Foods Ltd, the 

largest company in the group, paid out 

£500,000 to directors during the period, 

compared with £1.7m previously. 

Four directors — Sven Straub, 

Andrew Mayhew, Kirit Kumar Pathak 

and Neeraj Kirit Pathak — resigned on 

the day the sale to ABF completed. 

David Page left the company in March 

2007. 

The highest paid director saw his 

total package fall by £966,400 to 

£327,800 in the year. Total administrative 

expenses fell from £15.3m in 2006 

to £11.3m. 

The company, which has now 

changed its name to AB World Foods, 

posted pre-tax profits of £5.5m compared 

to a £7,000 loss the previous 

year. 

Turnover was £48.7m in the 11 

months, a rise of £224,000, but stripping 

out the effects of the change in 

Inland Revenue, owed £57,226; and 

founder and managing director 

Anton Rodgers, who will lose 

£21,621, and his wife Judith, who is 

owed £13,950. 

The firm carried out commercial 

work on office, retail and industrial 

units, as well as residential apartments. 

Its turnover peaked at around 

£1m in 2005/06. 

Cooper said the firm’s demise was 

hastened by problems in the residential 

property market. 

“AGP has suffered from a number 

of unfortunate circumstances in the 

last few years,” she said. 

“In addition to a major commercial 

contract not going ahead in 2007, 

the business has been badly affected 

by the decline in the residential prop- 

year end this was equivalent to an 

increase of £4.3m on a 12-month 

basis. 

“The increase is derived principally 

from sales and listing of new products 

with existing customers and by 

extending distribution. Gross margins 

achieved on sales remain relatively 

steady,” said former director Sven 

Straub, writing in the accounts. 

The company makes pickles, pastes 

and chutneys while three sister companies 

made frozen and chilled food 

and speciality bread, supplying Indian 

restaurants, supermarkets and wholesalers, 

and also making own-label 

items for retailers. 

Combined turnover for the four 

Patak’s companies was £67.5m compared 

with £69.6m in 2006. Accounts 

for Worldwing Investments Ltd, the 

parent company, have not yet been 

erty market. Many of its clients have 

suffered financial difficulties and in 

turn struggled to pay AGP’s outstanding 

fees. 

Liquidation 

“The company’s management 

team carefully explored the various 

options available, but having considered 

the present economic conditions 

and the likely recovery 

timescales in the property market, 

and the immediate lack of third party 

funds, the directors had no option 

other than to place the company 

into a Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation.” 

Former employee Geoffrey Gillman, 

an associate partner at AGP 

released but across the 

other three other divisions 2007 was a 

mixed picture. Patak’s Frozen Foods 

Ltd posted pre-tax profits of £165,000, 

compared with losses of £396,000 the 

previous year, on turnover 7.6 per cent 

up at £6.5m. 

Turnover at Patak’s Chilled Foods 

Ltd dropped from £6.2m to £4.7m, 

although a pre-tax loss of £2.6m was 

cut to £1.05m. 

“Turnover has declined due to continued 

poor trading with some principal 

customers and eventual cessation 

of trading activities in August 2007,” 

the accounts state. The failure of the 

business, which led to 80 job losses, 

meant that the group had to pay back 

£40,000 worth of grants to the Scottish 

Executive. 

Patak’s Breads Ltd also saw turnover 

fall from £8.8m to £7.6m but pre-tax 

Apartments slump killed off architects’ firm 


Bolton-based property developer 

Charles Topham has been forced to 

make staff redundant because of the 

pressures of a slowing property market. 

It is understood that poor sales 

and lettings across a number of 

schemes are behind the reason to 

shed jobs. 

In a statement issued to Crain’s, 

the company said: “The Charles 

Topham Group can confirm that following 

a review of operations, it has 

Directors at curry firm 

took pay cut to 

£500,000 from £1.7m 

Charles Topham joins firms cutting jobs 

taken the decision to make a number 

of posts redundant. 

“We feel these measures are a sensible 

response to the current economic 

climate and we are working to 

assist those affected in finding alternative 

employment.” 

It is understood that approximately 

half of the office and site staff have 

been made redundant, although the 

company declined to confirm exact 

numbers. 

Recently completed developments 

include the Merchant’s Place 

and Springfield Court office schemes 

in Bolton Town centre. The company 

is the latest in a long line of development 

and construction firms to have 

made redundancies in the region, 

joining the likes of Ask Developments, 

Rok Development and Artisan 

Holdings, all based in Manchester, 

in restructuring operations. 

National housebuilders including 

Taylor Wimpey, Barratt, Redrow 

Homes, Bovis and Persimmon have 

been forced to shed thousands of 

jobs collectively. 


and an employee since the company’s 

inception, is owed around 

£18,000 in unpaid salary and holiday 

pay. 

He told Crain’s: “I was told on May 

15 that I was being made redundant 

and haven’t been paid since the end 

of April. 

“We hadn’t been told it was difficult 

previously, but the writing had 

been on the wall for a while. Fees 

Meena Pathak, 

left, and Kirit 

Pathak and 

below, a 

sample dish 

from AB World 

Foods 

profits leapt to £89,000 compared with 

a £579,000 loss the previous year. “The 

company has improved profitability 

by cutting staff costs,” the accounts 

say. 

Accounts for Patak’s Foods Ltd, 

which employs 335 at a factory in 

Leigh, also show that it sourced nearly 

£4m worth of raw materials from four 

Indian companies associated with former 

director Kirit Kumar Pathak. 

Patak’s spent £3.8m with Shree Balaji 

Gums & Spice Stuff Pvt Ltd, Patak 

Food India Pvt, Oracle Trading Co and 

Laxmi Enterprises, a rise from £3.1m 

the previous year. It is unclear whether 

ABF has continued to trade with the 

companies since it took control. 

SEE OUR VIEW PAGE 8 


weren’t coming in as quickly as they 

had been compared to 12 months 

ago. As a senior member of staff you 

tend to know about it, and I’d been 

asked to take a shortfall on my salary. 

I’m trying to be philosophical about 

it. Some of the younger members of 

staff were a little bitter.” 

Gillman said there were no ill feelings 

between himself and Rodgers. 

“I’ve known Anton for more than 20 

years,” he said. “He’s been feeling bad 

about the whole thing and it’s a hard 

decision to have to make. “ 


8 COMMENT 

Our View 

The Reds are 

back on track 

Rugby League is a rough game and a tough business. 

That’s why it needs friends like John Wilkinson. 

Salford City Reds has relied on his generosity for 

more than 20 years and without his money it would 

never have succeeded in securing the Super League 

licence granted last week. 

Wilkinson’s determination to make the club’s new 

stadium in Barton happen was a crucial part of that 

process. This now seems to be finally on track, with Peel 

Holdings involved as one of the partners. 

Quite apart from the increased television and 

sponsorship revenue 

‘There is a great 

gulf between the 

top flight and the 

rest in rugby 

league and the 

knowledge that a 

club cannot be 

relegated for at 

least three years 

will greatly reduce 

the risks for 

would-be backers’ 

which Super League status 

will bring, the licensing 

system gives the club’s 

potential backers 

considerable reassurance. 

There is a great gulf 

between the top flight and 

the rest in rugby league 

and the knowledge that a 

club cannot be relegated 

for at least three years will 

greatly reduce the risks for 

would-be backers. 

If the licensing system is 

a success, it may only be a 

matter of time before it is 

copied in the FA Premier League. The billionaires who 

have invested in English soccer clubs would probably 

vote for it tomorrow if they had a chance. 

Fans may not be so keen because it seems to go 

against the culture and the idea of a football pyramid. 

But when the top league moves so far away from the rest 

in business as well as in sport, it is an almost inevitable 

development. 

*** 

If you know the history of the Pathak family and the 

business they founded, confusingly called Patak’s, it is 

hard to believe they managed to lose £3.65m in two 

years making onion bhajis and other snacks. 

The loss is revealed in accounts for the group’s chilled 

food business, which operated a factory in Lanarkshire 

until it was closed down last August. 

Laxmishankar Pathak, the late founder, arrived in the 

UK from Kenya with his wife and six children and only £5 

and a life insurance policy in his pocket. He started 

making samosas and chutneys in a small basement 

kitchen and eventually raised sufficient money to buy his 

first shop and then a factory in Leigh. 

All of this led eventually to the £100m sale of the 

business to Associated British Foods, which completed 

last year. 

The core chutney and curry paste business has always 

been the strongest part of the group, but attempts to 

diversify have been patchy. Patak’s Chilled Foods Ltd 

seems to have turned into a nightmare. Recent years’ 

results suggest that Patak’s has not been as successful 

with breads and frozen foods as it has been with chutney 

and curries. 

Given these problems moving beyond the core products, 

it may be that the family sold out at the right time. Kirit 

Pathak told an interviewer in 1995: “I still consider 

ourselves in the survival game. There is a big food market 

out there, and we are very tiny tadpoles in it.” 

CRAIN’S 


CHRISTOPHER CRAIN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 

ARTHUR PORTER, PUBLISHER 

STEVE BRAUNER, EDITOR 

MICHAEL FAHY, DEPUTY EDITOR 

Crain’s Manchester Business ISSN 1756-056X 

Entire contents © 2008 by Crain Communications Ltd, unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved. 

City Tower, Suite 22A, Piccadilly Plaza, Manchester M1 4BD 

Telephone: 0161 209 5800 

The prospect that we will see an 

exodus of retailers from King 

Street proves two things. One is 

the need for the new retail axis talked 

about in the Manchester City Centre 

Retail Strategy report. The other is 

that creating the new axis is going to 

be extremely difficult. 

To recap, the idea suggested by a 

team of consultants is to create an 

upmarket shopping destination 

extending from King Street West all 

the way to Piccadilly. 

This would act as a counterweight 

to Market Street, which gets a 

disproportionately large share of the 

total footfall in the city centre, 

leading to high rents and a skewed 

market. 

King Street has struggled to maintain 

its cachet for years and the fact 

that 16 out of around 54 leases are 

currently up for sale shows that the 

battle has probably been lost. 

Even allowing for the current 

consumer spending downturn, you 

Mailbox 

“Must everything go?” 

get the feeling that things would not 

be markedly different in more 

normal times. 

Serious competition 

The Avenue is going to provide 

some serious competition for the 


Exodus of the labels 

Imagination — and lower rents — are needed to cure King Street’s problems 

THREE CHEERS 

FOR GENTRONIX 

As a leading UK manufacturer of natural, 

ethical bodycare products and 

cosmetics, we welcome the development 

of the Gentronix Green Screen human 

cell-based assay system (“A firm with 

animal attraction”, June 30). 

In over 30 years of manufacturing and 

product development we have never 

tested on animals, but recognise the 

need for comprehensive and accurate 

testing to ensure all our Faith In Nature 

body and hair care products are not only 

safe for use, but are validated 

accordingly. 

Furthermore, we fully support Gentronix 

in its efforts to update the current 

regulatory toxicity tests. 

Rivka Rose IFPA 

Director and Aromatherapist 

Faith Products Ltd, Radcliffe 

WHERE COACH FIRM 

TOOK WRONG TURNING 

I have read your article about Shearings 

with great interest. (“Merger put the 

brakes on Shearings”, July 14). There 

must be concern that performance has 

Opinion 

Steve Brauner 

EDITOR 

sbrauner@crain.com 

taken a downturn. Surely part of the 

problem must be because of the name 

change. 

Shearings merged with Wallace Arnold 

and proceeded to drop the Wallace 

Arnold name. Wallace Arnold was a 

national household name with a 

reputation for quality and fair dealing. 

The boldly painted Wallace Arnold 

coaches that were seen every day on 

our roads have been repainted 

Shearings blue. 

I suspect that dropping the Wallace 

Arnold brand name has been a major 

mistake and resulted in customers 

being lost. 

Andrew Jeffery 

High Green, Sheffield 

C-CHARGE SAVED MY 

BROTHER MONEY 

Sir Howard Bernstein is, of course, 

completely correct. Manchester has to 

have better transport and traffic 

management plan for the next five-10 

years. The opponents of congestion 

charging can only see the negatives, a 

view my brother took when it was 

introduced in London. 

designer labels and smaller, specialist 

stores which do not want to 

go in the Arndale or New Cathedral 

Street. 

All is not lost, however. There is a 

great long list of retailers who are 

unrepresented in Manchester, 

including a host of well known 

national names. 

Some have said they want to 

come here but despite actively looking 

they have been unable to find 

premises to suit their needs. 

If these potential newcomers are 

to be attracted, Manchester needs 

more available floorspace, a wider 

choice of units and lower rents. 

Achieving this will take time. But 

King Street would be a good place to 

start. 

The proposed axis is long and 

has many buildings which are currently 

unsuitable for retailers, but 

just one really imaginative project 

could change perceptions quite 

radically. 

He has vehicles delivering into central 

London each day from the Midlands and 

he felt this was a damaging extra charge 

on his business. But so many private 

cars have been taken off the road that 

travel times have actually got shorter. 

This has allowed his vans to make extra 

deliveries, saving time and money. 

Eighteen months ago he also put limiters 

on his fleet of about 10 vehicles so they 

can only do a maximum of 56mph. 

This has slightly increased his overtime 

bill but it helped him put around 

£50,000 on his bottom line in the first 

full year. 

Alistair Macdonald 

Alexander Macdonald LLP, Hale 

CRAIN’S BUSINESS 

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Crain’s Manchester Business / July 28, 2008 COMMENT 9 

Sales Strategies 

Rob Brown 

Leading authority on 

business relationships 

Almost everyone in business 

has some kind of a selling 

role. Whether you’re selling 

your products and services on the 

front line or selling your ideas, 

your leadership and your arguments 

to your people, you’re in the 

game of selling. 

Here are two qualities you 

should be looking to develop or 

enhance if you want to generate 

more wealth, make more friends 

and create more opportunities: 

● Be a good listener 

Few people really listen well. Yet 

the ability to not just hear what 

people are saying but what’s 

behind what they’re saying is 

invaluable. 

They say “money follows pain”, 

and unless you can discern where 

people are hurting, that money 

will never be yours! Another way to 

put this would be “them-focused”. 

Introverts are naturals at this. 

They are much more interested 

in others than in themselves. I 

once read that 75 per cent of all top 

sales people are defined as introverts 

on psychological tests. It’s 

not about you, so make an effort to 

dominate the listening in conversations. 

● Develop a strong reputation 

As I wrote in How to Build Your 

Reputation, your REP is the Reason 

Everyone Pays. What do you want 

them to pay you? More attention, 

more money and more respect. 

A well-earned reputation will do 

that for you. Your reputation is 

what people do, think, feel and say 

when they come into contact with 

you or your name. 

When you give them the right 

cues, messages and personal 

branding signals, you’ll positively 

influence their reaction. This goes 

for online and offline mediums. 

Much has been done to study 

great sales people, in an attempt to 

find out what makes them tick. 

Supposedly what can be measured 

can be replicated. 

While studies are useful, you’ll 

find that what makes a good sales 

person is similar to what makes a 

good entrepreneur and a good 

relationship builder — a good reputation 

and good people skills! 

● This is one of a series of articles 

for Crain’s Manchester Business 

by Rob Brown, author of over 

40 publications, including Amazon 

best-seller How To Build Your Reputation. 

Go to www.rob-brown. 

com for your free 60-page copy of 

The 13 Commandments of Turning 

Relationships Into Profits. 

What is the downturn 

doing to your psyche? 

The financial impact of a downturn 

in business life has been 

well aired but what about the 

psychological impact? How does a 

downturn impact our psychological 

wellbeing and who is the most at 

risk? 

Humans are not good at dealing 

with changes to their environment, 

particularly negative ones that 

threaten stability and security. This, 

paired with uncertainty regarding 

the extent of any downturn, gives 

cause for concern. People’s core values, 

their personality and thinking 

style are likely to determine the psychological 

risk they are at. 

Those most at risk 

How people think about and 

interpret the situation will to a large 

extent determine the psychological 

impact a downturn has upon them. 

Those of us disposed to making certain 

errors in thought are likely to be 

more at risk. Common errors include 

predicting negative outcomes before 

the conclusion has been revealed 

and over-generalising circumstances, 

for example assuming that 

the impact felt by one sector will be 

felt across the board. Other errors 

include paying greater attention to 

negative aspects of a situation compared 

to the positive, and catastrophising: 

assuming that any negative 

outcomes will be of the greatest 

possible magnitude. 

How people think about them- 

Companies often wish to put 

senior executives on garden 

leave during a notice period 

so the employee stays away from 

work and must not contact colleagues, 

customers or suppliers. 

That scenario is intended to protect 

the ongoing business from 

unwanted activities of an employee 

who is about to leave. 

Until now, the general position in 

law had been that if there was no 

express clause in the service contract 

allowing the company to 

impose garden leave, it could not be 

done, unless the employee were to 

agree. 

The High Court has recently 

changed that position. The court 

decided that an employer can sometimes 

force garden leave onto senior 

directors, even when there is no 

such right in the contract. 

In a recent case, two directors 

resigned to join a competitor. There 

Opinion 

Clare Cook 

Consultant, The Occupational 

Psychology Group 

selves is also an important factor. 

Those who are less confident in their 

ability to cope with any negative outcomes 

of a downturn are at greater 

psychological risk. 

An individual’s values are also very 

relevant. In any downturn situation, 

people who prefer structure, order 

and predictability in employment 

and finance are more at risk compared 

to those who are motivated by 

change, variety and uncertainty. 

In terms of personality, those who 

are more emotionally driven could 

be at greater risk. 

This includes people who tend to 

be emotionally expressive, overly 

enthusiastic and who worry. People 

also differ in terms of the extent to 

which they feel they have control 

over their environment. Those who 

do not feel they have control are less 

was good evidence they intended to 

misappropriate confidential information 

of the employer. The 

employer insisted on a period of 

garden leave. That would delay the 

date when the directors joined their 

new employer. The employees did 

not agree. The company applied for 

an injunction from the court to 

enforce that garden leave. The 

employees resisted. 

Breach of contract 

They said there was no garden 

leave clause in their service contracts, 

they had a right to work, and 

that by not providing work the old 

employer was in breach of contract. 

That breach, they said, entitled 

them to leave and join another company. 

The court said that the implied 

right of the employee to be provided 

with work is subject to the qualifica- 

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likely to try to modify situations and 

so will not tend to contingency plan. 

For this reason they are likely to be 

poorly equipped and so at greater 

risk. 

The most resilient 

Those who are at 

a lower psychological 

risk are 

the people 

who are less 

driven by a 

need for 

security 

and who 

prefer variety, 

who are 

more emotionallycontrolled 

and 

who are confident 

in their ability 

to cope with the fall 

out of a business downturn. 

Those who feel they 

can, and do try to, control 

events around them by 

contingency planning 

should also be more resilient 

in the long term. They need 

to ensure however that they 

do not waste time and 

energy trying to change 

things that are beyond 

their control. 

In addition, people 

who are realistic in 

Opinion 

Alan Lewis 

Head of Employment 

George Davies Solicitors 

tion that the employees have not, as 

a result of some prior breach of contract 

or other duty, made “it impossible 

or reasonably impracticable 

for the employer to provide work”. 

As there was an arguable case on 

the documentary evidence that the 

directors had breached their con- 

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their thinking and do not make the 

errors described above should be 

more resilient. 

Other resilient characteristics 

include having effective networks to 

keep up to date and access support 

through, and leading 

a healthy lifestyle, 

particularly 

undertaking 

non-competitive 

exercise 

and relaxation. 

Ruling makes it easier to enforce garden leave 

tracts or duties, the judge said that 

they had no right to be provided 

with work by the old employer. This 

meant that the employer could 

insist on a period of garden leave. 

The injunction was granted. 

Companies should note that this 

decision turned very much on the 

facts and that the employer was 

lucky enough to have come across 

evidence to show wrongdoing by the 

employees. Nevertheless, this decision 

could prove to be useful to protect 

businesses in similar circumstances. 

When looking to put employees 

on garden leave, professional advice 

should always be taken. 

The last thing the company wants 

to do is to act in breach of contract 

which, among other things, could 

mean that any non-competition or 

non-poaching of customers covenants 

fall away and are completely 

unenforceable.

How can I get my company into 

the paper? 

What makes 

a Crain’s story? 

1. Scoops, scoops, scoops 

Our readers are busy people. We don’t want 

to waste their time. Our goal is to deliver 

news to our readers first, before they read 

it or hear it somewhere else. If a story has 

appeared in one of the daily papers during 

the week, it most likely will be a brief item 

in Crain’s Manchester Business unless we 

can find a fresh angle. 

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Big national trends or broad topics aren’t 

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revenue is a good way to illustrate the size 

of a business enterprise. 

N BUSINESS MAIN 07-14-08 A 1 MBDB 11/07/2008 18:46 Page 1 

FOCUS Page 11 

Commercial 

Property 

Ingall wants 

more shops in 

Spinningfields 

What’s News 

■ Some of the 1,000 staff at 

Siemens’ Manchester office in 

Northenden, which is home to the 

group’s automation and drives 

division as well as its transmission 

and distribution business, are in 

danger of losing their jobs after the 

German engineering giant 

announced plans to cut more than 

16,000 positions globally. A 

spokeswoman for the company said 

it was too early to say how many UK 

positions would be affected, but said 

they would most likely be back office 

jobs in the areas of IT, finance and 

communications. About 5,000 of the 

105,000 posts in Europe, excluding 

Germany, will go. 

■ The University of Salford has 

signed a partnership agreement with 

the BBC, which will include new joint 

courses such as BSc Digital 

Broadcast Technology, enterprise 

training for undergraduate Salford 

students, and student placements 

within the BBC. The university said it 

is planning an ambassadorial 

presence alongside the BBC at 

Salford Quays. “These strong links 

will enable us to nurture our staff 

and students’ talent across the 

university, and develop an effective 

future workforce for the region,” said 

Professor Michael Harloe, vicechancellor 

of Salford University. 

CRAIN’S LIST Engineering Companies Page 14 

CRAIN’S 

CRAIN’S 

CRAIN’S 


ISSUE 27, JULY 14 - 18, 2008 CrainsManchesterBusiness.co.uk £2 

£250m paper mill to bring 

200 new jobs to Trafford 


A Spanish company is planning to 

build a £250m recycled paper mill in 

Trafford which could create 200 new 

jobs. 

SAICA, a family-owned company 

based in Zaragoza, wants to use Partington 

Wharfside as a base for what it 

says will be the world’s most 

advanced recycled paper mill, with 

the capacity to produce 400,000 

tonnes of lightweight, 100 per cent 

■ Advertising agency McCann 

Erickson Communications House, 

based in Prestbury, has been 

appointed by Hoover to conduct a 

campaign for its vacuum cleaners, 

starting in the autumn. The 

Manchester office will work with 

McCann’s offices in Italy and France 

on the pan-European account. The 

agency beat two other bidders. 

■ Softcat, a Marlow-based IT 

equipment and support services 

provider, is opening its first regional 

office in Manchester to take 

advantage of the city’s good supply 

of graduates. Managing director 

Martin Hellawell said Softcat was 

struggling to add to its 180-strong 

workforce in Marlow and believed 

there was more chance of recruiting 

here. The group, which had turnover 

of £89.1m last year, will open the new 

office at Universal Square in Ardwick 

on October 10 with 13 staff. Within 18 

months to two years Hellawell said 

he hopes to increase the headcount 

to between 20 and 30. 

■ Internet Facilitators has expanded 

its Manchester data centre network 

with an additional 5,000 sq ft of 

colocation space at Reynolds House 

in Manchester Techno Park, taking its 

total space to over 22,000 sq ft. A 

second on-site energy centre will be 

built with a new 1MVA power supply, 

diesel generators and n+1 

uninterruptible power supply system. 

An additional 150 racks will be made 

available with an expected average 

power usage of 4.5kw per rack up to 

a maximum of 8kw per rack. 

SEE WHAT’S NEWS, PAGE 2 

CAB FAYRE NOT ENOUGH 

M 

Spanish firm plans to make corrugated cardboard 

boxes on site near the ship canal in Partington 

recycled paper to be used in the 

manufacture of corrugated boxes. 

The company recycles more than 2m 

tonnes of paper a year and employs a 

total of 7,000 people across plants in 

Spain, Italy, Portugal and France. 

It has two existing corrugated box 

plants in the UK and one in the 

Republic of Ireland. It has also just 

concluded a £100m deal for Kentbased 

SCA Recycling’s corrugated box 

plants in the UK and Ireland. The 

company is working with Nottingham-based 

SLR Consulting Ltd over 

its plans for Partington Wharfside, 

which covers an area of approximately 

39 acres bounded by the Manchester 

Ship Canal and the A6144 


Councillor 

John Commons 

Leading Page 3 SHEARINGS’ CHIEF EXECUTIVE PUTS HIS FOOT DOWN 

PHOTO: MARTIN O’NEILL 

There are at least ten ways 

to get your company's name in 

Crain's Manchester Business 

1. Letters are among the most-read items in 

the paper, so give us your thoughts on an 

issue, news event or article that appeared in 

Crain's Manchester Business. Contact Editor 

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2. People section. Get your company's 

name in the paper by sending us information 

on key staff you've added or promotions 

you've made. Send a photo if you have one, 

and reward a deserving employee at the 

same time. 

Email manchesternews@crain.com 

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5. Write a column. Do you have expertise 

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Manchester business community? We 

welcome advice columns by industry experts. 

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half PAGE house AD 

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6. Suggest an article for the Focus 

subscriptions 

Manchester Road, linking directly to 

the M60. 

The plans, submitted to Trafford 

Metropolitan Borough Council last 

week, would include an external raw 

sewage area, a warehouse, workshops 

and an electricity and steam-generating 

plant. If the plans are approved, 

construction on the plant could begin 

before the end of the year. A decision 

is expected by the beginning of 

Gloomy outlook 

for apartments 

gives Crosby 

Potato blight 

anchester City Council is being urged to But Commons said numbers should be upped to 

issue nearly 200 more Hackney carriage 1,200 by 2010, saying advice from the consultants was 

licences. City councillor John Commons, “rather conservative” and that anecdotal evidence 

Liberal Democrat opposition spokesman shows people are struggling to find cabs in the 

on licensing, said more taxis during the evening would evening. 

help cut crime and disorder by getting people out of He added: “We feel the city is underserved, particu- 

the city centre. 

larly at night. The number of additional taxis has not 

There are currently 1,024 licences and 749 would- been enough to make sure they are working at night, 

be drivers on the waiting list. Based on a study of which is very important in view of cutbacks to late 

demand levels by consultants Halcrow, the council has night buses. The service is not as good as it used to be. 

recently decided it will issue 30 new licences by next The numbers on the waiting list showed that there 

March and a further 30 in the following 12 months, 

bringing the total to 1,084. 

SEE TAXIS, PAGE 17 

SEE PAPER, PAGE 17 


Crosby Lend Lease has put the brakes 

on its two mammoth residential 

schemes in Manchester city centre, 

stopping work on the construction of 

more than 300 apartments. 

The Birmingham-based firm, 

which has a North West office in 

Altrincham, has decided to curtail 

work on one of the planned apartment 

blocks at its Potato Wharf development 

in Castlefield, with no indication 

of when it will resume. The block 

affected, Brindley, would have provided 

102 apartments. 

Construction has also been put on 

hold at Cypress Place, a 215-apartment 

block planned for Crosby’s 

mixed-used Greenquarter scheme, in 

Cheetham Hill. The steel frame will be 

finished, but no work will be started 

on finish or fit-out. A public consultation 

will be held on July 16 to discuss 

the future of Potato Wharf, which 

Crosby said it still saw as a “sound 

long-term investment.” 

Work on one of the other Potato 

Wharf apartment blocks, Saville, is 

still ongoing, as is Britton House and 

Vallea Court at Greenquarter. 

David Teague, managing director 

at Crosby Lend Lease, said in a statement 

issued to Crain’s: “Crosby Lend 

Lease will be postponing construction 

on Brindley at Potato Wharf in 

Manchester city centre. While the 

structural frame will be finished and 

secured, all other works to the block 

will be put on hold.’ 

“Construction of Saville at Potato 

Wharf is ongoing and when complet- 

SEE POTATO, PAGE 17 

Section. Take a look at our editorial calendar 

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0161 209 5805 

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0161 209 5810 

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● Telephone: 0161 209 5800 ● www.crainsmanchesterbusiness.co.uk 

CRAIN’S 

MANCHESTER BUSINESS TM

FALL BACK 

Keeping 

something 

on the 

sidelines in 

case injury 

strikes 

Page 15 

Two sports 

degrees 

launched 

BY JOANNE BIRTWISTLE 

Manchester Metropolitan University 

Business School is offering 

two new degree courses 

teaching the business of sport. 

Its degree course in sports 

management starts this September, 

while the BA (Hons) in sports 

marketing management will 

commence in September 2009. 

“The courses aren’t for people 

who are interested in doing sport 

as a profession. They are for people 

who want careers in stadium 

management, leisure and recreation, 

or to work for companies 

supplying sports goods, for 

example,” said Richard Warren, 

undergraduate programme coordinator 

for the business school. 

The courses were developed 

with input from an industry advisory 

panel including Bernie 

Jones, chief executive of Trafford 

Community Leisure Trust, Julie 

Gaskell, director at Cranford 

Communications and there was 

also input from Manchester 

United Football Club. 

Modules 

Modules in the sports management 

course include: commercial 

aspects of sport, economics 

and finance for leisure 

and sport, operations management 

and decision making. 

“Sports management is like 

running any other business — it 

needs the right mix of commercial 

and leadership skills. During 

my involvement with the Commonwealth 

Games and my work 

in sports sponsorship, I have 

found the very best people are 

the ones who understand the 

dynamics of business and sport,” 

said Gaskell. 

Because both courses were 

only approved a few weeks ago, 

the business school is expecting 

around 25 entrants through 

clearing to the Sports Management 

course that starts this year, 

but wants to build that figure to 

200. It has been advertised on 

Facebook for the past three 

weeks and according to Warren, 

the advert has received over 1,000 

clicks in that time. 

Research by the Northwest 

Regional Development Agency 

published in April shows there 

are 8,350 companies working in 

the sports industry in the region, 

employing over 97,000 people 

with an annual turnover of 

£6.5bn. 

Both Salford Business School 

and Bolton University’s department 

of Sport, Leisure & Tourism 

Management offer a BA in sport 

and leisure management. 

COMMENTS? jbirtwistle@crain.com 

FOCUS 


New owner brings struggling club back into play 

BY CHRISTINA JORDAN 

Leigh Genesis may not sound like your standard football 

club, but owner Dominic Speakman doesn’t have 

standard ideas about what he wants to do with it. The 

32-year-old travel entrepreneur has taken over the 

struggling club, which was relegated from the Blue Square 

North league at the end of the last campaign. 

He intends to take the club fully professional this season 

and, before a ball has been kicked, it is 7-1 favourite to win 

the Unibond Premier League. Speakman hopes for gates of 

1,000 — a 400 per cent increase on last season — at the new 

12,000 seater Leigh Sports Village Stadium (pictured above). 

His plans sound exciting. But buying a lower league football 

club is notoriously a good way for business people to 

make a small fortune — by starting out with a large one and 

then spending most of it keeping the club going through 

thick and thin, mostly thin. 

Speakman doesn’t expect to make a fortune but doesn’t 

expect his adventure to cost him one either. He worked in his 

COMING SOON SMALL BUSINESS MONTHLY: BANKING. To advertise, call 0161 209 5800 

Sport 

Leigh Genesis 

isreborn... 

family’s Bolton-based business Travel Counsellors before 

branching out in 2003 to launch his own web-based longhaul 

tour operator, Destinology, which had sales of £15m in 

the year to last October and made a pre-tax profit of 

£153,000. 

Running the perfect club 

“I’m not going to make any money out of this and will be 

happy to break even. I didn’t pay for the club but I am financing 

it going forward, and it will cost me £400,000 in year one,” 

he said. 

“The idea came about over a discussion on whether it was 

possible to run the perfect club, where the players and staff 

behave well and maintain professional standards. A club that 

businesses would be happy to be aligned with.” 

When the opportunity came up at Leigh it made perfect 

sense for sentimental reasons — Speakman was born there 

SEE CLUB, PAGE 12 

11 

‘I’m not going 

to make any 

money out of 

this... I didn’t 

pay for the 

club but I am 

financing it 

going 

forward, and 

it will cost 

me 

£400,000 in 

year one’ 

DOMINIC 

SPEAKMAN

12 FOCUS SPORT 

CLUB Taking Leigh 

Genesis into a 

league of its own 

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11 

and his family ran a shop in the town. 

Despite the emotional connections, 

he is trying to take a businesslike 

approach to the club. First was 

the rebrand, from Leigh RMI (Railway 

Mechanics Institute) to Leigh 

Genesis, a name deliberately chosen 

to stand out. There’s a new crest, new 

Nike kit and the new stadium, built 

and maintained by the council. 

Speakman said: “We pay the council 

in proportion to the income we 

bring in, which is brilliant for us. What 

we need to do is fill the stadium, and 

we are putting the infrastructure in 

place to make that happen.” 

Strong links 

Part of that infrastructure is forging 

strong links with businesses and 

using the full potential of the stadium 

by sellng boxes and conference facilities. 

“We’ll be using football as a catalyst 

to get businesses here,” said 

Speakman, who has recruited two 

commercial staff from Blackburn 

Rovers and tasked them with bringing 

in new revenue. 

His peers in football’s bargain 

basement admire his chutzpah, but 

expect him to find it a long, hard slog. 

Dave Pace has been manager and 

chairman of east Manchester club 

Droyslden FC for 14 years, over 

which time the club has won 14 cups 

and he has spent £4.2m, building the 

stadium himself on parkland. 

He looks enviously at Speakman’s 

good fortune in having a ready-made 

stadium. “A large amount of the 

money I’ve spent has been on the 

ground, as you really have to get 

Above, the 

new Leigh 

Genesis home 

(front) and 

away kits 

‘What we need to do is 

fill the stadium, and we 

are putting the 

infrastructure in place 

to make that happen’ 

DOMINIC SPEAKMAN, ABOVE 

things right off the pitch as well as on 

it,” he said. “It’s great that Dominic is 

doing this, although it’s a big challenge. 

I put all my money into the 

club, but we just scrape by most 

years.” 

Pace said Speakman’s objective of 

getting attendances up into four figures 

are admirable but unlikely. “Even 

in the Conference we only picked up 

800,” said the Droylsden boss. “It 

would be a real achievement if he got 

gates of 1,000. He has to make the 

club attractive to businesses and fans 

— there’s a lot of competition around 

here.” 

But Speakman said he is an optimist 

and believes he can make it work 

this season and beyond. “It’s three 

promotions to the Football League 

and our stadium can certainly sustain 

us, right up to the Championship.” 



Dream new 

England football squad adviser designs range of 

new products and signs manufacturing deal 


Manchester-based sleep 

coach Nick Littlehales 

has advised the England 

football squad on how to 

achieve maximum match fitness by 

getting the right kind of overnight 

rest. 

His expertise could not save the 

team from the 

nightmare of failing 

to qualify for 

Euro 2008, but he 

hopes this will not 

hinder his new 

business venture. 

Littlehales has 

designed up to 40 

sleep-related 

products using 

technology developed 

in the sports 

industry. 

He has now 

signed a deal with 

Wilmslow-based Comfy Quilts to 

manufacture items such as mattresses 

which use the same cushioning 

materials as sports shoes and pillows 

with chilled inserts which cool 

down a sleeper’s head. 

“Sleep is often interrupted 

because a person’s head gets too hot. 

You put the inserts in the fridge for a 

few hours and they cool the head 

down during the night,” he said. 

Littlehales believes there is a market 

for the products among the public 

as well as athletes. “All these products 

and the technology come from 

the world of sport rather than Bhs,” 

said Littlehales. “Sleep debt is a 

major problem which many people 

have never taken much notice of. 

You might be sleeping eight hours a 

day but you are not getting the 

full benefits — unless you sleep 

in the right way and on the right 

products.” 

The deal will involve privatelyowned 

Comfy Quilts taking a 50 per 

cent share in Littlehales’ business, 

Sleep Active Ltd, which trades as 

sleepathlete.com. The website, 

which promotes the consultancy 

‘Sleep is often 

interrupted because 

a person’s head gets 

too hot. You put the 

inserts in the fridge 

for a few hours and 

they cool the head 

down during 

the night’ 

NICK LITTLEHALES 

side of his business as well as selling 

the products, is being relaunched in 

September. 

Littlehales, a former international 

sales and marketing director at the 

Slumberland Group, said the sports 

world has a lot to teach business 

people about the value of sleep. 

Having worked with the Football 

Association since Euro 2004, he said 

he has seen first 

hand the link 

between performance 

on the 

field and full 

recovery from a 

good night’s 

sleep. Despite 

stories about 

boozing footballers, 

Littlehales 

said they take 

sleep very seriously 

and see it as 

an essential part 

of their training 

and recovery. “If you are a professional 

athlete you need to know how 

to sleep properly, if you have to perform 

mentally and physically on the 

pitch. 

Things have changed so much 

since the days when George Best 

used to run around on a diet of 

whisky and fags,” said Littlehales, 

whose clients include present day 

Manchester United players. 

Overstretched 

In 2005 Littlehales had a consultancy 

business in Tib Street in the 

Northern Quarter and received regular 

visits from premiership players. 

The business, Private Sanctuary 

Ltd, went under in August 2005 

when he overstretched himself by 

opening a large shop in Piccadilly 

Gardens selling sleep products on 

the back of his work with the 

England squad. “The shop was 

too big at the time and I couldn’t 

devote enough time to it,” Littlehales 

said. 

After the collapse, he started 

again by moving his consultancy to 

Ben Haworth, 

and Bill Jones

eft, 

Crain’s Manchester Business / July 28, 2008 FOCUS SPORT 13 

venture for sleep coach 

JMW bids to win players with one-stop shop 


JMW solicitors is the latest legal firm 

hoping to coax premiership footballers 

away from agents and sign 

them on to a “one-stop shop” service. 

It has broadened its sports division 

with the appointment of former 

Leeds and Sheffield United player 

Ben Haworth as sports and media 

manager. 

JMW said the appointment of 

Haworth, who will work alongside 

four Football Association-registered 

solicitors within the firm, meant it 

wanted to represent players as an 

agent. 

It will provide advice on contract 

negotiations and transfers, image 

rights, intellectual property and tax 

to players who sign a representational 

agreement. 

Bill Jones, JMW managing partner 

told Crain’s: “Historically law firms 

have advised clients on contract 

issues and regulatory issues. This is 

different. What we are doing here is 

representing them as agents. We will 

sign them up to representation 

agreements. We will deal from everything 

from negotiating contracts 

with clubs, boot deals, sponsorship 

and endorsement. We will look after 

everything in their lives so they can 

get on the pitch. It is a one-stop shop. 

The only people that are going to be 

fighting this are the agents.” 

While the concept of complete 

sports management is nothing new, 

JMW has launched its service at a 

time when the reputation of football 

agents has taken some fresh knocks. 

First Wayne Rooney’s agent Paul 

Stretford was fined £300,000 and suspended 

18 months by the FA “for 

improper conduct” over the signing 

of the Manchester United star earlier 

this month, while Bolton midfielder 

Gavin McCann is being sued by his 

agent Tony McGill for alleged breaches 

of contract claiming he was cut off 

the player’s transfer deal from Aston 

Villa at the 11th hour. 

JMW claims it has the backing of 

clubs and footballers and makes no 

bones about wanting to clean up the 

game, which it says has developed a 

bad reputation because of the activi- 

‘There are a lot of 

agents that are in 

there for the money 

and that’s why 

lawyers are thinking 

they can do better’ 

COLIN GORDON 

ties of some unscrupulous agents. 

Jones said: “A lot of those guys 

already have agents. So we can’t just 

walk in there. We will go to players 

and say this is the service we can provide. 

It is going to be simpler for 

them. From their point of view there 

is no hassle. Where we are coming 

from is that we believe things need to 

change.” 

Haworth claimed some agents did 

not have the interests of their players 

at heart. He said: “Because there is so 

much money for the agents they 

have a vested interested in unsettling 

them and moving them around.” 

But his claim is strongly denied by 

football agent Colin Gordon from 

London-based Key Sports Management, 

which represents Chris Kirkland 

of Wigan, goalkeeper David 

James, Arsenal’s Theo Walcott and 

Manchester United’s Chris Eagles. 

Gordon said parents and young 

players needed to be educated into 

knowing “what a good agent is” following 

“terrible practices in recent 

years” which have damaged the 

industry’s reputation. But he maintains 

there is nothing wrong with the 

agent model. He said law firms 

should not represent players simply 

because they were not as closely 

involved in football as agents. 

Gordon added: “There are a lot of 

agents that are in there for the money 

and that’s why lawyers are thinking 

they can do better. And in those 

cases I think that is right. But I do not 

think lawyers are good at representing 

players. 

“We are out in the field everyday. 

We have the contacts and the trust of 

all those that we represent. We go out 

there at games and training. An agent 

does everything. You should be on 

call 24 hours a day. A good agent does 

Left, Nick Littlehales and above, 

George Best. Things have 

changed since Best’s boozy days 

PHOTO: PA PHOTOS 

the internet and now believes it is 

time to go back into marketing products 

— but only online this time. 

“We want to expand sleep 

athlete.com into a range of products 

which you would see on the high 

street to buy. We are going to build the 

brand,” Littlehales said. “We are trying 

to make sleep interesting and cool.” 

Littlehales said his products would 

be priced in the mid to upper range. 

Jodi Schofield, director of Burgess 

Beds in Haslingden, said until the 

consumer downturn hit, people were 

spending more than £1,000 on a mattress 

because of health concerns. 

Schofield said: “Nick wants to market 

the products to the general public 

but it’s quite a niche market and not 

everybody can afford an expensive 

bed. 

“He has some good ideas which are 

very futuristic. It’s not a massive market, 

it’s a select market and a lot of 

marketing is through word of mouth.” 


a very good job. A poor agent can be 

counter productive. If you ask top 

players they all talk about the support 

they get from agents, but in the 

media you only hear the horror stories.” 

But ex-player Haworth said that 

with contacts in the football world, 

law firms can make a success of representing 

players. 

He added: “We have got the contacts 

because of where I have been 

and what I have done. This is our 

unique selling point.” 

Gordon, who works closely with 

Manchester-based law firm Brabners 

Chaffe Street, said agents also 

offered a “one-stop shop” to players. 

“If I need legal advice on image rights 

or contracts, I will employ a lawyer — 

they are good at what they do but 

they know their place.” 

In September JMW will also 

appoint Charlotte Harris from 

George Davies, as the sixth member 

of its sports team. She specialises in 

sports law and defamation. 

COMMENTS? jchapelard@crain.com

14 

CRAIN'S LIST Professional Sports Clubs 

Ranked by total employees 

1 

Name 

Manchester 

United Football 

Club 

2 Manchester 

City Football 

Club 

3 Bolton 

Wanderers 

Football Club 

4 Lancashire 

County Cricket 

Club 

5 

6 

Sale Sharks 

RUFC 

Wigan Warriors 

RLFC 

7 Rochdale 

Association 

Football Club 

8 

8 

Wigan Athletic 

Football Club 

Bury Football 

Club 

10 Stockport 

County 

Football Club 

11 

12 

13 

Hyde United 

Football Club 

Swinton Lions 

RLFC 

Leigh Genesis 

Football Club 

14 Altrincham 

Football Club 

Address/Phone/Web 

Sir Matt Busby Way, Old Trafford, Manchester 

M16 0RA 

Tel: 0161 868 8000 manutd.com 

City of Manchester Stadium, Sportcity, 

Manchester 

M11 3FF 

Tel: 0161 231 3200 mcfc.co.uk 

Reebok Stadium, Burnden Way, Bolton 

BL6 6JW 

Tel: 01204 673 673 bwfc.premiumtv.co.uk 

Old Trafford, Manchester 

M16 0PX 

Tel: 01612824000 lccc.co.uk 

Edgeley Park, Hardcastle Rd, Stockport 

SK3 9DD 

Tel: 0161 286 8888 salesharks.com 

JJB Stadium, Loire Drive, Wigan 

WN5 0UH 

Tel: 01942 774000 wiganwarriors.com 

Spotland Stadium, Sandy Lane, Rochdale 

OL11 5DS 

Tel: 0870 822 1907 rochdaleafc.co.uk 

The JJB Stadium, Robin Park Complex, 

Newtown, Wigan 

WN5 0UZ 

Tel: 01942 774 000 wiganathletic.tv 

Gigg Lane, Bury 

BL9 9HR 

Tel: 0161 764 4881 buryfc.co.uk 

Edgeley Park, Hardcastle Rd, Stockort 

SK3 9DD 

Tel: 0161 286 8888 

stockportcounty.premiumtv.co.uk 

Ewen Fields, Walker Lane, Hyde, Cheshire 

SK14 2SB 

Tel: 0871 200 2116 hydeunited.co.uk 

93 Walkden Rd, Walkden, Manchester 

M28 7BQ 

Tel: 0871 231 2111 swintonlionsrlc.co.uk 

Leigh Sports Village Stadium, , Leigh 

WN7 4JY 

Tel: 0800 634 2878 leighgenesis.com 

Moss Lane, Altrincham 

WA15 8AP 

Tel: 0161 928 1045 altrinchamfc.co.uk 

Senior Local 

Executive Non-sporting activities/facilities 

David Gill, Chief 

Executive 

Garry Cook, Executive 

Chairman 

Allan Duckworth, 

Chief Executive 

Jim Cumbes, Chief 

Executive 

James Jennings, 

Chief Executive 

Mick Hogan, Chief 

Executive 1 

Chris Dunphy, 

Chairman 

Brenda Spencer, Chief 

Executive 

Peter Young, 

Commercial Director 

Mark Maguire, 

Managing Director 

Stephen Hartley, 

Chairman 

Conference, banqueting and meeting venues, 

24 purpose-built event suites and a host of 

smaller meeting rooms, catering and secure 

on-site parking , stadium tours and 

merchandise 

Hospitality, conference and events facilities, 

merchandise, stadium tours 

Stadium tours, merchandising, hospitality 

packages and lottery 

Conference and events facilities 

Cheshire Conference Centre hosts conferences, 

seminars, meetings, dining for up to 500 

guests, weddings and private parties 

Retail, conferencing and events facilities 

Function rooms, executive boxes, match day 

dining. Events for up to 140, conferences, 

meetings, interviews 

A full range of conference and event facilities, 

with rooms able to host up to 600 delegates 

Social club, function rooms, conference rooms 

and Starkies Pitchside Restaurant 

Club shop, VIP match day hospitality in 

conference and banqueting facility. Half time 

and post game bar facility 

Lounge facilities for up to 70 and full catering 

facilities 

John Kidd, Chairman Various sponsorship packages available 

Dominic Speakman, 

Chairman 

Geoffrey Goodwin, 

Chairman and 

Director 

22 hospitality boxes seating 10-20, lounge 

seating up to 250, annual awards evening, club 

shop and lottery 

Non-competitive football events such as 

charity matches, sportsmans dinners and club 

functions. Children's coaching clubs and 

'soccer schools', presentation evenings, quiz 

and race nights, on-line and shop merchandise 

Yr est 

Stadium 

capacity 

Total 

employees 

Total 

Players 

Members 

Season 

ticket 

holders 

COMING SOON NEXT LISTS: ASSET-BASED LENDERS, ARCHITECTS’ PRACTICES 

1878 

76,312 

1887 

47,726 

1874 

N/A 

1857 

16,000 

2000 

10,841 

1872 

25,100 

1907 

10,149 

N/A 

25,000 

1885 

11,500 

445 

216 

204 

150 

99 

92 

68 

60 

60 

63 

130,000 

57,000 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

23 

10,000 

N/A 

50 

5,000 

5,500 

66 

N/A 

10,048 

25 

N/A 

N/A 

35 

N/A 

11,000 

40 

2,000 

1,000 

Club sponsors 

1 Takes up position August 2008 

2 Membership £15 plus ticket price 

GM = Greater Manchester 

PTP = Pre Tax Profit 

N/A = Not Applicable or would not disclose 

Information was submitted via survey, telephone interview and sourced from public records 

All Crain's lists will appear in the 2009 Book of Lists to be published in December. One copy is free to all Crain's Manchester Business subscribers 

Clubs that were surveyed but could not provide information are Droylsden FC, Macclesfield Town FC, Oldham Athletic FC, Oldham Roughyeds RLFC, Rochdale Hornets, Salford City Reds, Sedgley Tigers and Stalybridge Celtic FC 

1883 

10,832 

1919 

4,250 

1866 

3,000 

1896 

12,000 

1903 

6,150 

45 

38 

36 

30 

22 

35 

N/A 

3,500 

35 

N/A 

125 

30 

170 

N/A 

20 

N/A 

N/A 

18 

N/A 

300 


Nike, AIG, Kumho Tire, Hestiun, Budweiser, Audi, 

Air Asia, Tourism Malaysia, Betfred 

Thomas Cook, Le coq sportif, Ecko unltd, Sergio 

Tachinni, Singha Beer, seatexchange.com, 

Digibet, John Smiths, Key 103 

Adult season 

ticket price range 


£475-£836 

£461-£626 

Reebok £389-£499 

Thwaites N/A-N/A 

McAfee £149-£700 

JJB Sports £35-£215 

MMC Estates £360-£285 

JJB Sports £250-£295 

Bury MBC £260-£320 

Just Search £253-£288 

Shammah Nicholls £61-£153 

Utmost Insurance Services, Warburtons, 

Swinton Discount Warehouse, Thompson Jones 

LLP Accountants, Premier Building Services, 

Millenium Estates, North West Trophy Centre, 

HE Wilkinson, Chiquito 

N/A-N/A 2 

N/A £120-£140 

Go Goodwins, Carole Nash Insurance £209-£249 


Revenue 

PTP 

£210,081,000 


£56,925,000 

-£7,952,000 


-£2,087,000 

N/A 

N/A 

£10,500,000 

N/A 

£3,600,000 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

£26,899,000 

-£8,303,000 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

N/A 

Researched by: Angela Tattersall, Research Editor: atattersall@crain.com T: 0161 209 5808

Crain’s Manchester Business / July 28, 2008 FOCUS SPORT 15 

Keeping a plan B 

on the sidelines 

BY CHRISTINA JORDAN 

Stockbroker WH Ireland has 

bowed to the lure of new money 

by setting up a new wealth 

management division aimed 

at professional golfers and footballers. 

It is headed by professional golfer 

-turned-stockbroker Mark Ingram, 

who took the idea to the Manchesterbased 

firm himself. 

He said: “Having played professionally 

I could see there was a 

demand for wealth management for 

sports players so I took time out to do 

financial qualifications. I approached 

WH Ireland and they saw the 

potential, enabling me to set up this 

sports division using my knowledge 

and their infrastructure.” 

“I have mixed with, coached and 

been close to sports players and 

while some are very well looked after, 

others are not,” said Ingram. 

“They earn good money but when 

the time comes that they can’t kick a 

Bury 

apprentice 

Nick 

Potter, 

right, 

playing 

against 

Accrington 

Stanley 

Healthy, 

wealthy 

prized 

& 

football or swing a club, they can 

earn nothing.” 

Sportsmen have specific financial 

needs, requiring comprehensive 

insurance for example, and long-term 

plans for what can be short-term 

careers. “In golf you can go from earning 

£35,000 one year, to £5.2m, and 

then down to £300,000,” Ingram said. 

“It fluctuates and then suddenly finishes, 

often quite early in life. We’ll 

help players provide stability where 

there’s a lack of it.” 

Last year a consortium of investors 

acquired a stake in WH Ireland including 

new chairman Rupert Lowe, who 

is also chairman of Southampton FC, 

and David Whelan, founder of JJB 

Sports. 

The new investors stepped in soon 

after Hale-based Formation Group, 

which already operates in the sports 

management arena, made a failed bid 

for WH Ireland. Now WH Ireland will 

be competing in the same market as 

Formation. 

Ingram is now taking on the former 

Now programme helps players who don’t 

make the big time to get new skills 


What would a 16-year-old 

Wayne Rooney have done 

had he broken his leg and 

not been signed by Everton 

on a professional contract? 

The answer to this question for 

thousands of full-time apprentices 

who don’t make the grade is that 

they end up unsigned and back 

in the labour market with 

no educational qualifications. 

Around 90 

per cent of aspiring 

players find 

themselves in this 

position by the age of 18. 

League Football Education, a 

partnership between The Football 

League and The Professional 

Footballers’ Association, is trying 

to do something about it. 

LFE manages Apprenticeship 

in Sporting Excellence, 

a Learning and 

Skills Council-funded 

scheme which is made up 

of BTEC National Diploma, 

NVQ and coaching 

training. 

Former Bury FC apprentices 

Tom Clarkson and Nick 

Potter, both 19, are some of those 

who have benefited. Potter now 

hostile bidders at their own game. He 

said: “I try not to be too influenced by 

competition. Formation has some big 

names on its books, and was obviously 

interested in WH Ireland last year. I 

presume they could see the same 

potential I saw.” 

Healthy competition 

Mike Wallwork, communications 

director at Formation, said: “We view 

all competition as healthy and wish 

WH Ireland well. This sector is strong 

and growing, particularly in mainstream 

sports which generate significant 

TV and sponsorship income. The 

earning potential of top sports players 

has never been greater and consequently 

the importance of sound 

financial advice never more important.” 

But he warned: “The sports sector 

is relationship-led so management 

is a difficult area to break into with 

has a conditional offer from Salford University 

to study human biology and infectious 

diseases this September after doing a BTEC 

national diploma in sport through the LFE 

and going on to do A Levels. 

He said: “I didn’t think I was good enough 

to get signed. I was disappointed but I knew 

it was going to come. I am not too sure what 

I would have done had I not had some qualifications. 

I do not have a clue what would 

have happened.” 

Clarkson was also unsigned at the end of 

his apprenticeship after breaking his leg in 

his second season but, as he had done his 

ASE course, he decided to do a physiotherapy 

degree at Salford University. 

He said: “It is important to think about 

these things. You do not know what is going 

to happen. All it takes is an injury. Doing the 

course gives you stuff to fall back on. I have 

had to go down a different route.” 

Injury 

Former Stockport County apprentice 

Ashley Crank also broke his leg during his 

apprenticeship and went unsigned. 

Now 20 and back to match fitness, he is 

moving to Webber International University 

in Florida to do a business degree and 

scholarship on the back of his LFE studies at 

Stockport County. 

He will be playing in the Florida Conference 

League but admits if the football does 

not work out he will have at least a degree to 

fall back on. He said: “I just messed about in 

the first year at Stockport and then realised 

how important my studies where. I would 

have been lost had I not done them. 

“I have never wanted to do any- 

companies building relationships 

over time on the back of integrity, professionalism 

and word of mouth.” 

Ingram agrees that relationships 

are key and thinks his long experience 

as a sportsman will open doors. “A lot 

of agents and advisers are ex-players 

“ 

Gigg Lane, home of Bury FC 

thing else apart from football. I have not got 

any other interest. At least with this sports 

degree I could pick something else if it does 

not work out. I have the opportunity and 

options now.” 

His advice to young players is to be prepared 

for an alternative career because 

things don’t always work out. 

Alan Sykes, LFE’s chief executive, said: 

“The sporting world produces hundreds of 

exceptionally disciplined, dedicated and 

talented young people each year who do 

not continue to compete but who have a 

huge amount of valuable skills to offer in 

sport and in other industries. 

“We aim to ensure these athletes find 

other ways to use their talents and abilities 

by introducing them to new training and 

career paths. 

“We want to prepare athletes for careers 

outside or alongside sport to make sure they 

never lose the skills they have worked hard 

to achieve.” 

Former world swimming champion 

James Hickman, 32, who set up Manchester-based 

public relations and production 

company Made in Manchester after retiring 

at 28, said more young athletes needed to 

think about their futures. 

Hickman added: “Sports is only going to 

be one part of their lives and they might not 

even make it. 

They need skills for the next part of their 

life, either educational or vocational. A lot of 

athletes do not think about these things 

enough. I think LFE is a good initiative — 

football has so many kids who want to be 

the next premiership superstar.” 


with knowledge of the associations, 

and empathy with the players.” 

A key aim for WH Ireland will be to 

forge relationships with sporting bodies. 

“We are linking with football 

agents and I’m in talks with one golf 

association to secure a relationship 

which will give us access to 7,500 golf 

professionals,” said Ingram. 

The stockbroker has no fixed targets 

although Ingram’s medium-term 

plan is to represent a “cluster” of European 

Tour professionals. “It’s a massive 

sector to get your teeth into and 

one we are very excited about.” 


Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of 

an idea is an obstacle. 

Ken Hakuta 

CLEARED FUNDS READY 

FOR ACQUISITIONS OR FUNDING 

‘They earn good money 

but when the time 

comes that they can’t 

kick a football or 

swing a club they can 

earn nothing’ 

MARK INGRAM, LEFT 

LANDMARK INVESTMENTS 

PROPERTY INVESTMENTS 

www.landmark-investments.co.uk 

01204 847973 

“

16 


Innovation is the name of the game 

as far as Manchester’s Contact Theatre 

is concerned, and chief executive 

John McGrath is hoping this, 

and the institution’s focus on young 

people, will help the Oxford Road venue 

attract more funding. 

“That’s what grant givers are interested 

in — people that are doing something 

different,” said McGrath, adding 

that last year only one show Contact put 

on was not totally original. In addition, 

he is hoping the theatre’s work with 

young people — its main focus is on 

young adults between the ages of 13 

and 30 — will help boost its profile and 

even generate some income. 

In the year to the end of March 2007, 

the latest period for which figures are 

available, Contact had total income of 

£1.48m, up from £1.34m in the prior 

year. While McGrath said this was little 

changed in the year to the end of March 

2008, he acknowledges that purse 

strings are likely to be tightening and 

that raising adequate funding may 

become harder. 

Artisitic identity 

However, he is adamant the theatre 

will not do things just to generate cash. 

“We do not work on a hire basis,” he said 

of the theatre’s four display spaces, 

which include a 350-seater auditorium, 

a studio space, a rehearsal studio and a 

foyer stage. “Our artistic identity is our 

core asset and, if that is for hire, we cannot 

control it.” 

Contact Theatre has been in existence 

since the 1970s, when it was 

owned by Manchester University. But it 

is only since a refurbishment in the late 

1990s, that the building, including the 

distinctive rooftop towers which are an 

eco-friendly cooling system, have been 

the property of Contact Theatre, or 

Manchester Young People’s Theatre, the 

name under which it is registered at 

Companies House. 

In the year to the end of March 2008, 

the theatre hosted 315 performances, 

up from 270 in fiscal 2007 thanks to the 

addition of a new stage in the foyer area. 

Starting in January it is also hoping to 

run an Artists in Residence programme 

whereby six visual artists get to display 

their wares over a period of six months 

on the condition that the public are given 

constant access to the art. 

McGrath said Contact has “put out 

the call” for interested artists to submit 

ideas and he is currently seeking sponsorship 

to help fund the programme. 

In addition to putting on performances, 

Contact is heavily involved in 

anything to do with young people. Two 

thirds of its audience is 

under the age of 35, 

with half of those 

being under 25. 

Where possible 

it even seeks to 

employ young 

people to 

work in the 

box office or 

as ushers to 

substitute its 

25 full-time 

staff and array of 

artistic freelancers. 

In addition, it 

offers workshop 

programmes both at 

Contact and within 

Manchester’s communities, 

with many 

sessions being run by 

the young people themselves. 

“Participation is at 


Making 

contact 

Manchester’s Contact Theatre reaches out to a younger audience 

the heart of our work and we run a huge 

range of activities where young people 

can join in, learn and develop,” said 

McGrath. 

In fact, Contact’s Young Leaders programme, 

aimed at helping young people 

become decision makers, has been 

so successful that its members have 

been asked to go to London’s South 

Bank, the National Theatre and the 

Imperial War Museum to train people 

there. 

“There is recognition that there is a 

real sense of leading the field in this 

area,” said McGrath, 

adding that 

Above from left, 

Space 3 from 

Manchester and Rio 

de Janeiro’s Afro 

Reggae performing 

together, and the 

Sining Kambayoka 

Ensemble from the 

Phillipines, and chief 

executive John 

McGrath 

Below, Die 

Zwiefachen theatre 

company, a 

Berlin-based group 

PROFILE Is there a cultural organisation you’d like us to profile? Call 0161 209 5800 

Next to 

be profiled: 

The 

Manchester 

Museum 

August 4 

CONTACT THEATRE - 

AT A GLANCE 

(YEAR TO MARCH 2007) 

Income 

Voluntary income 

(AGMA, Manchester City 

Council, Arts Council, 

University of Manchester) £1,080,631 

Activities for generating 

funds (lettings, cafe bar) £21,755 

Investment income £1,485 

Operation of theatre £189,337 

Contacting the World £185,461 

Total Incoming Resources £1.48m 

Expenditure 

Operation of theatre £1,405,150 

Contacting the World £174,072 

Governance costs £6,000 

Total Resources Expended £1.59m 

Trustees: W Longmore, C Baynes, J 

Moss, S Reeves, C Keegan, P Gray, D 

Reynolds, J Thompson, J Dyer, S Rai, S 

Rahman, C Oates, M Young, S Ali. 

what started out as a social programme 

aimed at getting young people involved 

in the running of the theatre is now 

generating money for the young people 

themselves as many of them are being 

hired out as consultants. 

Contact’s reach does not stop there. 

This week it is hosting its Contacting 

the World festival, an event that has taken 

place every two years since the Manchester 

Commonwealth Games in 2002 

and is aimed at providing a platform for 

young and emerging artists from countries 

around the world. 

In the past it has always been held in 

Manchester, but this year, for the first 

time, Contacting the World is going to 

Liverpool as part of the city’s Capital of 

Culture celebrations. 

“While this is a bit of a loss for Manchester, 

it is a great opportunity to raise 

our profile,” said McGrath, adding that 

instead of the traditional 

Manchester/Liverpool rivalry he has 

experienced a sense of “northern English 

camaraderie”. 

If all goes to plan, it won’t be the only 

time the event takes place outside of 

Manchester either. McGrath said he is 

in talks to take the festival outside of 

Britain in 2010, helped by some of the 

partnerships with performers from as 

far a field as Berlin, Bethlehem, New 

York and Rio de Janeiro that have been 

built up this time round. 

“We have to be versatile because our 

target audience is young adults who are 

constantly reinventing themselves,” 

said McGrath. “If we can’t react to that, 

we will lose their interest.” 

COMMENTS? cshoesmith@crain.com

Crain’s Manchester Business / July 28, 2008 FROM THE FRONT PAGE 17 

STREET Reasonable rents 

‘will bring retailers back’ 


“Some people on King Street are not 

trading very well. There is very little 

demand for it. Anyone new to Manchester 

will look at King Street but 

they will be tempted elsewhere. King 

Street is having a hard time. The fact 

that so many leases are on the market 

tells its own story. Looking forward 

I think it will come back. It will 

reinvent itself once the 

oversupply of retail 

space has worked itself 

through.” 

Advisors to city centre 

management company 

Cityco and Manchester 

City Council 

recently said The 

Avenue, in Spinningfields, 

which is due to 

open in 2009 and has 

400,000 sq ft of retail 

space, would challenge King Street’s 

traditional upmarket and luxury 

brand offer. The report, Manchester 

City Centre Retail Strategy, said the 

issue should be looked at and has 

called for a strategy to be put in place 

to attract high end retailers to the 

area. 

Chris Renshaw, retail agency associate 

director at Manchester-based 

GL Hearn said: “If all these retailers 

are going to pull out what are you 

going to end up with? If people were 

reasonable on rents, more shops 

might come back.” 

A further threat to the street 

Sixteen shop leases on King Street are for sale 

Manchester city centre and Salford, 

which include The Bridge, St 

George’s Island and 360. 

The developer is currently offering 

£800 per month mortgage contributions 

at its Spectrum apartment 

scheme on Blackfriars Street, 

where Grimes has a £179,000 twobedroom 

apartment. That development 

is due to be finished in 

December. 

The company is also set to develop 

600,000sq ft of mixed leisure, residential 

and commercial space over 

five buildings at Chapel Wharf, 

adjacent to the Lowry Hotel. Phase 1 

comes from Allied London’s 

announcement earlier this month 

that it wanted to double the number 

of shops in The Avenue from 18 to 36. 

But Nick McAllester, associate 

director of Colliers CRE, said The 

Avenue might act as a “counter balance” 

in the future by attracting footfall 

away from the traditional retail 

core, around Manchester Arndale, 

into that area of the city centre. 

He added: “King 

Street has had a hard 

time. Partly because of 

big rents and footfall 

drying up. It has been 

hit hard by the Arndale 

extension and New 

Cathedral Street. 

“There is better quality 

space on the market 

for smaller rents. There 

has been poor demand 

up King Street because 

there have been better opportunities 

in the city.” 

Nicholas Wainwright, managing 

director of jewellers Boodles, said: “It 

is still the best shopping street in 

Manchester easily, the attraction is 

that it’s narrow and without cars. The 

problem is the car parking. You pay 

£12.60. It’s ridiculous.” 

A Diesel spokesperson said: “At 

this moment, Diesel (UK) Ltd do not 

wish to comment on this matter.” 

SEE OPINION PAGE 8 


is schedule for completion in 2010. 

A spokesman for Dandara told 

Crain’s that sales on residential and 

commercial stock was progressing 

well, but declined to comment on 

Grimes’ departure. 

Grimes claimed the Dandara post 

was one of 140 job offers she 

received following The Apprentice. 

She chose Dandara because it was “a 

dynamic group”. 

Mark Rawstron, investment partner 

at GVA Grimley’s Manchester 

office, said challenging market conditions 

were putting added pressure 

on those working in the property 

investment sector. 

“There is no doubt that the last 

Ltd, which is currently in discussions 

with several potential operators 

over occupancy terms for the 

Ritz, which holds 1,300 people and 

has an 83-year history in 

Manchester. 

Sean Cullen, manager at The Ritz, 

told Crain’s several parties were in 

discussion with Company Time to 

operate the venue. 

Direct competition 

“Discussions are ongoing, but it 

has generated interest from more 

than one party,” he said. “It would be 

good to get some new investment 

and keep the Ritz as one of Manchester’s 

leading venues. We need to 

continue putting on good concerts 

and club nights and we need it to go 

from strength to strength. 

“It needs some updating — inside 

and out — but it has a lot of history 

and bands like playing here. We put 

on around 70 shows a year.” 

If Live Nation did acquire The 

Ritz, the company would be pitched 

GRIMES Dandara hit by falling demand 


‘King Street 

has had a hard 

time. Partly 

because of 

big rents 

and footfall 

drying up’ 

NICK MCALLESTER 

Paul Latham at Manchester’s Palace Theatre 

VENUE Operators in talks over The Ritz 


six to nine months have been very 

challenging and very different to the 

last time we had a major problem, 

which was 1991,”he said. 

“The difficulty is that expectations 

of vendors and purchasers are 

still very wide apart. Serious 

investors are staying away, although 

there is a feeling that we might be 

close to the bottom of the market, 

which will draw some money back 

into the industry. People working in 

the sector might have some difficult 

personal choices to make.” 

Grimes did not respond to calls 

for comment. 


Over 4,300 local business leaders have subscribed to receive daily business 

news alerts - direct from the publisher of Crain’s Manchester Business. 

‘It would be good to get 

some new investment 

and keep The Ritz as 

one of Manchester’s 

leading venues’ 

SEAN CULLEN 

into direct competition with the 

Manchester Academy, owned and 

operated by the University of Manchester 

Students’ Union on Oxford 

Road, where £3.5m has just been 

spent on a comprehensive revamp, 

sending its capacity up to nearly 

2,500. 

Latham, who has just been 

appointed to the business leadership 

council set up by the Association 

of Greater Manchester Authorities, 

said: “Maybe what I can bring to 

the party is the experience of having 

worked with lots of local authorities 

across the UK on their development 

plans. 

“Invariably leisure is involved in 

some form, often as the loss leader 

which makes sense of the rest in 

The Bridge apartments 

terms of footfall. Whether it is theatre, 

music or conferencing, there is 

not a genre that we don’t touch.” 

Live Nation operated the Tameside 

Hippodrome in Ashton-under- 

Lyne for 12 years until it closed in 

March. 

Latham said Tameside Metropolitan 

Borough Council’s subsidy was 

insufficient to enable the company 

to continue running the venue. 

Manchester is Live Nation’s most 

important city outside London in 

terms of the size of audiences. As 

well as the three venues it owns, the 

company promotes shows at the 

MEN Arena. The company’s UK 

property division is also based in 

Greater Manchester, at the School 

House in Trafford Park. 

Live Nation is based in Los Angeles 

and was spun off from US media 

conglomerate Clear Channel Communications 

in 2005. It has recently 

shaken up the music business by 

signing a $120m, 10-year deal with 

Madonna, which includes recordings 

as well as live shows. 


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CRAIN’S 

MANCHESTER BUSINESS

18 NEWS 

For the Record 

HOW TO USE THIS SECTION: For the Record is a listing of 

information from the public record that can help business people 

find opportunities and decide whom to do business with. It also 

provides business intelligence on clients, potential clients and 

competitors. 

Planning applications, tenders and contracts come from the 

councils; information on disqualified directors comes from the 

Insolvency Service; company notices come from the London 

Gazette; home sales information comes from Land Registry. 

Residential deals 

Stephen Phillip O’Connor, 1 Deansgate, 

Manchester; £1.2m; April 7; leasehold; 

flat; no mortgage. 

Anthony Hartley Denton and Amanda Jane 

Hartley Denton; Glossop Road, Stockport; 

£600,000; May 9; detached; freehold; 

Lloyds TSB mortgage. 

Commercial deals 

Office 

Research company Grendonstar has 

taken 1,600 sq ft at Number 8, The 

Embankment Business Park in Heaton, 

at £15 per sq ft. The leasor was a 

private client, advised by the 

Manchester office of Edwards & Co. 

MCR Property Group has secured three 

lettings at Brook House and a further 

letting at Wellington House in 

Manchester. Euro London (1,411 sq ft), CB 

Richard Ellis (1,819 sq ft) and Gray Scanlan 

Hill (1,310 sq ft) have all signed up to 

Brook House (40,000 sq ft) on five-year 

leases at £12.50 per sq ft. At Wellington 

House, on Piccadilly Gardens, MCR has 

let 3,427 sq ft to Passenger Focus on a 

five-year lease at £16 per sq ft. CBRE 

and WHR are joint agents on both 

schemes. 

Property Alliance Group has agreed a 

15,750 sq ft pre-let to Mott MacDonald at 

Spring Bank House in Altrincham. A 15year 

lease has been granted at around 

£20 per sq ft. DTZ acted for Mott 

MacDonald. 

Wilmslow-based Orbit Developments 

has secured a letting at its Parkway 

Business Centre in South Manchester. 

Potters Ltd, a herbal medicines 

manufacturer, has signed a 10-year 

lease with Orbit and acquired the 4,171 

sq ft third floor of Parkway 5, the 

newest building at the development. 

Bruntwood has pre-let 17,158 sq ft to 

building consultancy Faber Maunsell at 

its 1 New York Street office 

development in Manchester city centre. 

Faber Maunsell will move into 1 New 

York Street when the building 

completes in September 2009, and is 

currently taking space at Bruntwood’s 

Lowry House, also in Manchester. 

Cibitas has taken the lease on a second 

floor suite at Century House in St 

Peter’s Square, Manchester, from 

landlord Mosley Street Ventures. 

Annual rent on the 1,511 sq ft unit is 

£18,132. Knight Frank advised the leasor. 

Urban Splash has secured several 

lettings at its Ducie House office 

building in Manchester. Shareholders 

United has taken a lease on 169 sq ft at 

an annual rent is £5,040; 257 has taken 

the lease on 263 sq ft, with an annual 

rent of £5,720; Circular Design has taken 

710 sq ft at a rent of £14,000 a year; 

and Red Lott has taken 344 sq ft at an 

annual rent of £9,000. Edwards & Co 

advised the leasor. 

Univar Ltd has assigned its existing lease 

at Lakeside 5500 at Cheadle Royal 

Business Park to VirtenSys Ltd who will 

now occupy 8,769sq ft on the second 

floor. VirtenSys, which provides 

virtualisation software for data centres, 

has taken on the lease at a rental of £18 

per sq ft. Univar has relocated to group 

held premises at Stanley Green Trading 

Estate in Handforth, Cheshire. Edwards 

& Co advised Univar. 

Industrial 

Sunwin Cash Processing Services has 

taken the lease on Unit 2000 at Fifth 

Street, Trafford Park, from landlord 

Kajima Construction. Annual rent on 

the 17,932 sq ft unit is £83,350. Knight 

Frank advised the leasor. 

Heena Fashions has taken the lease at 38 

Broughton Street, Cheetham Hill, from 

leasor Brightwise. Annual rent on the 

1,652 sq ft unit is £22,500. Knight Frank 

advised the leasor. 

Planning applications 

Manchester City Council 

Kilburn Building, University Of Manchester, 

Oxford Road; Refurbishment of Kilburn 

Building, proposed external work 

includes the removal of existing metal 

temporary staircase, installation of 

external escape door, installation of a 

projecting frameless glass bay window 

and installation of new windows into 

existing openings at walkway level; 

David Sims; 086910/FO/2008/C2 

18 Fountain Street, Manchester; Ground 

floor recladding and glazing, change of 

use to A2 on the ground floor and B1 on 

the first and second floor; Fiona Lewis; 

086644/FO/2008/C1 

Sunlight House, Quay Street; Listed 

building consent to refurbish reception 

area and common parts and re-model 

external facade at ground floor level; 

APIA Regional Offices Fund Ltd 

Partnership; 085698/LO/2008/C1 

39 Tib Street, Manchester; Erection of 

mixed use development comprising 1 A1 

retail unit at ground floor and three 

residential units above; Flairfax Ltd; 

083381/FO/2007/C1 

Land behind 800 Oldham Road, Newton 

Heath; Erection of three-storey flat roof 

rear extension to form workshop and 

office accommodation in association 

with existing business; Shane O’ Brian; 

086261/FO/2008/N1 

Refused — land bounded by Charter 

Street/Southall Street & Julia Street, 

Strangeways; Erection of a cash and 

carry warehouse with parking and 

associated external works; Jerpro 

Properties Ltd; 086387/FO/2008/N1 

Salford City Council 

G29, Lowry Designer Outlet, The Quays; 

Use of unit for A1/A2/B1 and/or D1 

purposes (re-submission of planning 

application 07/55550/COU); Orbit 

Investments (Salford) Ltd; 

08/56170/COU 

Stockport MBC 

36 - 38a Gorton Road, North Reddish; 

Four town houses, six self-contained 

flats and three retail units; Mr N Fisher; 

DC/039530 

Man B and W Diesel Ltd, Barlows Lane 

South, Woodsmoor; Proposed 

redevelopment of Man Diesel site 

(screening opinion); Ms S Swift; 

DC/039983 

Compstall Mills Estate, Andrew Street, 

Compstall; Proposed redevelopment and 

refurbishment — scoping report; Ask 

Property Developments Ltd; 

DC/039970 

Oldham MBC 

722 Oldham Road, Failsworth; 

Resubmission of PA/54869/08 for 

change of use from ground floor to hot 

food takeaway; Mr R Ahmed; 

PA/055398/08 

Land off Middleton Road, Royton; Use of 

land for storage containers; Mr M 

Dockray; PA/055392/08 

Tameside MBC 

Land between Nelson Street and Lime 

Grove Annan Street, Denton; Proposed 

erection of five dwellings — outline; 

Ashbank Property Company Ltd; 

08/00880/OUT 

Trafford MBC 

2 Radnor Street, Stretford; Change of use 

of existing office (class B1) to a car 

accessories retail shop (class A1). 

Associated external alterations to front 

elevation including installation of new 

shop front. Subdivision of existing 

associated residential accommodation 

to provide one two-bedroom dwelling 

house and one two-bedroom residential 

flat. Demolition of existing brick wall 

enclosing rear yard and installation of 

new access gate; Motor Range; 

H/69928 

United Utilities, Rivers Lane, Urmston; full 

— other business; Mr S Day; TEMP 04 

14/07/08 

Rochdale MBC 

Sun Chemicals Ltd, Elizabethan Way, 

Rochdale; Sun Chemical; 08/D51121 

Wigan MBC 

TLT Garage Services, E1 Walter Leigh Way, 

Moss Industrial Estate, Leigh; To erect a 

two-storey unit for B1, B2 and B8 use, 

together with laying out of nine car 

parking spaces, following demolition of 

existing unit (resubmission of 

A/08/71284); George Moss & Sons; 

A/08/71629 

Bolton MBC 

Approved with conditions — land 

bounded by Deane Road, College Way And 

Wellington Street; Erection of two 

community college buildings, one sixth 

form college building and realignment 

of Stanley Street together with creation 

of areas of surface car parking and 

landscaping; Bolton Community 

College; 79868/08 

Refused — 104 - 108 St Georges Road, 

Bolton; erection of a five-storey building 

for 31 apartments; Hallyon Habitat; 

79811/08 

Bury MBC 

Land at Ainsworth Mill, Bury New Road, 

Breightmet; demolition of some existing 

buildings and proposed extension to 

existing building to form new industrial 

buildings (outline); Vause Construction 

Ltd; 50099 

103 Bolton Road, Bury; Change of use to 

car rental (sui generis) from newsagent 

(Class A1); Enterprise Rent A Car Ltd; 

50203 

Pilsworth Fisheries, Pilsworth Reservoir, 

Pilsworth Clough, Moss Hall Road, Bury; 

Construction of new banking and 

islands reusing inert materials, footpath 

and platforms; Mr Eric Taylor; 50161 

HSE prosecutions/notices 

The Health and Safety Executive issues 

notices against companies or individuals 

to improve or prohibit working practices 

it deems as unsafe. In some cases, 

failure to comply with these notices 

leads to prosecution against companies 

or individuals. 

Prosecutions 

Procter and Gamble Product Supply (UK) 

Ltd, of Trafford Park Road, Manchester 

was fined £40,000 and costs of £2,738 

on July 17 for an incident where three 

maintenance workers were injured 

when the brakes on a warehouse lift 

failed and they fell 25 metres. The 

accident took place in July 2006. 

Improvement notices 

Notice 301295191 served against 

Prestige Homes Construction Co on 

8/5/2008; construction site is not being 

maintained in good order and without 

risks of slips or trips; Complied with. 

Notice 301294632 served against Mr R 

Gundlach on 8/5/2008; Undertaking gas 

work whilst unregistered with Corgi; 

ongoing. 


Tenmat Ltd on 12/5/2008; served 

requiring risk assessment to be done 

for using emery cloth on components 

when they are rotating in lathes; 

Complied with. 


Trafford Metropolitan Borough on 

13/5/2008; Failure to implement 

measures identified in risk assessments 

to control the risk from legionella 

bacteria; Complied with. 

Notices 301302126/301302144/ 

301302149 served against Elliott 

Absorbent Products Ltd on 13/5/2008; 

301302126 (production line one), 

301302144 (production line two), 

301302149 (production line three) 

served on three slitting section 

machines, inadequate guarding of 

dangerous parts; Complied with. 

Prohibition notices 

Notice 301302801 served against Paul 

Woodcock on 12/5/2008; Woodcock 

painted the upper reaches (above 2 

metres) of the exterior wall of Morton 

house without suitable measures to 

prevent a fall. 

Company notices 

Appointment of Administrators 

In the High Court of Justice, Chancery 

Division, Manchester District Registry 

No 3011 of 2008. NBW Ltd,03536091, 

manufacture of new build windows, 

doors and conservatories, Unit 18B, 

Saint Richards Road, Four Pools 

Industrial Estate, Evesham, 

Worcestershire, WR11 1XJ. Joint 

administrators A Poxon and J M Titley, 

both of Leonard Curtis, DTE House, 

Hollins Mount, Bury, BL9 8AT, 

appointed July 9. 

In the High Court of Justice (Chancery 

Division), Manchester District Registry 

No 3054 of 2008. Claimtec Ltd, 

02423633, other business activities, 

formerly of Shepherds House, 

Stockport, Road, Cheadle, Cheshire. 

Joint administrators D J Power and M 

Dunham, both of BDO Stoy Hayward 

LLP, Commercial Buildings, 11-15 Cross 

Street, Manchester M2 1BD, appointed 

on July 8. 

In the High Court of Justice, Chancery 

Division, Manchester District Registry 

No 2989 of 2008. Ming & Lai Ltd, 

05649519, restaurants, 48 Faulkner 

Street, Manchester, Lancashire. 

Administrators A. Kachani (IP No 5780), 

Crawfords, Stanton House, 41 

Blackfriars Road, Salford, Manchester 

M3 7DB, appointed on July 7. 

Appointment of 

Administrative Receivers 

Horners Motor Group Ltd, 03693955, 

Horners Manchester Ltd, 00636398, sale, 

servicing and repair of new and used 

motor vehicles, HMG Commercial Ltd, 

02373171, Intermediate Holding 

Company, who were formerly registered 

at 208 Bury New Road, Manchester, M8 

8DY. Appointer of administrative 

receivers: Bank of Scotland. Joint 

administrative receivers, Dermot Justin 

Power and Matthew Dunham, both of 

BDO Stoy Hayward LLP, Commercial 

Buildings, 11-15 Cross Street, Manchester 

M2 1BD, appointed on July 11. 

Appointment of Liquidators 

Comdex Services Ltd, 5500058, buying 

and selling property, formerly of 33 

Finchley Road, Fallowfield, Manchester, 

M14 6EN. Liquidator David Norman 

Kaye, Crawfords, Stanton House, 41 

Blackfriars Road, Salford, Manchester 

M3 7DB, appointed July 8 by members. 

Winding-Up Orders 

Bury County Court matter 6 of 2008. 

To advertise in this 

prime location 

contact 

Publisher Arthur Porter, 

aporter@crain.com 

CRAIN’S 


Parcel Logistics Ltd, 05718801, Unit 2, J2 

Park Office Suite, 3 Bridge Hall Lane, 

Bury, BL9 7NY. Date of winding-up 

order May 8, 2008. Official Receiver, 1st 

Floor, Boulton House, 17-21 Chorlton 

Street, Manchester, M1 3HY. High Court 

of Justice matter 002757 of 2008. 

Unique Care Services Ltd, 05317748, Link 

House, Walmersley Road, Bury, BL9 

5AE. Date of winding-up order, July 2. 

Official Receiver, 1st Floor, Boulton 

House, 17-21 Chorlton Street, 

Manchester, M1 3HY. Manchester 

District Registry matter 2768 of 2008. 

Leftmode Systems Ltd, 04968734, Unit 

D12, Fieldhouse Industrial Estate, Field 

House Road, Rochdale, Lancashire, 

OL12 0AA. Date of winding-up order 

July 15. Official Receiver, Po Box 326, 1st 

Floor, Boulton House, 17-21 Chorlton 

Street, Manchester, M60 3ZZ. 

Contracts and tenders 

Manchester Airports Group 

Contractors all-risks insurance 

Contractors all-risk insurance services. 

Accident and health insurance services, 

motor vehicle insurance services, 

marine aviation, other transport 

insurance services, property insurance 

services, pecuniary loss insurance 

services, liability insurance services, 

motor vehicle liability insurance 

services, professional liability insurance 

services. The provision of insurance 

services for Manchester Airport Group 

to include but not limited to the 

services listed above. The contracting 

entity requires only insurance 

companies to express their intentions, 

Broker companies need not apply. 

Tenders or requests to participate by 

August 14, 2008. For further 

information see www.airportsmart.com 


Royal Bolton Hospital 

Lean consultancy services 

Contract for the provision of lean 

consultancy services for a period of 24 

months with two six-month extension 

options. Estimated value £150,000 

excluding VAT. Tenders or requests to 

participate by August 15, 2008, to Anna 

Micklewright, Royal Bolton Hospital, 

Minerva Road, Farnworth BL4 0JR. Tel: 

01204 390390 or email 

anna.micklewright@rbh.nhs.uk 

Congleton Borough Council 

ICT solution 

Cheshire Home Choice, comprising 

Congleton Borough Council, 

Macclesfield Borough Council, Crewe 

and Nantwich Borough Council, 

Cheshire Peaks and Plains Housing 

Trust, Plus Dane Housing Group and 

Wulvern Housing are inviting 

expressions of interest from companies 

who are able to provide a choice based 

lettings ICT Solution commencing 1st 

April 2009 with ongoing maintenance 

for a period of 36 months. It is intended 

the contract will form a framework 

agreement that may be extended to 

include other local authorities, housing 

associations and private landlords by 

mutual agreement. The requirement is 

to provide a comprehensive ICT 

solution initially to Cheshire Home 

Choice partnership. The solution needs 

to encourage housing options and have 

the ability to expand to meet the needs 

of new partners. Tenders or requests to 

participate by August 22, 2008, to Julie 

Griffin, Congleton Borough Council, 

Westfields, Middlewich Road, Sandbach 

CW11 1HZ. Tel: 01270 529690 or email 

julie.griffin@congleton.gov.uk 

Mid Cheshire NHS Foundation Trust 

Maternity information system 

The purchase and implementation of a 

system which will be used to fulfil the 

clinical and non-clinical information and 

reporting requirements of the trust’s 

maternity unit, including community 

services. The system must have the 

capability of providing information for 

all statutory returns, mandatory 

information required for CNST, 

maternity critical care dataset and 

national obstetric anaesthetic database 

as a minimum. The system will also be 

required to interface with the trust’s 

management information and patient 

level system supplied by Agnentis LTD 

(Salient). HL7 messages will be required 

between the system and the trust’s 

patient management system (iSoft Care 

System) and order communications 

system (Anglia ICE) as minimum. 

Electronic links CTG monitors to 

facilitate the upload of data will also be 

required the system will need to 

operate both within the hospital setting 

and also securely in the community to 

cover the full spectrum of maternity 

care (excepting GPs). Tenders or 

requests to participate by August 20, 

2008, to Janet Moore, Leighton 

Hospital, Middlewich Road, Crewe CW1 

4QJ. Tel: 01270 612594 or email 

janet.moore@mcht.nhs.uk 

Tameside and Glossop Acute 

Services NHS Trust 

Repair, maintenance and 

installation services 

To supply and install modern, functional 

single chamber pass through type 

endoscopy washer/disinfector to 

Tameside and Glossop Acute Services 

NHS Trust which may include drying 

and storage cabinets systems that 

provide total quality management in 

line with current cutting-edge risk 

management, safety and quality 

issues/expectations. Potential providers 

may be requested to attend pre-tender 

discussions and determine process to 

cohesively work with building 

commissioners and design team 

regarding installation and lead times of 

equipment. Estimated value between 

£100,000 and £120,000 excluding VAT. 

Tenders or requests to participate by 

August 20, 2008, to Linda Longton, 

Supplies Department Tameside General 

Hospital, Tameside and Glossop Acute 

Services NHS Trust, Fountain Street, 

Ashton-under-Lyne OL6 9RW. Tel: 0161 

331 6561 or email 

linda.longton@tgh.nhs.uk 

Tameside Metropolitan 

Borough Council 

Social work services 

Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council 

(Adult Services) invites suitably 

experienced and qualified organisations 

to work in partnership with the council 

in order to deliver a high quality one 

stop information shop for older people. 

Tenders are invited from organisations 

able to demonstrate previous 

experience of providing this type of 

service. The contract will be awarded 

covering the following: The information 

shop will be open to the public Monday 

through to Saturday, opening times to 

be negotiated at the start of the 

contract and will equate to 30 hours 

per week. The service will be located in 

a town centre setting with easy access 

for the public. The approach is to have 

a one stop shop holding information 

about older people on a variety of areas 

and will include information on the 

council’s approved residential and 

nursing care providers, sheltered 

accommodation and extra care housing 

schemes. As well as providing 

information on statutory services, ie 

Adult Services, local voluntary services 

and practical services for older people 

outside the statutory provision, the 

shop will hold information on a wide 

range of retail outlets for equipment, 

pharmacy opening times and internet 

shopping services. Tameside Council 

has highlighted the need to increase 

both the range and quality of free and 

impartial information to enable 

individuals to make informed choices 

on relevant services that will enhance 

their quality of life and enable them to 

remain in their own homes 

independently for as long as possible. 

The provider of this service will have 

responsibility for the continued 

promotion and marketing of this 

service over the duration of the 

contract. Contract runs from April 2009 

to March 2012. Tenders or requests to 

participate by August 20, 2008, to 

Head of Service (Democratic Services), 

Tameside Metropolitan Borough, Level 

One, Room 1.3, Council Offices, 

Wellington Road, Ashton-under-Lyne, 

OL6 6DL. Tel: 0161 342 8355. 

Cremators 

Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council 

wishes to fit mercury 

abatement/filtration equipment to its 

cremators at Dukinfield Crematorium, 

Ashton-under-Lyne, to comply with 

Environmental Permitting Regulations 

2007. Estimated cost £450,000 

excluding VAT. The crematorium 

building is a Grade II listed building, as 

such all equipment must be installed 

within the building and will take account 

of and be sensitive to the status of the 

building. There are currently three 

cremators which were installed at the 

crematorium in 2001. They are furnace 

construction joule cremators. They 

have natural gas fired primary and 

secondary zone burners. We do not 

envisage replacing these for another 15 

years. The council wants to subject 100 

per cent of its cremations to mercury 

abatement. The work will be carried out 

without disruption to the normal 

running of the crematorium which 

operates Monday to Friday. The 

equipment must be such that should 

filters fail the cremators revert to 

PG5/02 (04) standards with regards to 

all other emissions. Cremators must be 

capable of operating independently and 

be subject to mercury abatement. Full 

maintenance and running costs will be 

crucial in the council’s evaluation of the 

project. Reporting requirements of 

PG5/2(04) must be met in relation to 

continuous reporting requirements. In 

conjunction with the project the council 

intends to fit heat exchangers to 

capture the excess energy and power 

the boiler system in the chapel and 

hence provide local heat. This initiative 

has received public and council support. 

This will form part of the contract 

between the council and the successful 

contractor. We are seeking expressions 

of interest from companies to carry out 

this work. Michael Gurney will contact 

companies who have expressed an 

interest week commencing August 4, 

2008 to discuss the project in more 

detail prior to tenders being issued. For 

more information contact Michael 

Gurney, Dukinfield Crematorium, Hall 

Green Road, Dukinfield, Ashton-under- 

Lyne, SK16 4EP. Tel: 0161 344 0181 or 

email michael.gurney@tameside.gov.uk 

News leads 

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business news than any other. If your 

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please email 


Salford-based Ener-G equipped a 

community heating system in London’s 

Stratford Eye regeneration project, a 

mixed use office and apartments 

scheme overlooking the Olympics site 

in East London, to use its tri-generation 

technology to create its own cooling, 

heating and electricity. Competitive 

procurement and advanced 

measurement and metering systems 

from sister companies CMR and 

Switch2 will also cut residents’ utility 

bills by as much as a third, Ener-G said. 

The number of travellers from 

Manchester using the Eurostar train, 

which travels to France and Belgium, 

increased by more than half in the first 

half of 2008 compared with the same 

period last year. 

Manchester City Council announced it is 

to modernise the Town Hall, including 

the provision of a “one stop shop” 

customer service centre in the building. 

Local authorities in Greater Manchester 

will be given financial incentives of 

almost £900,000 over two years by the 

Department for Transport in order to beat 

government congestion targets. In the


first tranche, Greater Manchester has 

been offered £627,000 to beat targets 

in 2008/09 and £251,000 to do the 

same in 2009/10. There will be four 

additional tranches of performancebased 

payments, which Greater 

Manchester eligible for further 

payments in each of those. 

Big Life Employment, a not-for-profit 

Manchester-based company that offers 

training and employment opportunities 

to people overlooked by mainstream 

employers, won two awards at the 

North West European Social Fund 

programme. Big Life was overall winner 

in the innovation with beneficiaries 

category, which recognises best use of 

ESF funding to help diverse and hard to 

reach groups of people, and runner up 

in the embracing diversity category. Big 

Life was also nominated for an overall 

Excellence Award. 

Prestbury-based McCann Erickson 

Communications House and Didsburybased 

Clear Marketing were both 

honoured at the IPA Best of Health 

Awards. For McCann, silvers were 

awarded for the “Check Yours” 

campaign for The Christie Hospital and 

the “Sandwich” campaign on behalf of 

condom brand Durex, whilst the “Don’t 

be a cancer chancer” microsite for 

Ashton, Leigh and Wigan Primary Care 

Trust received a bronze award. Clear 

won a silver award in the Consumer, 

Individual Poster Advertising category 

for its “Blood” poster advert for Foetal 

Alcohol Syndrome Aware. 

Manchester-based law firm Lockett 

Loveday MacMahon advised on the 

buyout of a Leicester-based steel 

stockholding business, JPL Steel Stock. 

A strike by 200 Manchester Airport 

cleaners was called off following a lastminute 

pay deal. Talks between Unite 

and Initial Air Services concluded with a 

pay offer of 3.5per cent, the union said. 

Unite members at Initial have voted by 

78 per cent to accept the new pay deal. 

The dispute started following claims by 

Unite that Initial had imposed a 2 per 

cent pay offer previously rejected by 

workers. Initial said they had worked 

hard to resolve the problems. 

Manchester Airport declined to 

comment on the dispute. 

A software firm with offices in Salford 

Quays and Amsterdam secured a 

contract allowing it to rollout a remote 

site-monitoring system to a group of 

properties managed by Manchesterbased 

support services firm Inter City 

Group. The rollout follows a six-month 

trial where Inter City used Servisional’s 

GPRS technology-based Vision Site 

Manager which allowed the company to 

monitor attendance and hours worked 

by personnel at two remote sites. 

Altrincham-based printer reseller 

printerland.co.uk announced its intention 

to reach a £20m turnover target by 

2010. The company, which is owned by 

managing director James Kight and his 

business partner Graham Vickers, was 

started in 1993 and is claiming a 

“strong annual growth exceeding the 

rest of the market”. A spokesman said 

the firm’s current turnover was around 

£14m. 

Manchester Airport escaped unscathed 

from the temporary closure of seven 

Ryanair bases across Europe. The airline 

is closing bases in Basel, Budapest, 

Krakow, Palma, Rzeszow, Salzburg, 

affecting four destinations served from 

Liverpool airport. Ryanair does not fly 

to any of the seven airports from 

Manchester so flights here will remain 

unaffected. The bases will be closed 

between November 4 and December 19 

affecting 2,000 flights with the loss of 

300,000 passengers. The airline 

blamed record high oil prices of $140 a 

barrel and expensive airport charges 

for the closures. 

Wythenshawe-based Teledata UK signed 

Chester-based Moneysupermarket to a 

five-year deal. 

SMARTiD, a software development 

company based at the Daresbury 

Innovation Centre, won two contracts to 

supply its Single Sign On identification 

system to Debenhams and United 

Biscuits. Since it started out in 2006, 

SMARTiD has focused primarily on the 

NHS market and currently more than 

25 NHS Trusts use its software, the 

company said. The two new contracts 

are the group’s first foray into the 

commercial sector. The two new 

contracts will generate an initial fee in 

return for the supply of start up 

software and further income from the 

provision of an aftercare service. 

Egger UK appointed Manchester-based 

marketing communications agency SLG 

Marketing to handle the roll out of its 

new Decorative Protect flooring board 

product. SLG will devise and implement 

a 12-month advertising, direct mail and 

PR campaign. 

Department stores owned by John Lewis 

are to stop taking personal cheques 

from Friday, August 1, the company 

announced. This follows a trial in two 

branches. The stores will only accept 

cash and card payments. 

Trafford-based contractor Russells 

Construction completed work on the 

Alteon Training UK Ltd flight training 

centre in Cheadle. The contract for the 

extension to the existing flight centre 

was handed over 11 days ahead of 

schedule, on June 20. The job involved 

the construction of a steel frame 

extension to the existing building to 

accommodate a second flight simulator 

and additional office and computer 

room facilities across three floors. 

Three Greater Manchester businesses 

were honoured in the North West 

regional heat of the 2008 National 

Business Awards regional programme. 

Scott Fletcher, founder and chief 

executive of ANS Group, won the Credit 

Suisse Entrepreneur of the Year Award. 

Cattles Invoice Finance won The IMechE 

Business Innovation of the Year Award 

and Bardsley Construction of Altrincham 

was named the Badenoch & Clark 

Business of the Year. 

Administrators sold Buckleys Print & 

Packaging, based in Bredbury, Stockport 

to Tipografic Print Solutions, a newly 

formed company set up by Wirral-based 

rival, Tipografic Print Group. The deal 

has created a combined business 

employing 200 and with sales of nearly 

£9m. Buckleys employs 110 and last 

year won an award for the quality of its 

label printing. 

The Association of Greater Manchester 

Authorities said it will invite the its new 

Business Leadership Council to consult 

Greater Manchester Chamber of 

Commerce, the CBI and other business 

associations to recommend a regulator 

to manage and scrutinise the Transport 

Innovation Fund congestion charging 

scheme, but the final approval and 

appointment will be made by AGMA. 

The Manchester Digital Development 

Agency and trade association Manchester 

Digital are to survey the digital sector in 

Manchester and the North West. 

Manchester-based marketing agency 

The Savvy Partnership is carrying out 

the research. 

The crisis over marking of SATS tests 

generated an estimated £100,000 

worth of bookings for the Hilton Hotel at 

Manchester Airport. ETS Europe, the 

US company which is marking the 

papers, has “virtually taken over” the 

hotel for the past four weeks, according 

to the Mail on Sunday. The paper says 

scores of staff are based at the hotel 

working long hours to catch up with the 

backlog of unmarked papers. It is 

renting six conference rooms for £350 

per day plus guest rooms costing £117 

per day. Staff are on daily rates of £180 

plus £30 spending money and £3 per 

paper marked. 

The chief executive of the Northwest 

Regional Development Agency urged 

public sector bodies to pay private 

sector suppliers promptly in order to 

help them survive “challenging 

economic conditions”. 

An East Manchester building site 

manager John Mather is one of 400 

winners of the National Housebuilding 

Council’s Pride in the Job Quality 

Deals round-up 

Deal type 

Minority stake 

1.047 per cent 

Acquisition 100 

per cent 

Acquisition 100 

per cent 

Minority stake 

36.583 per cent 

Acquiror 

name 

Tipografic 

Print 

Solutions Ltd, 

Birkenhead 

Xpertise 

Group Plc, 

Leeds 

Target 

JJB Sports 

Plc, Wigan 

Buckleys Print 

and 

Packaging 

Ltd, London 

Parity 

Training Ltd, 

London 

Xpertise 

Group Plc, 

Leeds 

Vendor 

name 

Standard Life 

Investments 

Ltd, 

Edinburgh 

Deal value 

(n/d - not 

disclosed) 

n/d 

Deal comments 

Award. Mather, 56, who works for 

Altrincham-based housing regeneration 

specialist Lovell, was one of those 

selected from 18,000 applicants. The 

award is for his management of The 

Way, the Lovell development at 

Beswick. 

Utility company E.On appointed the 

digital division of Manchester-based 

media planning and buying agency 

MediaVest — MVi —to manage its search 

engine marketing. 

The Shaw Trust won a contract to find 

work for 7,000 people on benefits in 

Greater Manchester. The national 

charity will carry out the work over the 

next three years, funded by the 

European Social Fund and the 

Department for Work and Pensions. 

Targets include people with health 

conditions and lone parents to people 

from ethnic minorities and the over 

50s. 

Baker Tilly won the European Pension 

Scheme Accountant of the Year Award 

at the European Pension Awards. 

Judges measured the entrants’ 

achievements in innovation, dedication 

and commitment to improving pension 

provision in Europe. It is the second 

pensions award for Baker Tilly this year. 

In April the firm won Pension Scheme 

Accountant of the Year from the UK 

Pension Awards. 

Holmes Chapel-based business-tobusiness 

PR agency The Scott 

Partnership was appointed by Sterilin, 

which makes single use laboratory 

plastics for life sciences applications, for 

a new campaign. The PR campaign will 

focus on the health care, clinical and 

pharmaceutical sectors across Europe. 

New businesses 

These are new company registrations or 

newly established branches of existing 

companies. The listing includes name of 

company, postcode, telephone number 

where available and name of director, 

manager or proprietor. 

IMAGE AT WORK LTD, M16 9EN, 0161 872 

1292 

IMAGES FOR ARCHITECTURE, M34 3DS, 

0161 336 9121, J. Freeman 

INS & OUTS, M40 7ND, 07917 717162, D. 

Horan 

ISOPRIME LTD, SK8 6PT, 0161 488 3660 

ITFARM LTD, M15 6SE, 0161 227 0581, J. 

Huntington 

J.P.M ECO LOGISTICS LTD, OL2 6HL, 0161 

628 8408 

JAMESMITCHELLDESIGN.COM, M4 1BE, 

07787 516544 

JENI WEBSTER, M25 9SJ, 07864 111098, 

J. Webster 

JUICY SHOOT, M15 4LA, 07976 977571 

JULIE GUNN, SK8 6HL, 07747 530670 

JUST BRAKES MOBILE SERVICE, BL9 

0TH, 07828 504 907 

JUST MERCEDES, M12 6LY, 07815 

045306, M. Fergi 

JUSTWOOD, BL8 4AQ, 01204 888 523, 

A. Davis 

K R PLUMBING, M43 7TA, 07815 579347 

KANE FUNERAL SERVICES, M19 1FE, 

0161 282 8793 

KINGFISHER FISH RESTAURANT, M40 

2JN, 0161 682 4696, L. Wigglesworth 

KIP MCGRATH, M41 0XH, 0161 748 3912, 

P. Syrett 

KONAK CAFÉ, SK9 3LQ, 01625 533 999, 

S. Madakas 

KWIKKERB UK LTD, BL6 7JH, 01204 691 

600, P. Egan 

L B DRAFTING & DESIGN, WN6 7RT, 


LA ROMA RESTAURANT, M26 1GT, 01204 

707932, S. Miserocci 

LA ZEEZ, SK8 2AF, 0161 491 1300 

LADIES GALOUR, M27 4BN, 07724 

486836 

LANDLOUNGE.COM LTD, BL5 2AZ, 

01942 812312, J. Foreshaw 

LAURA COLEMAN FLOWERS, M20 3HR, 

07899 986934, L. Hall 

LE TAGINE, M25 3HQ, 0161 773 5100, A. 

Sonne 

LEADING EDGE, SK9 3BL, 01625 520508 

LEE BURGESS ENTERPRISES, M24 2NZ, 


LITTLE MONSTERS MAYHEM, M44 5AD, 

0161 775 5515 

LIVING ROOMS (HOME) LTD, SK16 4QU, 

0161 342 6500, J. Ward 

LOC8 ESTATE AGENTS LTD, SK6 2SR, 

0161 406 6186, D. Atkinson 

LOLLS BEAUTY SALON, SK4 3BS, 0161 

4431 169, E. Tasker 

LS CONSTRUCTION, BL9 9HY, 07516 

237131 

LUCY ELENA MAKEUP ARTISTRY, SK3 

8TL, 07837 310322 

M & B DIGITAL AERIALS & SATELLITES, 

BL6 6EA, 07766 545587, N. Matthews 

M&P WINDOW CLEANING SERVICES, 

M46 9WT, 0800 1123253 

MADE 4 YOUR HOME LTD, M8 8AQ, 

0845 4505767, R. Mehta 

MAKE UR MOVE, M1 3FY, 0844 7365826 

MARC HANLEY, BL4 9JP, 07988 

696673, M. Hanley 

MARK HURST DJ SERVICES, BL5 3RZ, 


MARK SOWTER HEATING & PLUMBING 

SERVICES, SK7 4EE, 07958 062983 

MAROOSH MIDDLE-EASTERN KEBABS, 

OL16 1LR, 01706 359333, I. Ge 

MARTIN & CO, M45 6TQ, 0161 773 0949, 

A. Cutner 

MARTIN & CO, M3 4NQ, 0161 839 2212, S. 

Murray 

MASTER PLASTER, M25 9UA, 07522 

936840 

MAZE LETTINGS, M19 3DB, 0161 224 

7197, A. Aslam 

MB SATELLITE & TELECOMS, BL6 5JP, 

07921 387499, L. Blackshaw 

MINIGLORIA CLASSIC MG SPECIALISTS, 

SK9 5JH, 01625 522418 

MINT DISCO, WN2 1BJ, 07814 974138 

MODISTE, SK1 1JQ, 0161 4298634, E. 

Naders 

MOO-BOUTIQUE, SK4 4HY, 0161 432 

8808, J. Whyte 

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, OL11 3TD, 


N.D.S, OL10 2TT, 07515 555331, N. 

Scanlan 

NAILED!, M27 4UB, 07912 550694 

NAILS BY BECKY, BL4 9RB, 01204 

861360 

NESTCO LTD, WA3 3DR, 01942 718471, H. 

Dykes 

NEXT CAR FLEET SALES, SK14 4QF, 0161 

351 9188 

NICE & TASTY, M5 4QQ, 0161 745 8305, 

R. Simpson 

NLD LTD, OL12 6XB, 01706 751226, D. 

O’Keeffe 

NORTH MANCHESTER BUILDERS, BL9 

9TS, 07818 005572 

NORTHERN CRATES LTD, M32 0ZH, 0161 

864 2642, N. Flaxman 

NORTHWEST TYRE SOLUTIONS LTD, 

M44 5AZ, 07940 088831, B. Williams 

NOWELL TILING, M19 3GH, 07896 767115 

OAK ROOFING SERVICES, BL1 2QQ, 


ORTHOTICS - SPORTS PHYSIOTHERAPY 

CLINIC, SK7 4RD, 0161 4874424, M. 

Naseer 

P G FABRICATIONS LTD, SK14 2EW, 0161 

368 7080, P. Garcia 

PERFORMANCE LOW COST, BL1 3AS, 

01204 840666, R. Rubinstein 

PESTRAP/PEST CONTROL, BL3 2HN, 

01204 371427 

PK LOCKS, M28 3LX, 07882 827077 

PL VEHICLE SERVICES, OL1 2BQ, 0161 

620 0922, P. Lees 

POWER HANDLING LTD, M26 4WR, 

07743 382014, P. Broadfoot 

POWNALL PLANT HIRE, WA15 0RD, 

07771 752809, J. Pownall 

PROFESSIONAL CV’S, BL3 1XG, 07984 

284023 

PURE BEAUTY EUPHORIA LTD, BL2 

3HN, 01204 303040, L. Brown 

PYRAMID DOOR SPECIALISTS, OL8 4JA, 

0845 6430807 

Q & A SOLICITORS, M13 0NR, 0161 224 

8771, C. Ehsan 

QUALITY FURNITURE 4 U LTD, SK5 7DL, 

0161 443 1335, M. Trevor 

QUEENIE MUMBLES, WA14 1DW, 0161 941 

2215, L. Ward 

QUESTUS CONSULTANCY, BL9 6JZ, 

0870 3309744, K. Hoy 

QUICKPICK METAL COLLECTIONS, M28 

0HT, 0161 278 9269, L. Wharmby 

RED CARPET PROPERTIES LTD, WA14 

1DG, 0845 0740066, D. Hodgson 

REDDISH LOCAL, SK5 6AZ, 0161 442 

7863, A. Iqbal 

REFRESH FURNITURE, M8 8HQ, 0845 

0551664, C. Tooke 

REGENERATION SOLUTIONS NORTH 

WEST CIC, BL2 6DH, 01204 381987, J. 

Tunstall 

RICE & SPICE, OL9 6LH, 0161 633 7100, 

M. Bashirkhasn 

ROADSIDE MOTOR SERVICES, SK9 3QF, 

07785 795361, A. Whitelegg 

ROSETTE OUTLET, BL1 4QF, 07849 

979030 

SCOTT JAMES PHOTOGRAPHY, BL6 

4DE, 01204 848000, R. Scott 

SHERS NEWSAGENT & MINI MART, SK4 

5DA, 0161 432 1424, M. Shere 

SHERWOOD CABINET MAKERS LTD, 

SK4 1UD, 0161 480 3774 

SIMDEX LTD, M40 8BB, 0844 3577369, 

S. Dixon 

SIMPLY FLOORS & JOINERY, SK2 6EJ, 

07515 489455, J. Clare 

SIMX, M5 3EJ, 0161 932 1065 

SMART CLOTHING, BL1 2EH, 01204 

394610, F. Anwar 

SNIP SNAP, WA14 1QU, 0161 928 0353, R. 

McGowan-Kemp 

SONIC SOUND MOBILE DISCOTHEQUES, 

WA3 2DA, 07974 875205 

SPARKLE OCCASIONS, M41 6NR, 07760 

167994, C. Bolton 

SS ENGINEERING LTD, M30 8NF, 07717 

707642 

STARS MOBILE DISCO & KARAOKE, 

OL14 6TW, 01706 818207 

STEVEN ATKIN DRIVING INSTRUCTOR, 

OL12 8SJ, 07701 017057 

SUBWAY, M12 4AB, 0161 273 7982, S. 

Raffi 

SUGARMOUSE CREATIONS, M26 2UP, 

07751 917504, R. Stretton 

SULEMAN FASHIONS, OL16 5QJ, 01706 

355122, B. Suleman 

SUPREME COSTS LAW COSTS 

CONSULTANTS, M3 4DA, 0161 214 5151, J. 

Greer 

SURE METALS LTD, BL4 9QT, 07857 

515426, I. Shaw 

TAN FOR A TENNER, M44 5AJ, 07962 

021139 

TASTY BITE, SK5 6NX, 0161 223 0800, 

Q. Awan 

THE APARTMENT CO (UK) LTD, M4 5DB, 

0161 235 5247, E. Breadner 

THE BALLOON DIARY, BL6 5QD, 07885 

201805, L. Allcock 

THE BODY SHOP AT HOME, OL12 0TG, 


THE BODY SHOP AT HOME, M34 2AQ, 


THE JIMMY EGAN CENTRE, M22 8BG, 

0161 998 0775, S. Egan 

THE MOFKOB PARTNERSHIP, BL1 4PQ, 

01204 37808 

THE PHONE CLINIC, M8 8FX, 0161 

8351006 

THE QUEENS, SK14 2ND, 0161 368 2230, 

W. Occleston 

THE SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE, BL2 6JZ, 

01204 413151 

THE WEIGHT LOSS PEOPLE LTD, OL6 

9LX, 0845 6808008, D. Collett 

THERAPY FOR FEET, M29 7PU, 07528 

400545 

THOMAS SIDLOW, M35 0LE, 0161 657 

6027 

Information supplied by 

www.bvdep.com 

On 21/7/08 it was announced that on 17/7/08 Standard Life Investments Ltd has sold 2,500,000 shares in Wigan-based sports clothing retailer JJB Sports Plc. The shares represent a 

1.047 per cent stake of the issued share capital of 238,890,000 shares, and reduces Standard Life’s overall holding to 11,279,961 shares which equates to a 4.722 per cent stake of the issued share 

capital of JJB Sports Plc. The consideration was not disclosed, but based on the closing price of £0.855 on 16/7/08 the shares can be valued at £2,137,500m 

Receiver n/d On 18/7/08 it was announced that Tipographic Print Solutions Ltd has acquired Stockport-based printing company Buckleys Print and Packaging Ltd from its administrators. 

Parity Group 

Plc, London 

£4.78m 

On 23/7/08 it was announced that Parity Group Plc has agreed to sell its Wimbledon-based training division, Parity Training Ltd, to Xpertise Group Plc for a cash consideration of 

£4.775m The disposal is subject to shareholder approval at the forthcoming EGM at 13/8/08. 

On 23/7/08 it was announced that Altrincham-based IT training consultancy company Xpertise Group Plc is placing an additional 3,250,000 ordinary shares of £0.08 each at a placing price 

of £0.70 per share to raise £2,275,000. The placing shares represent a 36.583 per cent stake of the enlarged share capital of 8,883,949 shares, and are expected to be admitted to trading on 

29/8/08. 

TICHEMICALS LTD, M27 0EW, 0161 728 

5570, A. Young 

TIMELESS BRIDE, SK12 1SL, 01625 

630062, M. Hinds 

TITAN HEATING & PLUMBING SERVICES 

LTD, OL6 8PP, 07969 771090, M. 

Dawson 

TODDLERS 2 TEENS, M46 0WZ, 01942 

875802, L. Waring 

TOYZONE, BL9 9EL, 07890 580635 

TRANSFORM YOUR IMAGES, M4 3AB, 

0161 831 7043, P. Hyde 

TRAVEL EMOTIONS LTD, WA14 2PX, 020 

30516662 

TRES MARIAS, SK2 6NG, 0161 480 6748, 

M. Saidil 

TROPICANO SPICE, M13 0GW, 0161 257 

0645 

TRUDYS LIGHT HAULAGE, BL1 8RA, 

01204 597725 

TT.EXPRESS MOTORS, M1 2NS, 0161 274 

4546, J. Nelson 

U & S AUTO PARTS & DIY STORE, OL8 

2BS, 0161 633 2041, Z. Ahmed 

UKF, M41 0SS, 0161 748 5656 

ULTIMATE FINISH PLASTERING, M22 

4PN, 0161 215 0306 

UNDERLOCK & KEY LOCKSMITHS, SK14 

1HF, 0161 366 6061, A. Christian 

UNIQUE CAR HIRE & SALES LTD, M11 

3WU, 0161 220 7842, I. Mahmood 

VALENCIA PLUMBING SUPPLIES, SK1 

2BX, 0161 474 7064 

VELO ESTATES, OL12 6BG, 01706 

344224 

VERNON PRIMARY SCHOOL, SK12 1NW, 

01625 872556 

W M COMMERCIAL SOLUTIONS LTD, 

WA14 5NQ, 0845 8387036, W. Mongary 

WALKIES DOG WALKING SERVICE, WN4 

9HE, 07872 996719 

WEDNESDAY COACHING, M21 0AN, 0161 

718 1349 

WHEATLAND BROS SKIP HIRE, M38 

9ST, 07530 257596 

WILLIAMS DECORATORS, BL1 5JW, 

01204 412590 

WORKING WEAR LTD, M40 8EF, 0161 

205 8930 

WRHS SERVICES, BL2 1NZ, 01204 

415199 

WWW.JKKELECTRICAL.CO.UK, M24 2BF, 

07917 161908 

YIN JEWELLERY, M4 3AT, 0161 834 

9688, J. Ruddy 

YOUNG’S FITTED INTERIORS, M26 3BA, 

0161 724 4770, D. Bolton 

HANDYMAN MAINTENANCE, OL11 1AL, 


HARVEY TAYLOR, M34 3EX, 0161 337 

0477, E. Taylor 

HEAD OVER HEALS UK LTD, M12 4QA, 

0161 225 9955, G. Sarwal 

HIGH RISE SECURITY SERVICES, M21 

8AD, 0161 8815719, A. Shah 

HIGH SPIRITS HOLISTIC THERAPIES, 

M15 5LL, 07704 778880 

HOUGHTONS ACCOUNTANTS, SK4 2DG, 

0161 870 6806, L. Houghton 

I VALET, WA13 9HT, 07738 267183 

IMAGE AT WORK LTD, M16 9EN, 0161 872 

1292 

IMAGES FOR ARCHITECTURE, M34 3DS, 

0161 336 9121, J. Freeman 

INS & OUTS, M40 7ND, 07917 717162, D. 

Horan 

ISOPRIME LTD, SK8 6PT, 0161 488 3660 

ITFARM LTD, M15 6SE, 0161 227 0581, J. 

Huntington 

J.P.M ECO LOGISTICS LTD, OL2 6HL, 0161 

6288408 

JAMESMITCHELLDESIGN.COM, M4 1BE, 


JENI WEBSTER, M25 9SJ, 07864 111098, 

J. Webster 

JUICY SHOOT, M15 4LA, 07976 977571 

JULIE GUNN, SK8 6HL, 07747 530670 

JUST BRAKES MOBILE SERVICE, BL9 

0TH, 07828 504907 

JUST MERCEDES, M12 6LY, 07815 

045306, M. Fergi 

JUSTWOOD, BL8 4AQ, 01204 888523, 

A. Davis 

Acquiror 

Financial 

Advisor 

Broker - Daniel 

Stewart & Co plc 

Target’s 

advisors 

Transaction 

Services - SFP: 

Daniel Plant, 

Simon Franklin 

Plant 

Financial Advisor 

- Arbuthnot 

Securities Ltd

20 CRAIN’S FOR RESULTS: CALL 0161 209 5819 

www.crainsmanchesterbusiness.co.uk 

CRAIN’S CLASSIFIED 

OFFICE SUPPLIES 

Everything 

for the Office 

Office Supplies Now Ltd 

suppliers of Office Stationery, 

Office Furniture, Printed 

Stationery, Business Machines, 

Printer Consumables. 

‘Free Space 

Planning Service’ 

Unit 4 Holmes Street, Rochdale OL12 6AQ 

Tel: 0845 833 3001 Fax: 0845 833 3002 

Email: sales@officesuppliesnow.co.uk www.officesuppliesnow.co.uk 

Sign up now and 

take advantage 

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TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT 

For further information on any event call Robin Taylor on 0161 209 5800 or email rtaylor@crain.com To book your ad call Sarah Bell on 0161 209 5819 

To advertise call Sarah Bell on 0161 209 5819 or email sbell@crain.com 

How often should you advertise? 

What are people actually thinking as they read your ad in a local paper? Thomas Smith, a nineteenth-century London 

businessman, offered the following advice to advertisers in 1885. 

It is still applicable today 

1. The first time people look at any given ad, 

they don’t even see it. 

2. The second time, they don’t notice it. 

3. The third time, they are aware that it is 

there. 

4. The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense 

that they’ve seen it somewhere before. 

5. The fifth time, they actually read the ad. 

6. The sixth time, they thumb their nose at it. 

7. The seventh time, they start to get a little 

irritated with it. 

8. The eighth time, they start to think, 

“Here’s that confounded ad again.” 

MAN BUSINESS MAIN 07-21-08 A 1,17 MBDB 18/07/2008 18:01 Page 1 

FOCUS Page 11 

Security 

Making sure events 

go without a hitch 

What’s News 

■ Shaid Luqman, the former 

director of Lexi Holdings who was 

convicted last year of 

misappropriating £75m, has been 

released from prison. Luqman, 39, 

was jailed for 18 months last July 

for contempt of court. A syndicate 

of banks led by Barclays had loaned 

£120m to the company which 

collapsed in October 2006 with 

debts of more than £100m. 

Administrator KPMG said that 

Luqman had made loans of more 

than £20m to companies either 

owned or controlled by himself, and 

paid a further £53.3m of Lexi’s 

money into his own bank accounts. 

Luqman was released last month. 

■ Law firm Cooper Kenyon Burrows, 

based on Deansgate in Manchester, 

has divided into two new practices: 

Burrows Bussin and Cooper & 

Kenyon. The partners of Burrows 

Bussin are Lesley Burrows and 

Wendi Bussin, and the partners of 

Cooper & Kenyon are Ian Cooper, 

Michael Kenyon, Andrew Kenyon 

and Claire Harvey. Both firms 

continue to be based at 196 

Deansgate. Cooper Kenyon Burrows 

specialised in corporate and 

commercial fraud, regulatory 

procedures and compliance, and HM 

Revenue and Customs. No partners 

at either firm were available to 

ment on the split. 

f Barclays 

CRAIN’S CRAIN’S 

CRAIN’S 

CRAIN’S LIST Freight Forwarding Companies Page 14 


ISSUE 28, JULY 21 - 25, 2008 CrainsManchesterBusiness.co.uk £2 

‘Judgement 

day’ fears 

for Thaksin 

Observers of Thai politics say Man City owner 

faces defeat as enemies gain upper hand in court 


house speaker Yongyuth Tiyapairat, 

of the People Power Party (PPP) — 

Manchester City owner Thaksin Shi- which is comprised mainly of 

nawatra is losing the battle to clear Thaksin supporters and leads the 

his name and recover around £900m governing coalition — was guilty of 

in frozen assets, according to vote rigging. Opponents want to use 

observers of the political scene in the verdict to dissolve the PPP and 

Thailand. 

wipe out Thaksin’s power base. 

Thaksin and his wife Pojaman 

face up to 13 years in prison if convicted 

over allegations that while 

prime minister of the country he Chris Baker, co-author of Thaksin, 

helped her buy Bangkok real estate The Business of Politics in Thailand 

for a third of its real value. The couple said Thaksin’s enemies have gained 

deny any wrongdoing. 

the upper hand. Baker said: “He 

But while the court case goes on, seems to be losing. There are around 

court rulings in unconnected 20 cases in court or on their way to 

erious blows to court from self-enrichment to abuse 

is of power. This looks like judgment 

not help him a bit that 

caught try- 

Desperation 

 

with some of her stock PHOTO: MARTIN O’NEILL 

TTHE SLIGHT EDGE 

What would a 5% improvement in productivity 

mean to your business? 

What would it mean to you? 

Get in touch to explore the benefits. 

T 0161 980 0780 M 0790 318 3931 E m.levy@lmi-uk.com 

6 Weygates Drive Altrincham Cheshire WA15 0BW Contact Mike Levy. 

FORTHCOMING EVENTS 

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY FORECAST 

Offers expert opinions from leaders in commercial property on what the next 12 months have in store for 

the market. Also included will be market overviews, new and notable projects, trend analysis, maps and 

info-graphics. It will be a must-read for anyone involved in commercial property. This special publication 

will also be distributed at an event that will feature a panel of experts and a gathering of top commercial 

property executives. 

WHO’S WHO 

A comprehensive guide to business people 

commanding influence and attention in the 

Greater Manchester area. Selected by 

Crain’s editorial staff throughout the year, 

these are some of the movers and shakers, 

the top professionals in their field and those 

individuals that make up the fabric of our 

business community. 

SELLING YOUR 

BUSINESS 

OR COMMERCIAL 

PROPERTY? 

TELL YOUR AGENT 

TO USE 

BUSINESS WOMEN OF THE YEAR 

Profiles individual women who have been nominated by their 

peers. To be published in conjunction with a Gala Event to 

honour and recognise the winners, culminating in an overall 

‘Business Woman of the Year.’ 

9. The ninth time, they start to wonder if they 

may be missing out on something. 

10. The tenth time, they ask their friends and 

neighbours if they’ve tried it. 

11. The eleventh time, they wonder how the 

company is paying for all these ads. 

12. The twelfth time, they start to think that 

it must be a good product. 

13. They thirteenth time, they start to feel 

the product has value. 

14. The fourteenth time, they start to 

remember wanting a product exactly like this 

for a long time. 

15. The fifteenth time, they start to yearn for 

it because they can’t afford to buy it. 

www.lmi-uk.com 

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16. The sixteenth time, they accept the fact 

that they will buy it sometime in the future. 

17. The seventeenth time, they make a note 

to buy the product. 

18. The eighteenth time, they curse their 

poverty for not allowing them to buy this 

terrific product. 

19. The nineteenth time, they count their 

money very carefully. 

20. The twentieth time prospects see the ad, 

they buy what it is offering. 

In other words, if your ad campaigns aren’t 

showing a return after six weeks, 

don’t give up hope! 

To advertise, 

email Arthur Porter at aporter@crain.com 

or phone 0161 209 5800 

CRAIN’S 

MANCHESTER BUSINESS ®

PEOPLE ON 

THE MOVE 

Earth moves 

for Newton 

as he takes 

on new role 

PAGE 23 

BUSINESS 

LIVES 

art 

The 

investing 

of 

If you feel stocks and shares are too risky, art may be the answer 

COMING SOON MAINTAINING A HEALTHY BALANCE. To advertise, call 0161 209 5800 

RETAIL 

Crain’s Manchester Business / July 28, 2008 21 

BY SHAWN SELBY 

Rick Blears and Ruth Shearn 

with their 'Hoop Dancer', a 

bronze by Lucien Alliot, left 

and 'Scarf Dancer' by Joseph 

Lorenzi, right 

Rick Blears and his partner Ruth Shearn have avoided investing their extra 

cash in property or stocks and bonds. They’d much rather their “investments” 

be placed around the house for their enjoyment. And with property 

prices heading south and markets uncertain, they have no regrets in 

choosing to invest in art deco figures and objet d’art rather than bricks and mortar. 

Blears is a partner with Altrincham-based public relations firm RMS PR, and 

Shearn, who is also his business partner, is managing director of the firm. 

“When I first met Ruth 20 years ago, she had some art deco ceramics. She liked 

them. We bought one figure together, and I got the bug,” Blears said. “We started 

buying more deco, bought a few figures in the £1,000-£2,000 range. If we had spare 

money, we’d buy something nice.” 

Today, Blears and Shearn have 30 art deco objects, 23 of which are art deco figures. 

Since the late 1980s, they’ve spent £15,000 on their collection, which Blears 

estimates to now be worth £50,000-£55,000. 

“We inadvertently trebled our money. And we’ve had some fun doing it,” he said. 

But Blears and Shearn got into acquiring art deco pieces at the right time — 

before it became popular — which boosted the value of the objects they had spent 

a few thousand pounds to acquire several times over. 

“In the late 1980s, there was a surge of interest. Elton John started doing it and 

there was a lot of interest as a result, particularly among the gay community,” 

Blears said. 

“And then the Russian oligarchs started buying. A lot of the figures are of the Bal- 

SEE DECO, PAGE 22

22 BUSINESS LIVES 

DECO Art 

can have a 

better return 


lets Russes. The Russians have been 

buying them merrily with their bottomless 

pockets. Figures have gone 

for £20,000, £30,000, £40,000,” he 

said. “This has been a terrific investment 

for people who got in early.” 

According to Blears, the art deco 

movement begin after the Victorian 

and Edwardian periods when “everyone 

got sick of the overly elaborate 

designs of that time”. The movement, 

which was heavily influenced by the 

women’s suffrage movement in 

America, reached its height in the 

period between World War I and 

World War II. 

“People of my generation regarded 

art deco pieces as quite ordinary. In 

the post war period, all this stuff was 

ditched. The rarity of those pieces 

now is what makes its value. It was the 

stuff your grandma had and was 

thrown in the bin. Everything from 

that period is being collected — 

glassware, furniture, carpets,” said 

Blears. 

Blears uses web-based auction 

alerts to stay on top of what’s available. 

“If we feel we have a couple of 

thousand pounds, we’ll go,” he said. 

“We still like going to auctions. If you 

keep your wits about you, you can 

still find these things. You can still buy 

for a few hundred or low thousands.” 

Demand slowing 

They don’t plan to cash in on their 

investment any time soon. 

“We have no plans to sell them. At 

the back of your mind, you think you 

can take these down to Sotheby’s and 

have a very good day at the races.” 

It is probably a good move on 

Blears’ part that he has no interest in 

selling his art deco pieces now. 

According to a July 17 report from 

Bloomberg, London art dealers said 

demand for art has slowed, which is 

reining in prices. But if you are going 

to invest in art, doing so when prices 

are falling is probably a better — and 

cheaper — move. 

Lawrence Jones is taking advantage 

of the market downturn to build 

an art collection. 

The managing director of internet 

hosting provider UKFast.net in Manchester 

city centre, began collecting 

art in early 2007. 

He said he had a “pot of cash” after 

he tried to buy an estate in Wales, so 

he put that into buying art. His first 

acquisition, a painting by Helen 

Bradley — an artist Jones describes as 

“a female 

Lowry”, was 

for his 

wife’s 

Top, Lawrence Jones’ most expensive piece by Kyffin Williams. Bottom from left, a Lowry drawing, 

Helen Bradley’s A Long Way Home and right Lawrence Jones 

30th birthday. “I am very particular 

about how I choose my artwork. I 

choose pieces I like. I’m also mindful 

that art can be a good investment and 

it can also be a negative one. I just 

make sure I choose art that has more 

of a chance of going up than coming 

down,” said Jones. 

Jones said that he unloaded his 

stocks and shares before the market 

went south and has been investing in 

art instead. 

“This is traditionally a good time 

when people start ploughing money 

into art and other areas because they 

feel that stocks and shares are way too 

shaky at the moment. The stocks and 

shares I had would have 

‘I don’t feel like I’m 

spending money when I 

buy them. I know that at 

any time I am able to 

pass these on to my 

children as presents 

long before I pass away’ 

LAWRENCE JONES 

been pulling in a fraction, yet the art I 

bought is now worth significantly 

more. I made a good 15-20 per cent in 

the last six months,” said Jones. 

Jones has about 40 pieces in his 

collection which he estimates to be 

worth £350,000 to £500,000. 

“I have also chosen art that 

I can turn around very 

quickly. I could sell 

any of them for 

more or less the 

same or more 

a l m o s t 

instantaneously, 

but 

From left, a typical art deco 

seated girl in a theatrical 

costume, a Rosenthal 

porcelain figure of a Latin 

American dancer and a 

bronze sun-worshipper lamp 

not as quick as you could sell a stock 

or a share,” he said. 

His collection focuses on works 

from Bradley, Welsh artists Kyffin 

Williams and Mary Feddon. But the 

collection also includes a piece by L S 

Lowry — a drawing from the Salford 

artist’s first exhibition. “It is difficult to 

get on the Lowry ladder because 

some of his paintings are commanding 

millions right now.” 

The Jones collection is displayed 

throughout UKFast.net’s City Tower 

offices in Manchester’s Piccadilly 

Plaza, giving the workplace a gallery 

feel. 

“The office is very secure. It is here 

for the protection of the art and for 

the staff. I spend most of my life at 

work. And so do all my colleagues. I 

have tried to turn a sterile environ- 

About art deco 

● Art deco was a design movement 

which lasted from 1925 to 1939. 

● The movement has been described 

as amalgam of design styles of the 

early 20th Century including futurism, 

art nouveau, modernism, bauhaus, 

neoclassical, cubism and 

constructivism. 

● Unlike other design movements, art 

deco lacked political or philosophical 

motivations, and was purely 

decorative — praised as elegant, 

functional and modern. 

● The movement affected 

architecture, interior design, 

industrial design, fashion, painting 

and film. 

● Art deco is characterised by use 

of materials such as aluminium, 

stainless steel, lacquer, inlaid 

wood, sharkskin and zebra 

skin. The use of stepped 

forms and sweeping 

curves, chevron 


INVESTING IN ART 

Here are some tips on buying art 

as an investment from art 

collector Lawrence Jones: 

● Look around. Don’t go to one 

gallery and fall in love with a 

piece, fall in love with an artist. 

● Talk to people in the art world 

to find out about which artists 

would make good investments. 

● Don’t accept the first price on a 

piece at a gallery. Ask to see if 

you can get it for less, or get 

something else similar from an 

artist who is cheaper. 

● Choose an artist that either has 

a prominent reputation or artists 

who have been classically trained. 

“Their work is more likely to 

accelerate in value because there 

is a snobbery in the art world. 

The art world almost encourages 

you to buy from this particular 

channel. Choose somebody who 

has a pedigree in terms of who 

taught them,” said Jones. 

● Make sure you buy something 

real from a reputable gallery. 

And finally: 

“It is important you just don’t 

choose an artist that is popular. 

You choose the art the artist 

paints that’s popular. And then 

within any artist, there will be 

that zone that people just cannot 

help but fall in love with.” 

ment into a fantastic place to work,” 

he said. Jones said an oil painting by 

Williams is probably his most valuable 

piece. He paid £40,000 for it but 

now “there is an argument that it 

could be worth in excess of £100,000”. 

Although at a recent auction he bid 

£375,000 for a painting that eventually 

sold for £450,000, the most he has 

spent on a painting has been £50,000. 

“I don’t feel like I’m spending money 

when I buy them. I know that at 

any time I am able to pass these on to 

my children as presents long before I 

pass away. They are good family heirlooms 

to keep. I can give them away 

as presents, yet they will retain a value 

and hopefully keep going up,” said 

Jones. 

COMMENTS? sselby@crain.com 

patterns and sunbursts are typical of 

art deco. 

● Examples of art deco architecture 

include the Empire State Building in 

New York City, the Senate Building at 

the University of London and the 

Odeon Manchester on Oxford Street. 

● The RMS Queen Mary’s interior was 

art deco. 

● The most popular art deco 

decorative figures were made by 

Dimitri Chiparus and Ferdinand Preiss. 

● Art deco declined in popularity after 

reaching mass production in the 1930s 

when it began to be thought of as 

gaudy and presenting a false image of 

luxury. The style collapsed result of 

the austerities of World War II. 

● The book Art Deco and Other 

Figures by Bryan Catley is considered 

a must-read for would-be collectors of 

Art Deco.

Crain’s Manchester Business / July 28, 2008 BUSINESS LIVES 23 

Manchester Business Diary 

TO SUBMIT YOUR EVENT: Crain’s Manchester Business lists business 

meetings online and includes them in the print edition where space 

permits. Listings can be submitted by going to 

crainsmanchesterbusiness.co.uk and clicking on events or by email to 

manchesternews@crain.com. Make sure you include the who, what, where 

information. We cannot confirm receipt nor say if or when listings will 

appear in the print edition. Events must be not-for-profit business or 

business networking functions and not cost more than £100 to attend. 

30 JULY 

An Introduction to Neuro Linguistic 

Programming in Business 

Communicating for Success 

WHAT: Workshop sponsored by 

Business Support Solutions 

WHEN: 9.30am-1pm 

WHERE: One Central Park, 

Northampton Road, Manchester 

COST: £25 plus VAT for GM Chamber 

members, £50 plus VAT for nonmembers 

CONTACT: Marilyn Nicholson on 0161 

245 4943 

7 AUGUST 

GM Chamber’s Women in Business 

lunch 

WHAT: Lorraine Worsley-Carter MBE 

to speak 

Hot Jobs 

ORGANISATION: Equality & Human 

Rights Commission 

JOB DESCRIPTION: As a member of 

the commission’s business planning 

directorate, your task would be to 

embed project and programme 

management disciplines, advising and 

reporting to executives on the 

progress, resourcing and prioritisation 

of projects. The Manchester-based 

Equality & Human Rights Commission 

says working for it is “your chance to 

help make this country an even better 

place for us all to live”. 

MOST IMPORTANT TASKS: Lead the 

programme management unit, which 

is responsible for monitoring the 

commission’s projects. You would be 

expected to coach project managers in 

project management techniques. 

CREDENTIALS NEEDED: Extensive 

project and programme management 

experience and the ability to raise the 

People on the Move 

Manchester-based internet agency CTI 

Support Network has appointed Konrad 

Skrzynski as senior web developer. He 

joins from French company Baracoda. 

The University of Salford has appointed 

Prof Cynthia Pine CBE as executive dean 

for its Faculty of Health & Social Care. 

She joins from the University of 

Liverpool’s Dental School. 

Manchester-based Affirmative Finance 

has appointed Jacqui Brack as an 

underwriter. She joins from Beacon 

Home Loans where she was senior 

roving underwriter. 

London-based Daniel Stewart has 

promoted Justin Bates, head of its 

Manchester office, to its board of 

directors. Bates joined the company in 

2006 from Numis Securities where he 

was a director. 

Salford based telecoms distributor 

Nimans has promoted Lynsey Brown to 

SEND US YOUR 

APPOINTMENTS 

Send submissions for People on the 

Move to manchesternews@crain.com. 

Releases must contain the person’s 

name, new job title, company name, 

city in which the person will work, 

former job title, former company (if 

not promoted from within) and the 

former city in which the person 

worked. If available, please attach a 

colour head and shoulders photo with 

a resolution of at least 300 dpi. 

WHEN: 12pm-2pm 

WHERE: Midland Hotel, Peter Street, 

Manchester 

COST: £25 plus VAT for GM Chamber 

members, £50 plus VAT for nonmembers 

CONTACT: Marilyn Nicholson on 0161 

245 4943 

7 AUGUST 

Rejuvenate’s Sizzling Summer BBQ 

WHAT: Informal networking, food and 

live entertainment 

WHEN: 6.30pm-9.30pm 

WHERE: Great John Street Hotel, 

Castlefield, Manchester 

COST: £34 

CONTACT: Anna-Louise Gilhooley. 

Email anna-louise@rejuvenate 

online.co.uk 

WANTED: HEAD OF 

PROGRAMME MANAGEMENT 

profile of these disciplines within the 

organisation. Ideally, they also want 

someone with knowledge and 

experience of six sigma or similar 

process improvement techniques. 

UPSIDE: Thirty days annual leave plus 

eight bank and public holidays and 

flexi-time working so you can dodge 

the congestion charge. If everybody 

could get a deal like this, Britain 

certainly would be a better place to 

live! 

DOWNSIDE: Sounds like there is a lot 

of bureaucracy involved. The 

Commission’s annual budget of £70m 

is £22m more than the three bodies it 

replaced — an example of public sector 

“streamlining”. The taxpayer has the 

consolation of knowing that the 

money is being spent on lots of new 

jobs like this one. 

SALARY: circa £50,000. 

RECRUITER: In house. 

sales executive for the North West and 

West Midlands and has promoted James 

Burns to headset business manager. Both 

were previously headset and handset 

team specialists. Brown joined Nimans in 

2003 and Burns joined in 2005. 

Recruitment company Fusion SRP has 

appointed Karen Crosland as marketing 

manager in its Manchester office. She 

joins from Manchester City Council 

where she was Northern Quarter coordinator. 

CB Richard Ellis has appointed Peter 

Williams as associate director for 

property asset management in it 

Manchester office. He joins from Knight 

Frank where he was a partner. 

Salford-based event company Out There 

Events has appointed Jo Oliver as senior 

events manager. She joins from Londonbased 

Aspect Communications where 

she was director of special events and 

PR. 

Wigan Council has appointed Alison 

Hughes as head of organisational 

development and Alison Mckenzie-Folan 

as head of people services. Hughes joins 

from St Helens Council where she was 

service manager for customer systems in 

the adult social care and health 

department. Mckenzie-Folan joins from 

the Health and Safety Executive in 

Bootle where she was head of the 

finance unit. 

Project management consultancy 

Faithful+Gould has appointed Barry 

Holbrok and Jeremy Meredith as 

construction design and management 

12 AUGUST 

Kosherpages’ family networking event 

WHAT: A showing of Disney movie 

Wall-E plus other entertainment for 

children while parents have the 

opportunity to network 

WHEN: 1.45pm-4.15pm 

WHERE: Odeon, Printworks, 

Manchester 

COST: £15 for one adult and one 

child. Additional children, £5 each. 

CONTACT: Adele Ross on 

aross@kosherpages.com 

14 AUGUST 

Stockport Breakfast Club 

WHAT: Preview of Business Growth 

Forum 

WHEN: 7.15am-9.30am 

WHERE: Alma Lodge Hotel, Stockport 

COST: £12.77 plus VAT for GM 

Chamber members, £25.54 plus VAT 

for non-members 

CONTACT: Pauline Pawlykiwsyj on 

0161 245 4923 

21 AUGUST 

Networking lunch 

WHAT: Sponsored by Business 

Support Solutions 

WHEN: 11.45am-2pm 

WHERE: The Palace Hotel, Oxford 

Road, Manchester 

COST: £24 plus VAT for Greater 

Manchester Chamber members, £48 

plus VAT for non-members 

CONTACT: Pauline Pawlykiwskyj on 

0161 245 4923 

21 AUGUST 

Pro Manchester’s Marketing 

Professional Services Discussion 

Group — Blogging for Business 

WHAT: Gez Daring, KMP Associates, 

to speak 

WHEN: 8am-9.30am 

WHERE: Cobbetts LLP, Mosley Street, 

Manchester 

COST: Free 

CONTACT: admin@pro-manchester.co.uk 

28 AUGUST 

Business Consort Ltd’s business 

networking and cocktail party 

WHAT: Chief executive of Ultimate 

Finance to speak 

WHEN: 6pm-9pm 

WHERE: Aston Martin Showroom, 

Water Lane, Wilmslow 

COST: £15 

CONTACT: Dawn McGruer on 0870 

803 2528 

Brack Oliver 

McKenzie-Folan Pinnock 

co-ordinators in its Warrington office. 

Holbrok joins from Pipeline Induction 

Heat where he was health and safety 

advisor. Meredith joins from Gower 

Homes where he was health, safety and 

environmental manager. 

Commercial law firm Beachcroft has 

appointed William Pinnock as associate in 

its Manchester office. He joins from 

Stripes Solicitors where he was a 

corporate and commercial partner. 

Manchester-based marketing firm 

Momentum has appointed Sarah Cheal as 

head of new business. She joins from The 

Foundry in Altrincham where she was 

marketing and new business director. 

Manchester-based HealthSure has 

promoted Jane Louise Tarry to corporate 

sales consultant from sales executive. 

She joined HealthSure in 2005. 

Manchester-based Integral Ltd has 

appointed Mark Whittaker as business 

development manager for the North 

West and West Yorkshire. He joins from 

Mon Services Ltd in Chadderton where 

he was business development manager. 

Street 

ON THE 

AND OFF THE CUFF 

Chris Simms, the crime novelist who doubles as a copywriter for McCann 

Erickson in Prestbury, appealed for his colleagues to come up with 

unusual murder techniques for him to use in his next book. The Boner Hall 

Mystery will be set in an advertising agency office with a swimming pool. 

Any resemblance to Bonis Hall is clearly accidental. We suggested that 

stabbing someone in the front would be quite innovative in the advertising 

and PR world, but our lack of imagination has been cruelly exposed by 

some of the cunning ideas put forward. One suggestion was to have the 

victim trapped under the insulation cover which is drawn over the pool at 

night. Another was death by spray mount — the application of liberal 

amounts of aerosol glue to the victim’s airways. Or how about using one of 

the scalpels routinely stored in agency cutting rooms for the mounting and 

presentation of work. Simms’ favourite so far is to polish someone off in a 

client presentation by “accidentally” targeting the victim with a souped up 

version of a laser pen. These are apparently available on eBay for £30, he 

says. If you have your own fiendish plans, feel free to email them to 

manchesternews@crain.com and we’ll pass them on. The way things are 

going, the novel may have to be about a serial killer. 

*** 

BAE Systems chief executive Mike Turner is a huge Manchester United fan but has 

his doubts about Sir Alex Ferguson. “He’s a failure,” said Turner when interviewed 

recently at his London headquarters. “You’ve got to judge him on Europe — to judge 

him on domestic competition would be like judging me on our UK business. He’s 

won the Champions League twice and the first time we were lucky.” Fortunately for 

Sir Alex, the Glazers aren’t so demanding. 

When the Manchester office of property agent Edward Symmons was instructed on 

the sale of the premises of liquidated company WB Ashworth and Sons in 

Dukinfield, the firm also had to find a buyer for the remaining company stock — 

90,000 unwanted handbags. The 15,480 sq ft warehouse and 2,320 sq ft workshop 

came complete with the unsold stock, but if excited bargain hunters were thinking 

of snapping up the latest Chloe or Gucci number at a steal, they may have been 

disappointed. “They are certainly not designer,” said a well-placed source. “Perhaps 

they were more towards the bottom end of the market. Some of them are shaped 

like a shoe, complete with stiletto heel.” A shoe and bag in one? Sounds iffy, but a 

buyer has been found. Coming to a market stall near you? 

We can’t help thinking that six figures is a pretty steep price tag for a rebranding 

exercise that produces three small bubble-like boxes and a slogan: “Positive 

thinking in business finance”. However, David Coates, chief executive of Manchesterbased 

Davenham, is pleased with the group’s new logo, saying he believes the new 

brand represents an “excellent investment”. The asset-based lender commissioned 

Sheffield-based marketing agency Dig For Fire to come up with the new branding, 

which marketing manager Ed Jones said last month cost the group about 

£100,000. 

Stockport-based Starkey Laboratories has created the world’s first Welsh-speaking 

hearing aid. It was approached to create the device by a hearing aid dealer in 

Llandudno and the first one has now been supplied to a 64-year-old Anglesey man 

for whom English is a second language. The Destiny aid’s voice prompts the wearer 

with messages such as batri gwan (battery low). 

Invitations were issued to the launch of the new £6m HSBC branch in St Ann’s 

Square, Manchester, proudly stating that the Lord Mayor of Manchester, Afzal Khan, 

would be in attendance to witness the exciting new development first-hand. In fact, 

his year in office was 2005/06 and the current Lord Mayor is Ardwick councillor 

Mavis Smitheman. 

RISING STAR 

Engineering consultancy Clarke 

Bond has appointed Mark 

Newton as regional director for 

the north of England in its Sale 

office. He joins from ROC 

Consulting in Manchester 

where he was director of earth 

sciences. Newton has over 15 

years’ experience in 

geotechnical and geoenvironmental 

engineering. 

Projects he’s worked on include 

the Cheshire Extra Care PFI 

scheme, which comprised five 

elderly care homes for Gleeson 

Building Solutions, and the 

14-storey Greenquarter 

apartment block in Manchester. 

He also advised Bruntwood 

Estates on the £669m 

securitisation of its office 

portfolio and has worked for 

the Environment Agency in a 

regulatory role. 

Cheal Whittaker

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