BQ North East Issue 28

www.bqlive.co.uk

ISSUE TWENTY EIGHT: WINTER 2015

SAVING LIVES IN AFRICA Entrepreneur Jeremy Middleton on a project close to his heart LIFE’S A GAS The fizzy drinks boss with bold expansion plans SAVAGE AMBITION How enterprising John Savage beat the recession MEET THE ORANGE VAN MEN The family firm that grew from humble beginnings ISSUE TWENTY EIGHT: WINTER 2015: NORTH EAST EDITION

CREDIT DUE

Proven exporter Rod Taylor on why SMEs need special incentives to follow in his footsteps BUSINESS NEWS: COMMERCE: FASHION: INTERVIEWS: MOTORS: EVENTS

NORTH EAST EDITION

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WELCOME

BUSINESS QUARTER: WINTER 15: ISSUE TWENTY EIGHT Many would back Sir John Hall’s declaration to the Entrepreneurs’ Forum: that the North East region hasn’t enough people to support its existing businesses and future growth.

Business success usually starts from a doorstep market. A population haemorrhaging since the decline of traditional industries has shrunk local demand for many goods and services.

It has contributed to the dire skills shortage that participants in this issue’s Live Debate spell out.

Sir John’s observations come at a time when one of the region’s local enterprise partnerships has been unable, for about nine months, to agree on terms for a chief executive – this also at a time when other parts of the North, like Manchester and Leeds, are on crusades to prosperity with government support, both moral and financial. And why do places elsewhere in England with even fewer people than Newcastle and Sunderland have more start-ups?

While council representatives on LEPs have a special responsibility to see local taxpayers’ money is prudently spent, it wouldn’t be true to say that on LEPs they’re directly charged by the public to fulfil this duty. They’re elected to their local authority, but appointed representatives to the LEPs as local authority leaders. Either way, certain essential parts of the North East economy, such as inward investment, run below potential.

Questions vital to the region’s future economy go undebated publicly. Would, for example, some of the £50bn promised for a nebulous new railway system, nationally incomplete and saving only 11 minutes on journey times between Newcastle and London somewhere around 2032, not be better spent on installing a broadband service nationally that would enable all businesses to avail of the communication speeds 40 times faster, such as trade rivals in the Far East look forward to by 2017?

As lack of transparency and infighting permeate through key issues, Sir John – an eminent Conservative supporter, remember – calls for the restoration of a true regional body which central Government throughout its term

has shown no liking for, even though Scotland is promised all sorts of privileges, some potentially damaging to one of the two English regions adjoining it.

But enough gripe. At last the long awaited and greatly needed new Wear bridge is to go ahead soon – and let’s overlook that a job once certain to have gone to a North East firm has, on this occasion, finally been fought out by firms from Spain, Germany, Belgium and even Northern Ireland.

Let’s also read with relish in this issue about North East individuals who, regardless of larger controversies, are carrying the North East torch of enterprise ahead: John Savage, who took the plunge successfully in the midst of recession, Eldon Robson and Rod Taylor proving Buy British still means something overseas, and the Crosby family whose initial venture from a van has driven them to success as regional market leaders. Also, don’t forget to follow BQ Live online to find out who’ll carry the colours for our region in this year’s national Emerging Entrepreneur awards.

Stories of inspiration, all…

Brian Nicholls, Editor

CONTACTS ROOM501 LTD Bryan Hoare Director e: bryan@room501.co.uk EDITORIAL Brian Nicholls Editor e: b.g.nicholls@btinternet.com DESIGN & PRODUCTION room501 e: studio@room501.co.uk PHOTOGRAPHY KG Photography e: info@kgphotography.co.uk Chris Auld e: chris@chrisauldphotography.com SALES Heather Spacey Business Development Manager e: heather@room501.co.uk @Heather_BQ Rachael Laschke Business Development Manager e: rachael@room501.co.uk @Rachael_BQ or call 0191 426 6300 Audrey Atkinson Sales Manager e: audrey@room501.co.uk t: 0191 426 8205

room501 Publishing Ltd, Spectrum 6, Spectrum Business Park, Seaham, SR7 7TT www.room501.co.uk room501 was formed from a partnership of directors who, combined, have many years of experience in contract publishing, print, marketing, sales and advertising and distribution. We are a passionate, dedicated company that strives to help you to meet your overall business needs and requirements.

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While every effort is made to ensure accuracy, no responsibility can be accepted for inaccuracies, howsoever caused. No liability can be accepted for illustrations, photographs, artwork or advertising materials while in transmission or with the publisher or their agents. All information is correct at time of going to print, February 2015. room501 Publishing Ltd is part of BE Group, the UK’s market leading business improvement specialists. www.be-group.co.uk

THE LIFE AND SOUL OF BUSINESS

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BQ Magazine is published quarterly by room501 Ltd.

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

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BUSINESS QUARTER: WINTER 15

ORANGE VAN MEN ON RIGHT ROAD

Features

45 LIFE’S A GAS The boss of specialist fizzy drinks makers Fentimans on his ambitious new strategy

24 CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE A seasoned exporter on why incentives are needed to help SMEs follow his lead

30 ORANGE VAN MEN The family firm that grew – and grew – from humble beginnings

34 LIVE DEBATE How can we help manufacturers to build sustainable growth?

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52 UNITED THEY STAND Why the private and public sector must work together to attract investment

56 AFRICAN LIFE-SAVER Entrepreneur Jeremy Middleton on a project that’s close to his heart

76 SAVAGE AMBITION Enterprising John Savage refused to let the recession hinder his start-up plans

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30 LIFE’S A GAS FOR ELDON

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TENTS NORTH EAST EDITION

40 COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

Behind the region’s biggest new deals

UNITED THEY CAN STAND

62 MOTORING Consultancy boss Leanne English takes Nissan’s Infinity Q50 Hybrid for a spin

Regulars

66 WINE CBI regional director Dianne Sharp brings Dry January to a refreshing end

68 FASHION The Italian boss of a hugely influential American company talks to Josh Sims

06 ON THE RECORD From a tale of two cities to newly announced flights

10 NEWS Who’s doing what, when where and why here in the North East

22 AS I SEE IT Are we doing enough to protect the interests of British industry?

72 EQUIPMENT

52 SAVING LIVES IN AFRICA

Fads come and go in watchmaking but quality, Josh Sims discovers, is timeless

88 BIT OF A CHAT With BQ’s backroom boy Frank Tock

90 EVENTS Key business events for your diary happening across the North East

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56 BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

ON THE RECORD

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A tale of two cities as construction firm lands major transformational contracts, new flights from Newcastle announced, tea maker’s refreshing breakthrough in the US, region’s no show on top start-up list >> Carillion rings a two-cities double Construction and facilities management giant Carillion looks like pulling off a major development double bringing it a mighty chunk from the £107.5m of investment set to transform parts of Sunderland and Newcastle.

Through Siglion – a joint venture it has got under way with Sunderland City Council (Igloo Regeneration also providing development and asset management services) – at least £100m of redevelopment activity is assured to Siglion over eight years.

Besides redeveloping key areas across Sunderland, Siglion has acquired an investment portfolio of industrial, retail and office property from the council, which it will manage hoping to increase value, job opportunities and economic return to the city and wider region.

And in Newcastle, the public is being shown design impressions for a £7.5m riverside offices and homes development which would

Malmo Quay: as it might look and Lower Steenberg’s Yard, homes and commercial units

Ouseburn is being showcased as a world class location involve Carillion-Igloo, working with local architect Xsite. Together they would transform Lower Steenberg’s Yard at Ouseburn into 37 homes, from one bed apartments to five bedroom family houses, and a range of commercial units. Building could begin this summer.

The former factory site opposite Hotel du Vin on the Ouseburn’s west bank is on two levels.

The lower level at the quayside will include new offices beside the already established Toffee Factory. Selling points will be a view across Ouseburn Valley and opportunity to live

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

and work near a riverfront and a city centre.

Behind this project is a joint venture of Newcastle City Council and the Homes and Communities Agency. The council has been overseeing a regeneration of Lower Ouseburn Valley for more than 15 years, and both private and public investment has gone into projects such as the Biscuit Factory, Ouseburn Farm, Seven Stories, Woods Pottery and the Toffee Factory.

Plans for Malmo Quay that includes Steenberg’s Yard have been prepared in a collaboration between French architect

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AWP, the overarching practice, and London architects Mikhail Riches Architects and Featherstone Young. The three firms were chosen in an international competition run by Newcastle based Northern Architecture.

Ouseburn is being showcased as a world class location to an international audience of architects, city planners and regeneration specialists at the British Embassy in Paris. Igloo Regeneration, which is developing the Malmo Quay site as part of a Carillion-Igloo joint venture, is presenting the project as part of a Franco-British Future City event. n

Corporate & Commercial Banking & Finance Employment Commercial Dispute Resolution Corporate Restructuring Commercial Property Construction Wills, Trusts & Tax Planning

Exceptional People

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ON THE RECORD >> KPMG advances KPMG accountants and business advisors say revenues across its northern region have grown to £200m in a year. Mick Thompson, office senior partner in Newcastle, called 2014 a year of expansion for the North East.

>> Stansted link Flybe airline is starting operations at Stansted Airport from March 15 with services that include year-round services and double daily flights to Newcastle.

And easyJet this summer is starting three new routes from the airport to Split in Croatia, and the Greek islands of Corfu and Rhodes.

WINTER 15

>> Ringtons pours west

>> No show area

Ringtons, whose tea has been drunk in the North East for 107 years, has now broken into US markets. The Newcastle company, with distributors and partnerships already in Japan and Australia, is getting its product into the USA 242 years after the Boston Tea Party when a rejection of British supplied tea led to revolt against Britain.

There’s no North East presence among the Top 10 UK cities showing the most business start-ups in 2014. Birmingham (18,337) and Manchester (13,054) – both more populous than Newcastle or Sunderland – headed the top 10. But Brighton and Warrington, both smaller than the two biggest North East cities, were up there, according to the small business campaign StartUp Britain.

>> NDI into EEF EEF, the manufacturers’ body, has taken over from BE Group for an undisclosed sum the ownership of NDI, the trade body for companies in the defence sector. BE Group will continue to work with NDI and EEF on events, publishing and supply chain opportunities.

>> Nissan nears 8m cars Nissan was Britain’s biggest car producer in 2014. Its sales also topped £5bn. By the end of 2015 it expects to have built 8m cars in Sunderland since 1986.

>> Achievers Jules Quinn (right) founder of the designled tea company The TeaShed, has won the Young Businesswoman of the Year award at the Forward Ladies’ Women in Business Awards for the North East and Yorkshire.

A Northumbria University graduate, she was also selected to help launch a Business is Great campaign run by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and UKTI. Dame Margaret Barbour has been honoured in the annual NatWest everywomen awards celebrating entrepreneurialism spirit – for her determination, dedication and commitment at South Tyneside’s global fashion brand Barbour, whose company she chairs.

Geoff Turnbull, head of the Peterlee-based industrial group GT, has received an award from RTC North for his individual lifelong contribution to innovation.

David Robinson, chief executive of PD Ports, received an MBE in the New Year’s Honours List for services to international trade and the UK economy.

Boda Gallon, chief executive of Keiro the

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neuro, stroke and spinal rehabilitation and care specialists based at Whickham and Middlesbrough, has entered the Top 50 national list of the most innovative people in healthcare.

Andrew Horsman, of Faithful+Gould in Newcastle, has won a national award in the

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RICS Matrics Young Surveyor of the Year Awards.

Martin Avery, a Newcastle professional photographer, has won the national EEF/ Lombard Make It Britain photography competition with a study from Bonds Foundry in County Durham.

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TOGETHER WE CAN

MAKE MORE POSITIVE IMPACTS ‘I’ve been given the challenge to champion responsible business across the region.

I know that by working together we can unlock more innovation and opportunity to help the communities in which we work and live.

Are you interested in building a fairer society and a more sustainable, prosperous future?

It makes good business sense, so let’s talk.’

Peter Walls, CEO, Gentoo Group HRH The Prince of Wales’ Ambassador for Responsible Business in the North East

0191 525 5000 HRHAmbassador@gentoogroup.com

M0062553 BQ PeterWalls Ad Resize.indd 1

30/01/2015 16:00

NEWS COMPANY PROFILE WINTER 15

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Be the best

Region welcomes housebuilding revival, trio of ports celebrate success, boost for renewable energy, Parseq on course for £100m turnover, northerner returns to his roots to take charge at new hotel

Osbit Power aims to be the best. We want to produce the best engineering for the >> Housebuilding’s back our bestMore best customers using engineers the best supply>> chain. want to houses will alsoand be built at Newcastle Wear We Bridge builder in style Great Park and Westerhope. named create the best value for money while generating the best level of wealth for our Housebuilding is on recovery throughout The North East division of Barratt Three shortlisted bidders awaited a final the North East.owners.

Around 1,200And homes could Developments is increasing its workforce staff and the journey must be fun.

That’s a lot of ‘best’ to achieve! decision on who will build the long awaited bridge across the River Wear, as BQ went to press.

Sunderland City Council was choosing a winner during its cabinet meeting. Work could begin this summer, subject to final Government go-ahead.

Final tenders came from: • FCC Construction SA • A joint venture between Northstone (NI) Ltd (‘Farrans’) and Victor Buyck Steel Construction NV • A joint venture between Hochtief (UK) Construction Ltd and Dragados SA The cable-stayed bridge linking Castletown and Pallion will have two lanes of traffic in both directions, plus cycleways and footpaths. The council in 2013 had to abandon plans to have Britain’s tallest bridge with iconic independent curving pylons due to soaring costs.

be built over the next four years by Alnwick My journey housebuilder Cussinsstarted alone. in 1966 with seven years at Newcastle University gaining Its £5m investment will cover more than a BSc andAlnwick a PhD, into theNorth Agricultural a dozen sites from Engineering Department. was followed Yorkshire and Cumbria, This creating up to by five a lecturer Edinburgh University.

500years jobs.asMoney hasatbeen secured from I then returnedGrowth to the Newcastle department the Business Fund, with a £7m as a temporary Research Associate, with Dr Tim debt facility from Lloyds Bankand Commercial Grinsted led by shareholders Dr Alan Reece we developed Banking.and Majority of this SMD the following 18Jabin years Cussins to be the best firm over are chief executive designers and builders of seabed trenching and his chairman father Peter, former systems in the world. SMD was owned North East Business Executive of theand run in the years by three During Yearformative whose reputation for engineers. high standards this weto also bought Engineering goestime back 1971 andPearson the founding which muchProperty later became the basis the Reece of Cussins Group, a fullyforlisted Group, now major ‘bestExchange engineering’ group in NE member ofathe Stock for some England. years. Over three generations, the Cussins Ifamily established The Engineering in 1997, have built more than Business 50,000 houses and threethe colleagues from in SMD quickly joined around region. Also the region, Persimmon Homes North East, with 17% more completions nationally last year, is opening sites this year at Wallsend, Ashington, Blyth, Bedlington, Cramlington and Amble, the latter getting 250 homes.

by around 600 to 2,200 as it builds 628 new homes in the region. Some bricklayers in the North East, including 130 with Brickwork Services of Hartlepool, are on £1,000-plus a week amid a skills shortage.

Managing director Steve Willis’s firm is on eight sites, and one client expects to have more than 20 new sites established by mid-year. Besides seeking skilled brickies, the firm wants to start apprentices, and train people unemployed, including ex-servicemen.

Gentoo’s Genie Home Purchase Plan is being taken up in London under a £40m deal making 2,000 new homes available over 10 years. Genie’s 30 year scheme requires neither mortgage nor deposit, and is aimed at helping first-time buyers and long-term renters. Sunderland based Gentoo did a successful pilot in the North East earlier, enabling 88 families to get homes of their own. Greater London Authority supports Genie with £40m of loan finance in the latest move.

to form the business, owned and run by four engineers. EB is now a world leading supplier of pipelay systems with some genuine ‘best engineering’ qualities. EB was sold to IHC Merwede in 2008 and the sale created significant wealth for the owner-directors and 70 of the staff who received 20% of the sale value.

I established Osbit Power in 2010, with two engineer colleagues with extensive backgrounds in SMD and Pearson Engineering. A fourth engineer originally from EB joined as an owner-director in 2013. OP is entirely owned and run by four engineers. We are determined to provide best engineering value by using clever and experienced engineers working in a structured but low

Above, The OP team on a ‘Racing day out’ September 2014. Left, MaXccess P35 gangway for Subsea 7.

Group’sfloating civil engineering arm, Lumsden Right, MaXccess T18 walk-to-work system for the MarubeniEsh Fukushima wind farm Japan & Carroll, has invested over £1m in additional and replacement capital equipment bureaucracy environment. I believe that the including JCBs, excavators andstrengthen a major its region needs to grow and benefits of creating a successful business should expansion of its heavy vehicle fleet engineering base.goods This can be a combination be shared with all who help to create it. We are with regional of inwardsuppliers. investment from well-established fortunate that the UK tax regime is favourable Nine new Renault Range K high-specification organisations and expansion of existing to entrepreneurial businesses and to the owners HGVs businesses. have been delivered to exciting the firm’s But far more is the creation of these businesses. 20% of OP business value Bowburn headquarters – 32 tonne, axle of new businesses to develop newfour technology is allocated to staff using an EMI scheme. Gains tippers, supplied byofThompson Commercials and new ways doing things.

This is where in wealth by owners and staff are only taxed at of Teesside. have equipped to greaterThey wealth canbeen be created and greater value 10% in most circumstances.

The result is highly standards required for work with to the region established.

We water have a wonderful Fit for purpose: Lumsden incentivised staff&and owners working together the Environment Agency engineering heritage in the regionand to build on.

Carroll looks to its fleet to authorities, create success for all. national Thehousebuilders. aim is to be world-class in niche areas of There is general agreement that the NE England technology. We must be flexible and opportunistic

We must use our skill and persistence to extract money from our customer’s pockets - in exchange for delivering excellence

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

>> Ready for the road

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COMPANY PROFILE

COMPANY PROFILE

WINTER 15 15 WINTER

Gentoo – making a difference Westermost Rough windfarm cable installation deck spread

Responsible business is ingrained in everything Gentoo does. Their vision is about improving ‘the Art of Living’ by enabling customers and communities to live the life they aspire to live They focus on three key areas to maximise impact: people, planet and property and are determined to use their resources, talents and energy to find real solutions that help tackle some of society’s most pressing concerns.

Gentoo Group chief executive, Peter Walls explains: “As a business leader, I know strong leadership is at the forefront of responsible business. I am proud to have received the recognition by HRH, Prince of Wales as the Responsible Business Ambassador for the North East region. I’ve been given the challenge to champion responsible business in the region and I know by working together we can unlock more innovation and opportunity to help the to identify where there are difficult problems to be solved and there is funding available to allow solutions to be created.

This region has for far too long, relied on government backed funding to grow local prosperity. We are surrounded by a world full of challenging problems to be solved, and customers willing to pay for good solutions. We must use our skill and persistence to extract money from our customer’s pockets - in exchange for delivering excellence.

Osbit Power is growing rapidly and has increased turnover by 500% to £8.5m in the year ending 30 September 2014. Staff employed has grown by 50% over the same period. So a very exciting period in OP development. Getting past the first couple of years with a new business is always exciting and anxious with new people and new customers in new business areas. The accounts are poor and start-up funding is a worry. And you have to pay the salaries at the end of every month.

As we grow there will be different challenges in managing more people and not allowing the business ethos to deteriorate.

The OP team has a wide range of experience over the past 40 years in the design and build of offshore, subsea and seabed systems for many of the leading contractors and operators in the world. OP has supplied systems to the oil and

communities in which we work and live.

“We need to place sustainability at the heart of our business strategies. So I encourage others to think differently and act. Let’s work together. Society needs more business leaders to help and advances can be achieved without a detrimental impact on the bottom line.”

The Group aims to create safe, secure homes for people and build to a standard beyond that which the sector requires. They research how to treat homes both in terms of retrofitting older properties with environmental measures and new build, to reduce their carbon impact, provide an efficient energy supply and reduce vastly increasing energy bills. People are at the heart of what Gentoo does. Gentoo was born out of an original

landlord business and now spend time dealing with loneliness, engaging mature people and working with young people who are not prepared to access either education or employment.

Making a real difference to people’s lives is right at the heart of Gentoo.

gas, renewables and military markets. It is well known for personnel transfer systems for offshore wind and larger systems for general offshore operations, all under the MaXccess brand name.

A recent delivery is a MaXccess P35 system for Subsea 7 which was a joint project with Tyne Gangway. The system is being mobilised in West Africa at the moment. OP has developed a range of systems suitable for particular people transfer situations. This year OP has delivered a MaXccess T18 system to Marubeni in Japan for use on the Fukushima offshore floating wind turbine.

Other projects this year include a duel launch system for remotely operated vehicles, a cable deployment deck spread for offshore wind and a 150 tonne shock absorber for trenching plough deployment. Osbit Power aims to create entrepreneurial engineers and has a nurturing environment where people can develop rapidly and take on significant responsibility while maintaining high quality and ensuring safety.

We take on many students and fresh graduates,

hoping to attract and retain the best to the region.

The offshore and subsea industry in our region is vibrant and varied and this is clearly the best location in the UK for our types of activity. There is real opportunity to expand and flourish making use of excellent ports, rivers and universities and create a new and lasting engineering heritage.

Peter Walls, Chief Executive Gentoo Group Tel: 0191 525 5000 Web: gentoogroup.com Email: HRHAmbassador@gentoogroup.com Twitter: @gentoogroup

I believe that the benefits of creating a successful business should be shared with all who help to create it. We are fortunate that the UK tax regime is favourable to entrepreneurial businesses and to the owners of these businesses

Dr Tony Trapp DL FREng, managing director, OSBIT Power Ltd, Broomhaugh House, Riding Mill, Northumberland NE44 6EG T: 01434 682 505 E: tony.trapp@osbitpower.com W: www.osbitpower.com

NEWS COMPANY PROFILE WINTER 15

Be the best

WINTER 15

>> Biomass build-up

Three biomass power stations supplying renewable energy are going ahead in the North East and Yorkshire. The latest, a £600m operation at Teesport, between Middlesbrough and Redcar, could prove also to be one of the world’s biggest biomass power stations. It has received vital European Commission approval.

Promising work for 1,000, it will power 600,000 homes. Under MGT Teesside, a subsidiary of the independent British company Myitjourney started in 1966 MGT Power, will burn wood chipswith andseven years at generated Newcastle University gaining pellets, with heat also going to a BSccommercial and a PhD, in the Agricultural industrial and customers.

Engineering This was jobs followed by There could Department. be 150 permanent in port five years as a lecturer at Edinburgh University. handling and offloading work, 600 buildingI then and returned the Newcastle department jobs 450 to supply chain roles.

Power as a temporary Associate, delivery toResearch the National Grid and will with startDr inTim 2019.

Grinsted and ledhas by agreed Dr Alan Reece we developed The company with the Department SMD over the following years toto beguarantee the best of Energy and Climate18Change designers builders for of seabed trenching fixed priceand electricity 15 years.

It is one of systems in the world.backed SMD was owned and run in eight government programmes aiming thesupport formative yearsjobs, by three engineers. to 8,500 attract £12bnDuring of private this time we also bought Pearson up Engineering sector investment and provide to 14% of which much laterrenewable became theelectricity basis for the the anticipated byReece 2020.

Group, now a major ‘best engineering’ in NE Similar government backed projectsgroup include England. conversion sites at Ashington and biomass I established The Engineering Business in 1997, Selby.

Air Products is building factories near and three colleagues SMD quickly joined to North Tees chemicalfrom complex at Billingham, create energy for about 100,000 homes yearly by burning thousands of tonnes of domestic and commercial waste.

Pretty big: Lucion’s microscope

Osbit Power aims to be the best. We want to produce the best engineering for the best customers using our best engineers and the best supply chain. We want to create the best value for money while generating the best level of wealth for our staff and owners. And the journey must be fun. That’s a lot of ‘best’ to achieve!

We must use our skill and persistence to extract money from our customer’s pockets >> £15m package boosts - fiinrm’s exchange for delivering workforce excellence

A £15m deal with a major multinational food is enabling Stiller to form thepackager business, owned and run by four Warehousing andaDistribution tosupplier take its engineers.

EB is now world leading up 10with to some 125. genuine ‘best ofworkforce pipelay systems For the next five years the sold family at engineering’ qualities.

EB was to firm IHC Merwede willsignificant manage Coveris inAycliffe 2008 andBusiness the sale Park created wealth UK’s newly acquired onstaff Drum forRigid the owner-directors and 70site of the who Industrial Chester-le-Street, received 20%Estate of thein sale value. and also distribution.

I established Osbit Power Coveris in 2010, makes with twoand distributes packaging solutions backgrounds and coated in engineer colleagues with extensive filmand technologies.

SMD Pearson Engineering. A fourth engineer From April willjoined distribute around 30bn originally fromitEB as an owner-director food packaging inunits 2013.of OPmainly is entirely owned and runaround by four the UK yearly, a nine-year-old that engineers.

Weinare determined to building provide best had stoodvalue empty several engineering byfor using cleveryears. and experienced engineers working in a structured but low

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

>> What a whopper A microscope able to magnify up to 200,000 times more than commonly used microscopes found in most asbestos laboratories has been installed at asbestos management firm Lucion Environmental, along with a £250,000 expansion of its Gateshead premises, adding two more laboratories.

>> Bursting with energy

>> Rivers on Teesside

The North East of England is to host one Business fund manager Rivers Capital, of the biggest energy events in 2015. NOF already established in Newcastle, has Energy, the sector’s business development opened in Middlesbrough also to make organisation, has almost tripled the exhibition expanding firms on Teesside more aware space this year for Energy: A Balanced Future. of the Microloan Fund and extra finance it Already the exhibition on 11 March at Sage has available.

Gateshead is sold out, with more than 80 Jonathan Gold, co-founder and director of Above, The OP team part. on a ‘Racing day out’ September 2014. Left, gangway for Subsea 7. the companies taking The conference will the MaXccess company,P35 which recently took over Right, MaXccess T18for walk-to-work formix, the Marubeni Fukushima floating windsays farmaround Japan £4m of that address the need a balancedsystem energy Microloan contract, highlighting the opportunities and challenges. £6.5m Microloan Fund has been invested in 338 companies across the region. That bureaucracy I believe that the leaves £2.5mtofor lending £1,000-£25,000 region needs grow and strengthen its >> Theenvironment. protectors benefits of creating a successful business should before the end ofThis 2015, engineering base. can for be abusinesses combination Solarwith Solve be shared all Marine who helpattoSouth createShields it. We are finding finance elusive. of inwardmainstream investment from well-established is providing forisfive of the fortunate that the sunscreens UK tax regime favourable organisations and expansion of existing largest container being built toworld’s entrepreneurial businessesships and to the owners businesses.

But far morefiexciting >> Takeover guresis the creation Hyundai Heavy20% industries in Korea for ofby these businesses. of OP business value of new businesses to develop new technology Independent accountants Shipping Lines.

EachGains is China allocated to staffContainer using an EMI scheme. and new ways of doing things. ThisRowlands is where have acquired Alnwick units more.

Onetaxed of these, incarries wealth 19,000 by owners andor staff are only at greater wealth can beThe created and greater value increasing practices in TheinGlobe, recently docked Britain for 10% most circumstances.

The in result is highly toAccountants, the region established.

Weitshave a wonderful the regionheritage to seven. acquired firm on. will the first time itsowners maiden voyagetogether with to incentivised staffon and working engineering in The the region to build retain 19,100 containers. create success for all.

The aim isitstoname. be world-class in niche areas of There is general agreement that the NE England technology. We must be flexible and opportunistic

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COMPANY PROFILE COMPANY PROFILE WINTER 15 15 WINTER

SC21 and GROW funding gives Metaltech lift off in new markets Westermost Rough windfarm cable installation deck spread

A leading North East heat treatment specialist is targeting growth in aerospace, defence and offshore wind after securing a major national accreditation and funding to boost its capacity

Metaltech Ltd, which employs 24 people our business and I believe we’re one of the smallest at its Country Durham facility, has firms to go for and successfully secure the Bronze become one of the first firms in its field award,” explained Dr Graeme Forster, Managing to be awarded the SC21 Bronze Award, highlighting Director. “MAS has been tremendous and it wouldn’t a commitment to world class quality, delivery have been possible without the support, knowledge performance and continuous improvement. and patience of Business Growth Managers Alan Supported by the Business Growth Service’s Whittaker and Jim Barr.”

Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS), the (l-r) Dr Graeme Forster (Metaltech) with company took just eighteen months to go Alan Whittaker and Jim Barr (both MAS) through the rigorous process and expects to use the standard to be in with a chance of supplying furnace (aimed principally for post weld heat more components to the MoD and next www.greatbusiness.gov.uk/mas treatment cycles) and additional, larger sealed generation aircraft. It comes just a few weeks after Twitter: @mas_works/@bgs_tweets quench facilities, including marquenching for it received £50,000 of GROW:OffshoreWind funding T: 0300 303 0034 distortion control. “SC21 is a major achievement for towards the purchase of a specialist Bogie Hearth to identify where there are difficult problems to be solved and there is funding available to allow solutions to be created.

This region has for far too long, relied on government backed funding to grow local prosperity. We are surrounded by a world full of challenging problems to be solved, and customers willing to pay for good solutions. We must use our gas, renewables and military markets. It is well hoping to attract and retain the best to the region. skill and persistence to Suites extract money from our for personnel transfer systems forisoffshore The offshore and subsea industry in our region Staybridge Newcastle located just aknown minutes walk from the Quayside an extended-stay for- in guests staying away for one night, days, or evenformonths.

Whether relocatingistovibrant and varied and this is clearly the best customer’shotel pockets exchange for delivering wind andweeks larger systems general offshore trip, all Staybridge Suites unique mix of domestic excellence.the area, on a long term project or a business operations, under the MaXccess brand name. location in the UK for our types of activity. There environment and hotel services lets guests live life their way - an alternative to a conventional hotel.

Osbit Power is growing rapidly and has increased A recent delivery is a MaXccess P35 system for is real opportunity to expand and flourish making spacious studio or one bedroom suite,7entertain and serve a meal in your fully turnover byRelax 500%intoyour £8.5m in the year ending Subsea which wasfriends a joint project withupTyne use of excellent ports, rivers and universities and equipped kitchen.

The choice is yours; work at your desk of our complimentary high 30 September 2014. Staff employed has grown Gangway.

The taking systemadvantage is being mobilised in West create a new and lasting engineering heritage. speed internet or unwind on your sofa. by 50% over the same period. So a very exciting Africa at the moment. OP has developed a range period in OP development. Getting past the first of systems suitable for particular people transfer couple of years with a new business is always situations. This year OP has delivered a MaXccess • to The guest laundry room is perfect • Our with guestnew services team here to welcomeT18 yousystem exciting and anxious people andisnew Marubeni in Japan for use on thefor washing home 24/7 socks and smalls customers in new business areas. The accounts Fukushima offshore floating wind turbine.

• Private on site car parking • The ‘Pantry’ 24/7 shop, where guests can buy are poor and start-up funding is a worry. And you Other projects this year include a duel launch essentials from food and drink to any forgotten • ‘Hub Kitchen’ where complimentary hot and have to pay the salaries at thebreakfast end of every month. system for remotely toiletriesoperated vehicles, a cable continental is served daily As we grow there will be differentdrinks challenges deployment deckDen’, spread for offshore • Complimentary and snacks for all guests • ‘The private meetingwind space available 24/7 in managing moreevery people and notWednesday allowing the and a 150• tonne shockhousekeeping absorber for trenching Tuesday, & Thursday evening Weekday service and weekends on request to suit youaims to create Body Shop’, our 24/7 fitness suite business ethos• to‘The deteriorate. plough deployment.

Osbit Power Dr Tony Trapp DL FREng, managing director, The OP team has a wide range of experience entrepreneurial engineers and has a nurturing Everything you need for a comfortable complete extended stay OSBIT Power Ltd, Broomhaugh House, Riding over the past 40 years in the design and build of environment where people can develop rapidly Mill, Northumberland NE44 6EG offshore, subsea and seabed systems for many and take on significant responsibility while T: 01434 682 505 Staybridge Suites Newcastle, Buxton Street, NE1 6NL t. +44 (0) 191 238 7000 of the leading contractors and operators in the maintaining high quality and ensuring safety.

E: tony.trapp@osbitpower.com world. OP has supplied systems to the oil and We take on many students and fresh graduates, sbsnewcastleupontyne W: www.osbitpower.com e. enquiries@newcastle.staybridge.com @staybridge_NCL

I believe that the benefits of creating a successful business should be shared with all who help to create it. We are fortunate that the UK tax regime is favourable to entrepreneurial businesses and to the owners of these businesses

Other key features included...

NEWS

WINTER 15

>> Hiring heats up Competition in the North East’s recruitment sector is stiffening. Nigel Frank International intends to hire 150 more graduates in the region, additional to 110-plus jobs created in 2014. The £60m turnover business, headofficed and founded in Newcastle in 2006, has operations also in London, New York, San Francisco, Singapore and Australia. Chief executive Sean Wadsworth is impressed by the languages representation among a large pool of graduates in Newcastle and Durham.

The company claims global leadership in Microsoft recruitment.

Nearing goal: Derwyn Jones (left), chief executive of Parseq and Councillor Mel Speding, cabinet secretary of Sunderland City Council, at 2Touch in Sunderland

>> Another goal scored In its fifth year of business, Premo Fabrications at Newton Aycliffe has done £5m of work, including a £1.2m contract at Manchester City’s £200m football academy. Premo, through its design and manufacture of sheet metal architectural fabrications, has also completed a job in Melbourne, won an order for New York and is supplying materials for a main stadium extension on City’s behalf. The firm earlier fulfilled an £800,000 contract for the Football Association’s new England headquarters at Burton in the Midlands, and has worked on Hitachi Rail Europe’s £82m trainbuilding factory at Aycliffe, Trinity Square retail development at Gateshead, and London King’s Cross railway station.

>> Vertu buys Ford dealers Vertu Motors has acquired the trade and certain assets of two Ford main dealerships in Bolton and Wigan, and two satellite operations. The firm’s £11m investment includes four freehold properties worth £6.9m.

>> Record exporter Thermal Resources Management Group’s recent completion of three major international projects boosted the Sunderland manufacturer’s exporting to a record 85% in 2014.

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

>> Action on the park NRS Media, working with more than 350 media partners globally for £150m-plus equivalent of advertising sales, has opened a sales centre at Doxford International Business Park in Sunderland. The firm, founded in New Zealand in 1992, has offices in the USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa and London.

Parseq, meanwhile, nears its £100m turnover goal with 150 new customer service roles at the same park following its acquisition of 2Touch in Sunderland. The company, now with 1,000 Sunderland employees, has also relocated to new premises: Nike’s former UK headquarters at Doxford, and Seaham Business Park (home to a specialist fulfilment team). Chief executive Derwyn Jones says: “Sunderland business is key to our national strategy for growth.”

>> Steering success TRW, which makes auto steering systems, is creating 130 jobs and doubling factory space at Rainton Bridge, Sunderland. Sunderland City Council is contributing £4.6m and £1.95m is coming from the Regional Growth Fund. Also at Rainton Bridge, Newcastle commercial law firm Square One Law has acted for London property group Marick Real Estate on an agreement with Lear Corporation, which plans to double the size of its factory there.

>> Engineers invest Dyer Engineering has increased its manufacturing space to almost 90,000sq ft to meet offshore industry demand. The Annfield Plain company has a long-term lease

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on premises at Harelaw, creating 58,000sq ft and making it now one of the North East’s largest precision machining and fabrication businesses. This is part of a £2.5m investment programme that includes a £651,000 Regional Growth Fund grant via the Let’s Grow Fund.

>> New deals quest TSG’s technology solutions are building on almost £500,000 worth of new contracts as North East businesses upgrade infrastructure. Operating from Newcastle, Gateshead and Stockton, TSG’s clients include Home Group, AV Dawson and Mediaworks.

Customers beyond have included Andy Thornton Ltd the Yorkshire catering supplier and The Outward Bound Trust. Twenty orders are in hand for TSG Tribe, the member relationship management system the company launched last year.

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NEWS

WINTER 15

>> Village of excellence Offshore industry expert AIS Training is expanding its world-class training village on North Tyneside to create a new renewable energy centre expected to coach thousands of recruits to the wind sector.

The £1m Renewable Energy Centre of Excellence, accredited by leading wind industry bodies, will deliver all technical skills and competency training required. Facilities within the 6,000sq ft industrial unit will recreate conditions faced on real wind turbines. The centre, which has a hotel and restaurant, stands within AIS’s existing 150,000sq ft offshore training complex delivering more than 90 industry accredited courses.

>> Birtley builds it Komatsu UK at Birtley has been chosen by its parent company to introduce to European markets the new Komatsu PC210LCi-10, an excavator fitted with an ‘intelligent’ machine control system.

Production times up to 63% lower are claimed, as GPS technologies take command of some digging.

>> Offshore success Oil and gas engineers FES International at Ashington, an offshore industry player for more than 40 years, has secured a share in a £27m contract to supply an external turret mooring system for a Malaysian oilfield, partnering Orwell Offshore of Suffolk.

>> Engineering spread Consulting engineers Patrick Parsons, 50 years in business at Newcastle, have acquired JSA Consulting Engineers of Twickenham, raising London presence.

They’ve offices also in Glasgow, Chester, Birmingham, Huddersfield and Dubai.

>> Recovery saves jobs Inkland, a Newton Aycliffe print supplier, has recovered from losing a key client to administration thanks to a £2m deal with Potts Print at Cramlington, saving jobs.

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

>> Launch manager Andrew Fox (above) is returning to the North East to be general manager of the 251 bed Crowne Plaza Hotel opening in Newcastle’s new Stephenson Quarter this July. The seven storey hotel will be under a management contract with InterContinental Hotels Group. Fox, 48 and married with four children, grew up in Ponteland, and studied in Manchester.

He was until recently regional general manager for Q-Hotels in the Midlands.

He previously worked at Crowne Plaza Nottingham and was with Marriott Hotels for eight years.

He lives in Morpeth.

>> QUOTE OF THE QUARTER

‘Providing world-class broadband should surely be more important than building HS2. By 2032, when the line is due to be completed, the internet will be far more crucial to businesses than intercity railways. And it genuinely encourages the spread of economic activity around the country – while there is disturbing evidence that high-speed rail tends to concentrate it at the centre, sucking the regions dry’

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Geoffrey Lean, Daily Telegraph

commerciality In an ideal world, wouldn’t you want to know that the people helping you live in the real world?

People who understand that their expertise should be used to create solutions.

Welcome to our world.

To experience our world call 0191 211 7777 or visit @MuckleLLP

Investing in client service

NEWS

WINTER 15

>> News makers Freshwater Group captured gold in the British Council of Shopping Centres annual awards for its revitalising of Newton Aycliffe town centre. Its master plan has improved the centre’s appearance and led to a new 15,500sq ft Aldi supermarket and a Wilkinson store.

REALsafe Technologies of Durham, recent winner of the 2014 Motorcycle Award, sponsored by the Motorcycle Industry Association, is the North East’s most innovative small business, according to a Great Faces of British Business competition, run in association with BT Business. The company’s app for motor-cyclists includes a potentially lifesaving device in cases of accidents. REALsafe could now get £30,000 of government support if it wins nationally through a combination of judging and public vote. The public vote can be accessed on www.greatbusiness.gov.uk/competition.

FaulknerBrowns, the Killingworth architects, have now won eight awards for their Rochdale Council project, Number One Riverside, a customer service centre, office and library building. The British Council for Offices voted it the UK’s best and most innovative workplace.

Ward Hadaway’s banking and finance team won UK regional law firm of the year in the finance category of the 2014 Legal 500 Awards. Its debt finance work won it.

REALsafe Technologies

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

Newton Aycliffe town centre

Andrew James the Seaham kitchen appliance manufacturer and Express Engineering the Gateshead precision engineers stand 24th and 88th respectively in the latest Sunday Times list of Britain’s private companies with fastest growing sales.

Simon Bailes Peugeot in Teesside and North Yorkshire has boosted its status as the UK’s most accredited Peugeot dealership winning its 24th Guild of Gold Lion accreditations from the manufacturer for best leadership.

Stone Homes, a 14-year-old Alnwick firm that husband and wife team Dale and Jo Robinson founded, has been named the UK’s best small builder in WhatHouse Awards.

Park Executive at Sunderland has been voted best UK chauffeur operator company (up to 10 cars) by Professional Driver Quality Service and Innovation.

Owen Pugh Group has been named North Tyneside’s business of the year and construction business of the year by North

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Tyneside Business Forum.

Rayovac the Washington hearing aid battery manufacturer won exporter of the year at the National Manufacturer Awards.

O PR of Newcastle was declared PR’s outstanding consultancy in North East CIPR. Belle Vue Convenience Store in Middlesbrough, owned and managed

by Newtrade, has won the responsible retailing category in Independent Achievers Academy awards.

Activities Abroad, the Stannington, Northumberland, tour operator has picked up two accolades for the second year running at the British Travel Awards: in activities abroad, best small family holiday company and best small activity/sports holiday company.

Gardiner Richardson the Newcastle communications agency, whose clients include Siemens, Traidcraft and Northern Powergrid, won the Freshest Consultancy Team award from regional agencies across the UK and the Republic of Ireland at the Fresh Public Relations Awards.

WINTER 15

>> Ports progress It’s good news all round at the North East’s three major ports. Port of Sunderland has seen record highs in import and export tonnage following investment in two cranes and a reopening of rail lines.

Cargo volume is up 20% in a year to 710,000 tonnes. Meanwhile, work has begun on Port of Tyne’s £25m extension of Riverside Quay, a multifunctional deep-sea facility at South Shields. Tyneside-based Southbay Civil Engineering has the main contract for over 300 metres of quay work including a 125m quay extension, an upgrade of 118m of existing quay and 90m of quay wall renewal at the former McNulty site. Andrew Moffat, the port’s chief executive, says it’s the port’s biggest single investment since it built Europe’s first purpose-built wood pellet facilities in 2010. Port of Tyne, a 500-strong employer, has

also joined 7% of UK organisations awarded the Investors in People Gold standard. This follows a UK Port of the Year 2014 award.

Port of Tyne is the UK’s only Gold IIP accredited port. At Teesport, two new liquefied natural gas (LNG) powered sea vessels operated by shipowner Anthony Veder were recently named and will now carry liquefied ethylene from Sabic’s Wilton facility on Teesside to manufacturing plants in North West Europe and Scandinavia.

Port of Tyne is the UK’s only Gold IIP accredited port

NEWS

>> Rising dough A six figure investment is enabling Olivia’s Artisan Bakery & Café to move to a larger bakery in Darlington and grow its chain of four cafes. The workforce could grow from around 60 to 100. Olivia’s is a social enterprise whose management took over the business two years ago from the Clervaux Trust, a supporter of young people with learning difficulties. The firm shares its profits with the trust and also uses only local organic ingredients. Artisan bread is sold to local hotels, restaurants and pubs.

Olivia’s is backed by NEL Fund Managers through the North East Growth Fund, and the Business Investors Group Syndicate.

Support also comes from Tees Valley Unlimited and Northumbria Asset Finance.

Smiling through: Bruno Coppola sees a cheering trend

>> Retail centre booms Manor Walks Shopping & Leisure, Northumberland’s largest shopping centre, now expects a 6.5% year-on-year rise in its footfall at Cramlington. This is partly attributed to more retailers there – including M&S Simply Food, Argos, New Look and Dorothy Perkins – now offering click and collect services. General manager Bruno Coppola says Boxing Day figures were up by more than 5% on the previous year, against footfall levels nationally down 7.1%. Manor Walks has more than 100 retailers, Northumberland’s only multiplex cinema and family restaurants.

FOR PRACTICAL ADVICE IN RELATION TO: • PATENTS • DESIGN RIGHT • TRADE MARKS • COPYRIGHT • KNOW-HOW OR RELATED MATTERS For more information Please contact Dominic Elsworth: T: 0191 269 5477 E: office@heip.co.uk W: www.heip.co.uk A: Cooper’s Studios, 14-18 Westgate Road, Newcastle, NE1 3NN

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BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

LEGAL COMPANY BRIEF PROFILE WINTER 15

WINTER 15

in association with

Be the best

to fund acquisitions. The key is the success of the business – if it’s successful, further funding should be reasonably easy to raise, but a company that runs into problems will often find raising funds from any source more difficult. So why shouldn’t you do an IPO? There is clearly an increased public scrutiny of the company; the costs of floating and the ongoing compliance and regulatory requirements; the current directors may neither want to nor be appropriate to run a public company; the company’s value and its ability to raise further funds can be highly affected by factors outside the company’s control; the company may not be suitable for being on the public markets.

However, for a growing company with good opportunities an IPO can prove a great way to develop the business. In the North East we have some great examples of success stories such as Sage. More recently, companies like Utilitywise have really benefited from going on the public markets.

So how do you go about an IPO? The key is to appoint a NOMAD – in old terminology a stockbroker. The NOMAD is the key adviser – he will introduce potential investors, coordinate the process and finally approve the price that any shares will be offered at. So what’s involved? Due diligence (legal and financial in particular), the preparation of the ‘selling document’ called the admission many of these transactions have been at the document and, most importantly, the directors larger end of the market. going to meet and present the company’s Another clear trend is the number of opportunity to potential investors introduced Above, The OPcompanies team on a ‘Racing September 2014. Left, MaXccess P35 It gangway Subsea technology seekingday to out’ go on the by the NOMAD. doesn’tforsound a 7. lot but it Right, MaXccess T18 walk-to-work formoney. the Marubeni Fukushima floating wind farm Japan that varies market as an alternative way ofsystem raising really is, and in terms of timescale Both Kromek and Applied Graphene Materials massively from six to eight weeks at the fall into that category, as well as several IPOs in shorter end to many months of planning bureaucracy environment. I believe that the the North West. region needs to grow and strengthen its and preparation. benefits of creating a successful should So is it for you? Well there arebusiness considerable engineering This be aambitious, combination In summary,base.

I think forcan every be shared with all who helpcompared to create it. are advantages with an IPO to We other of inward company investmentanfrom growing IPOwell-established should be on the fortunate that the UK tax regime forms of fund raising: the level isoffavourable control organisations and expansioneven of existing agenda for consideration, if you conclude to entrepreneurial and to the owners exercisable by thebusinesses external shareholders is businesses.

But far exciting the creation it’s not for you.

If, more however, youisdecide it is for of these businesses.

20%you of OP business considerably less than would findvalue with a of new businesses develop new technology you it can be the to start of a fantastic stage of is allocated to staff using an EMI scheme. Gains private equity investment. and new ways of Thisbusiness. is where n development fordoing you things. and your in wealth ownersfor andshareholders staff are onlytotaxed at There is abymarket realise greater wealth can be created and greater value 10% inof most circumstances.

The result is highly some their investment; there is a ready to the region established.

Weon have a wonderful For further information IPOs or any incentivised staff and owners togetheritto source of further funding forworking the company; engineering heritage thethis region to build on. of the issues raisedinby article, please create success for the all. company an enhanced can help to give The aim isMartin to be world-class in niche areas of contact Hulls at martin.hulls@ There isand general agreement thatuse the its NEshares England profile reputation; it can technology. We must beor flexible and opportunistic wardhadaway.com on 0191 204 4215.

Osbit Power aims to be the best. We want to produce the best engineering for the best customers using our best engineers and the best supply chain. We want to create the best value for money while generating the best level of wealth for our staff and owners. And the journey must be fun. That’s a lot of ‘best’ to achieve!

My journey started in 1966 with seven years at Newcastle University gaining a BSc and a PhD, in the Agricultural Engineering Department. This was followed by five years as a lecturer at Edinburgh University. I then returned to the Newcastle department as a temporary Research Associate, and with Dr Tim Grinsted and led by Dr Alan Reece we developed SMD over the following 18 years to be the best designers and builders of seabed trenching systems in the world. SMD was owned and run in the formative years by three engineers. During this time we also bought Pearson Engineering which much later became the basis for the Reece Group, now a major ‘best engineering’ group in NE England.

I established The Engineering Business in 1997, and three colleagues from SMD quickly joined

SHOULD IPOs BE ON OR OFF YOUR AGENDA? Martin Hulls, partner and head of corporate at law firm looks at stock market We must useWard our skillHadaway, and flotations and whether persistence to extract money they are right for you from our customer’s pockets - in exchange for delivering excellence

The North East seems to have an on/off love affair with stock market flotations – or IPOs (Initial Public Offerings).

If you go back to the early 2000s there was atogreat spate of them – butand after things form the business, owned runthat by four went prettyEBquiet. there were two engineers. is nowIna 2013 world leading supplier –ofKromek and Applied Graphene Materials pipelay systems with some genuine ‘best – then in 2014qualities. these were followed engineering’ EB was sold toby IHCQuantum Merwede Pharmaceuticals and just this year ScSwealth returned in 2008 and the sale created significant to markets. and 70 of the staff who forthe the public owner-directors Elsewhere in of thethe country, IPOs have been received 20% sale value. happening greater of regularity, I establishedwith Osbita Power in degree 2010, with two especially in the North where there havein engineer colleagues withWest extensive backgrounds been several in recent years. A fourth engineer SMD and Pearson Engineering.

Is there a from theme, a common Well, as originally EB joined as an thread? owner-director you’d expect from a lawyer, therun answer is yes in 2013.

OP is entirely owned and by four and no! There has been a growing usebest of IPOs engineers.

We are determined to provide to enable investors, often clever private equity funds, engineering value by using and experienced to realise an exit for investment, engineers working in atheir structured but lowand

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

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COMPANY PROFILE

COMPANY PROFILE

WINTER WINTER 15 15

Key role for Muckle LLP in Quantum Pharma £125m float Westermost Rough windfarm cable installation deck spread

The north east’s leading legal team for the stock market, Muckle LLP, delivered the biggest float on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) at the end of 2014 in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector The flotation of County-Durham-based Quantum Pharma plc on 11 December raised £106 million, giving Quantum a market value of £125 million.

Muckle LLP has advised Quantum since 2009, when the firm supported management on their buyout of the business. This was followed by a number of strategic acquisitions, which have provided opportunities for product development and market expansion.

More than 40 lawyers from across Muckle LLP, led by corporate Andrew achieve to identifypartner where there areDavison, difficult helped problems to the float on time by working around the clock to be solved and there is funding available to allow prepare the three-month project. This solutionsand to complete be created. is theregion region’s IPO onrelied AIM. on This haslargest for farever too long, In addition to the IPO, Muckle also handled government backed funding to grow local aprosperity. restructuring of the group by adding twofull of We are surrounded by a world new parent companies and the challenging problems to berestructuring solved, and customers shareholding; a refinancing with Yorkshire willing to pay for good solutions.

We must Bank use our and remaining 49% of our the skill the andacquisition persistenceoftothe extract money from shares in product development company, Colonis, customer’s pockets - in exchange for delivering for £15million - all of which also completed excellence. simultaneously with therapidly listing.and has increased Osbit Power is growing Andrew Davison, who sits onin the Regional Advisory turnover by 500% to £8.5m the year ending Group to the London Stock Exchange, was the 30 September 2014. Staff employed has grown overall leader.

“Theexciting idea to by 50%project over the same Andrew period. said: So a very float developed during the summer.

Circumstances period in OP development.

Getting past the first came together that made an IPO an attractive couple of years with a new business is always and realistic Quantum’s team exciting prospect. and anxious with newmanagement people and new met informally with key Cityareas. investors they customers in new business The and accounts received positive feedback. are poor very and start-up funding is a worry. And you The proceeds of the fundraising were have to pay the salaries at the end ofused everybymonth.

Quantum to provide a return for venture capital firm As we grow there will be different challenges Lloyds Development Capital, repay all of the the debt in managing more people and not allowing from the MBO, the shares in Colonis, to business ethosto toacquire deteriorate. provide a partial forrange management and provide The OP team has exit a wide of experience capital to accelerate the group’s growth over the past 40 years in the design andstrategy. build of The management buyout of Quantum offshore, subsea and seabed systems for many Pharmaceutical in 2009, ledand at Muckle by corporate of the leading contractors operators in the team head, Robert Phillips, was recognised as world. OP has supplied systems to the oil and

I believe that the benefits of creating a successful business should be with all who helpAwards. to create it.

We aretechnically fortunate thatproject. the Dealshared of the Year at the Insider Dealmakers this otherwise challenging Back then, Quantum employed 130 staff at its The team’s deep understanding of the AIM UK tax regime is favourable to entrepreneurial businesses and torules Burnopfield site, but now has 320 employees across and public markets’ practices and procedures was the owners of these businesses six sites in the UK. apparent throughout this project.

Its focus in 2009 was on being a market leader in supplying unlicensed medicines to retail gas, renewables and military markets.

It is and well wholesale pharmacy and a series of acquisitions has known for personnel transfer systems for offshore broadened its business. wind and larger systems for general offshore Andrew Scaife, officer of Quantum, operations, all chief underexecutive the MaXccess brand name. explained how theisteam at Muckle helped A recent delivery a MaXccess P35LLP system forat every stage.

Subsea 7 which was a joint project with Tyne He said: “Quite simply,iswe couldn’t have in West Gangway.

The system being mobilised accomplished what we have without relying on the Africa at the moment.

OP has developed a range technical of the lawyerspeople at Muckle and of systemsexcellence suitable for particular transfer their consistent commitment to doing whatever situations. This year OP has delivered a MaXccessit takes to keep moving forward to the agreed T18 system toprojects Marubeni in Japan for use on the timescales.

Their one-team has worked Fukushima offshore floatingapproach wind turbine. so wellprojects on this latest project andagiven all the Other this year include duel us launch confidence boosts needed to complete such an system for remotely operated vehicles, a cable enormous undertaking. deployment deck spread for offshore wind “They are true business advisers, for solving problems and a 150 tonne shock absorber trenching and going beyond what could haveaims realistically plough deployment.

Osbit Power to create been expected ofengineers them to achieve right result entrepreneurial and hasthe a nurturing for Quantum and its shareholders.

Floating our environment where people can develop rapidly organisation on AIM involved the Muckle team and take on significant responsibility while carefully negotiating an extremely complicated maintaining high quality and ensuring safety. set of business structures and relationships during We take on many students and fresh graduates,

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“Muckle LLP has provided us with a truly excellent level of service throughout hoping to attract and retainour thelong bestrelationship to the region. with them.

We always find the team The offshore and subsea industry incommercially our region and technically excellent is vibrant and varied and and thiswouldn’t is clearlyhesitate the bestto recommend them. genuinely an extended location in the UK They for our types ofare activity.

There member of the Quantum team.and flourish making is real opportunity to expand Muckle LLP has now been leadand legal adviser on and three use of excellent ports, rivers universities of the most recent five floats in the north east, create a new and lasting engineering heritage. involving Vertu Motors plc, Utilitywise plc and now Quantum Pharma Plc. The firm was also involved in a fourth, involving Kromek Group plc, when advising Kromek’s shareholders. Both Vertu Motors plc and Utilitywise plc won national awards for their “Best use of AIM.”

Dr Tony Trapp DL FREng, managing director, OSBIT Power Ltd, Broomhaugh House, Riding Mill, Northumberland NE44 6EG T: 01434 682 505 For more information about Muckle LLP E: tony.trapp@osbitpower.com visit www.muckle-llp.com W: www.osbitpower.com

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

AS I SEE IT

WINTER 15

TAG CRASH TOOK THE WIND OUT OF UK SAILS How serious are we about reviving UK industry and promoting innovation, Brian Nicholls wonders, as a British offshore company ahead of its time on Teesside passes into German and Danish hands?

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

One normally extends the greater sympathy to creditors when a company crashes, since company crashes often indicate poor management or over-optimism. But it’s different, I believe, with TAG Energy Solutions, which fell into administration at Billingham with a deficit beyond £61m after winning just one big contract in three years, and is now no more. That major contract was to supply foundations for the Humber Gateway offshore wind farm. Costs escalated, which was blamed for TAG’s collapse. But surely the issue goes back further. Surely it has also been a victim of our country’s ambivalence, havering and shortsightedness, towards our future energy needs, a victim also of cavalier attitudes towards our offshore industry.

In an earlier existence TAG during 2009 had a £300m contract snatched from it 30% into completion. Reportedly, the project had become “too risky for North East

22

industry”, a view endorsed at government level. Admittedly the commissioning firm Sea Dragon, massively supported by Lloyds Bank, needed additional finance to complete this, the UK’s biggest drilling rig construction project for more than a generation.

None was forthcoming. The job was switched to a Singapore firm willing and equipped to finish the job and be paid at the end. Alex Dawson, TAG’s chief executive then, and his management team were bruised but not broken.

TAG completed their contribution, settled their bills and regrouped. It became a £20m project management and construction manufacturer

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of bed-to-surface foundations for offshore turbines – and the first UK builder to secure a substantial renewables project in British waters. Its Billingham site was ideal for helping to plant 73 turbines on the £736m farm off the Humber Estuary, which from this year was expected to power up to 170,000 homes equivalent.

The Humber Gateway, through E.ON, was TAG’s opportunity to take Britain into an expanding segment of European industry – critical to the nation’s balance of payments, surely, and at a time when about 80% of work on offshore wind farms in the North Sea was being done by industries of other countries such as Germany, Denmark and Holland – countries that seem to have fewer issues than us about wind energy.

But as Dawson told BQ then: “With One North East’s demise no-one was really promoting this region and its capabilities.” Ironically TAG had already broken into the German market.

But now two European firms have acquired the assets of Tees Alliance Group Corporate to establish a joint venture in offshore fabrication

Despite innovation being our region’s current buzzword, a valuable entry point to a new indigenous industry has closed where TAG Energy Solutions once operated.

In late 2013 Alex Dawson had stood down after three years driving growth at TAG. His successor, Stuart Oakley, was at least able to pave a way for Denmark’s Bladt Industries and Germany’s EEW Special Pipe Construction to launch their joint venture, Offshore Structures (Britain) Ltd. It will create initially 100 jobs where 74 were previously – and 150 might have been. That, at least, is a relief.

Bladt and EEW propose to invest £30m in the purchase, expansion and upgrading there and Karl Klös-Hein, managing director of EEW,

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AS I SEE IT

with foresight apparently absent here, sees the investment “as a step towards the further growth of our business in one of the most important European markets.”

The whole episode, as The Sunday Times has observed, indicates trouble in the offshore wind industry, a central plank of the Government’s £120bn low-carbon energy overhaul. Had further contracts been made available to bid for, TAG Energy Solutions might have remained Britain’s beacon in offshore renewables.

Despite stated proselytism to “heavy industry” is it a belief that banking, government and private investment circles still shrink from?

Despite innovation being our region’s current buzzword, a valuable entry point to a new indigenous industry has closed. Investors and backers are nowhere near, and Britain, in an election year, still awaits a coherent solution to its energy crisis.

And, as wind energy’s critics too often fail to acknowledge, whereas it will take up to 20 years for a new nuclear plant to produce, wind structures can produce within 12 months. n

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CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE A new incentive is needed to better motivate smaller businesses towards exporting, says Rod Taylor, a proven exporter himself. He tells Brian Nicholls of his proposal

SMEs should have special incentives to encourage them into exporting. The advocate here isn’t the wistful recent creator of a small or medium size start-up, but exporter extraordinary Rod Taylor whose electronics manufacturing company has been a major North East of England seller overseas for decades now.

Up to 60% of its expected £15m turnover in the current financial year will probably come from sales to foreign customers.

And Taylor has the right prescription, he feels, to motivate many more smaller businesses capable of selling internationally in a region already a top exporter. Seaward Group, of which he is founder and managing director, sells its specialised test instrumentation in more than 60 countries, having recently broken into Japan, China and South American nations. All this, for the electrical, electronics, medical and solar PV industries, is masterminded from Peterlee.

Impressive? David Coppock, regional director for UK Trade & Investment in the North East, has described Seaward as a great example of the many North East firms that have already taken up the exporting for growth challenge.

Taylor believes, however, that whatever government is next in power should seriously explore introducing export tax credits to boost overseas selling. He explains: “Just as the R&D tax credit scheme gives effective financial support to activities directly related to investigating new products and technologies, there should be a mechanism giving financial

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incentive for businesses to tap into the potential of overseas markets.

“Selling into international markets,” he explains, “is much costlier than doing business closer to home. New financial incentives would help offset this cost, providing a major incentive for growth.”

Before he’s shouted down as an advocate of subsidy, it should be pointed out that he could see such a scheme being funded by reorganising current UKTI budgets – in particular, by reallocating a significant portion of the outlay from existing funds spent solely on activities linked to delivering export advisory services.

He’d like to see export tax credits linked to export sales actually achieved – and this could impact significantly, he feels. He observes: “While the level of support UKTI provides is generally good, there’s little evidence the overall spend is making a substantial difference to revenues generated from exports.

“Too often assistance from government is driven by metrics relating to inputs rather than outputs. This inevitably creates inefficiencies.”

In the present government’s ambitious goal of doubling UK exports to £1tn by 2020, a lot would depend on stepped-up activity among SMEs. The British Chambers of Commerce has said exports would have to grow at 10% a year to meet this target – which, on export performance of recent years, almost certainly puts a doubling beyond reach.

Recently the Government’s own Public >>

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Accounts Committee has also urged better export support to SMEs, noting how less well they trade internationally than their French and German counterparts.

Would Seaward have achieved its present export performance without UKTI support?

“Probably,” he thinks. “But I suspect when support is there you decide to try it out.

It helps minimise some of the risk.”

While stressing that the UKTI is always supportive, he feels the new UK target requires fresh thinking. “In many cases export success is based on the number of companies engaged. That may filter through to success in the end. But I think more aggressive targets could be set.

“If they were set much more to outputs for example, rather than inputs, I think that would sharpen everyone’s views. Production per head of a company, for example. When we claim to be the most successful region in exporting, that’s down to Nissan and some of the process industries on Teesside.

“Have we actually generated extra export business within the rest of the community?

It’s almost impossible to detail if we’re not measuring outputs. If this was a business case, for example, serious questions would be asked about the investment which we couldn’t answer. I appreciate how difficult that is to come up with the necessary numbers. Basically we’re looking for trends.

“So even if you take some metric which may

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not in itself be precisely definable, you can still look at it over time and find the trend – perhaps through a metric telling us the return on investment. Nissan is the best thing that ever happened to the North East. The danger is that large organisations maybe shield the rest of local business from what could be achieved.”

Taylor’s no revolutionary in his thinking; export credits have long been around.

“The Americans already do something very similar,” Taylor reminds us. “They’ll give certain tax credits in terms of minimising the amount of tax paid on export for certain sizes of businesses.”

His thinking is also driven by his conclusion that tax credits for research and development are already proving successful in this country.

“So if it is a key and successful metric in that instance, why not also in exporting? It would certainly put it up on the agenda for board meetings if it has an impact on taxation.”

He concedes a risk factor, but thinks some practices in trying to encourage firms to export are like “taking a horse to water” and should be cut back. Why? “It’s like all things in business. People wishing to be successful must get out there and be doing things themselves.

I’m a bit against nanny states trying to get people nurtured and moved along.

“So many activities exist to talk about export and the rest of it. Do we need them all? We all see and read the news and know what’s

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happening. If I haven’t the gumption to go into exports instead of going to a seminar where someone’s extolling virtues of a particular country… it’s a difficult one. I can’t say it’s of no value because the people who deliver it mean well.

“But if I look through the UKTI annual report I see the additional number of companies becoming involved and the supposed amount of additional exports. But that ain’t reaching the target. So change the recipe. How much, then, is there in the way of getting companies to do R&D? Is there an organisation?

“I know there’s Innovate. But seminars aren’t run in the North East every 10 minutes telling me to do more product development. If I don’t need it on R&D, what makes exports so peculiar they need that approach? I always think lots of governments don’t trust businesses. They want to put intermediaries in between them and it to show them what to do with their money.

“Up to 70% of all the investment is consumed in the mechanism. If people can develop new products using methods we have, why put all this money into telling us there’s opportunity to be had somewhere?

“I was on the board of Go Global and came off because metrics included: ‘How many companies would you contact in the next six months?’ What had that to do with exports?

I’d say, stop all this namby pamby bottom line support, and put support into the top –

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where winners will be in the end. Instead of a shotgun approach, accept that if there’s a good business, and there are opportunities for it, that business will find them anyway.”

Seaward is a textbook example for SMEs of acorn to oak. Taylor, working full time in the South at the time, bought a micro-business from a Jimmy Seaward in Billingham, who was running it in his garage. Taylor moved the business into his own coal shed at Waldegrave, Maidenhead.

He chuckles as he recalls. “I always say to people, ‘you need a stimulus to move you on.’

My wife bought a freezer and put it in the coal shed, which then forced me to move out. So that pushed things along. I ran the business part time for a year or so. Then I started doing it full time, making testing instruments.

“I’d make a product in the morning, go out and sell it in the afternoon then put out a press release or invoice a customer in the evening. Then I had two people working for me initially. We managed to get quite a good contract. We were licensing technology from

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some big companies and ICI was important to us. We started making test instrumentation for them. We then commercialised it and started selling it.”

When more work space was required, Taylor decided to move to a development area and Peterlee won over Washington. “I wouldn’t say we benefited tremendously from grants then. There was always the thought we would, but it was more the general support we got.” The workforce grew from two to 11 and today stands at 150-plus, with a regular lookout kept for talented software engineers, design and development specialists and proven sales and marketing operators.

Says Taylor: “We’ve always been very product focused, trying to identify where we can produce something a bit different. So I think most people would regard us as innovative in producing instruments for specialist applications.” Seaward gained recognition and reputation working for BT, utilities power and offshore oil companies. British power utilities were developing power systems abroad then

Six steps to easier exporting Rod Taylor’s advice to firms thinking to export? Think foreign. “If you want to be an international business you must be able to produce international products. Whatever you do must be from an international aspect throughout, instead of saying, ‘let’s do it for the UK and do what we must to tweak it for foreign markets.’ If our company develops a product now it must be something with an international application. Because we work with Health and Safety and standardisation, we have people sitting on international standards committees so we can see where things are going and can produce products accordingly. Our products and services are better through having demanding customers abroad. That forces us to raise our game.”

Culture counts. “Cultural change is essential throughout the business. If a customer, say, in Australia sends you a communication today, because of time differences unless you reply promptly it could be two or three days before your answer is seen. Also, whereas a despatch to London might go out on a palette packaged in cardboard, send that to Malaysia and it ends up soggy. Products must turn up suitably for their market.” Quality care is vital. “It can be expensive having something sent back from Thailand just because you forgot to put in a mains cable or something.” Don’t expect instant profit. “Getting ourselves well set up in America and turning out a profit has taken us most of eight years sinking cash into it. Demonstrating perseverance is very important. Many international customers will be looking for that because if you haven’t got staying power, and are going to leave them high and dry, they won’t want to continue dealing with you.” Work flexibly. “That’s the key to competing with bigger rivals. An owner-managed business can move things much faster than a bigger business where one or two layers of the board might have to be involved.” Ride fluctuations. “There’s always controversy about fluctuating exchange rates. But if you recall, when the yen was very high Japan was one of the world’s biggest exporters. Exchange rates ultimately are just one of those things you have to deal with. You may need to cut your margins, but that’s nothing more than an entry cost.”

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People wishing to be successful must be doing things themselves. I’m a bit against nanny states trying to get people nurtured and moved along also, partly through the British standardisation they carried. So openings arose for Seaward, particularly in Commonwealth nations like Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, India and Australia. This was opportune since Seaward, as it specialised more, had to look beyond the UK for bigger markets.

Taylor recalls: “We received a lot of support then from UKTI – BOTB, as was – and we embraced trade missions and exhibitions, built up distributor networks and the business prospered on the back of that. Three acquisitions helped us to stick to our knitting but move into complementary technologies.

Today, of those businesses, our biomedical work has been particularly successful in exporting. About 70 to 80% of its business is export.”

Most export earnings come from the USA, via many different customers. The German and Australian markets respectively come next.

Opening sales offices in the USA, Malaysia and France has been a major factor in success.

From Kuala Lumpur, for example, not only Malaysia but also Taiwan, Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand are served.

The company looks at turning between 8 and 10% of annual turnover to research and development. “You have to watch, though, that you’re not just pumping money in, hoping that something will come out.”

Seaward is regularly looking for possible acquisitions to widen the business. “But nothing that will diversify away from its core strengths,” says Taylor. “We’re looking, rather, to support them.” That means particular interest, presently, on biomedical. n

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COMPANY PROFILE

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Be the best Osbit Power aims to be the best. We want to produce the best engineering for the best customers using our best engineers and the best supply chain. We want to create the best value for money while generating the best level of wealth for our staff and owners. And the journey must be fun. That’s a lot of ‘best’ to achieve!

My journey started in 1966 with seven years at Newcastle University gaining a BSc and a PhD, in the Agricultural Engineering Department. This was followed by five years as a lecturer at Edinburgh University. I then returned to the Newcastle department as a temporary Research Associate, and with Dr Tim Grinsted and led by Dr Alan Reece we developed SMD over the following 18 years to be the best designers and builders of seabed trenching systems in the world. SMD was owned and run in the formative years by three engineers. During this time we also bought Pearson Engineering which much later became the basis for the Reece Group, now a major ‘best engineering’ group in NE England.

I established The Engineering Business in 1997, and three colleagues from SMD quickly joined

We must use our skill and persistence to extract money from our customer’s pockets - in exchange for delivering excellence to form the business, owned and run by four engineers. EB is now a world leading supplier of pipelay systems with some genuine ‘best engineering’ qualities. EB was sold to IHC Merwede in 2008 and the sale created significant wealth for the owner-directors and 70 of the staff who received 20% of the sale value.

I established Osbit Power in 2010, with two engineer colleagues with extensive backgrounds in SMD and Pearson Engineering. A fourth engineer originally from EB joined as an owner-director in 2013. OP is entirely owned and run by four engineers. We are determined to provide best engineering value by using clever and experienced engineers working in a structured but low

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Above, The OP team on a ‘Racing day out’ September 2014. Left, MaXccess P35 gangway for Subsea 7.

Right, MaXccess T18 walk-to-work system for the Marubeni Fukushima floating wind farm Japan

bureaucracy environment. I believe that the benefits of creating a successful business should be shared with all who help to create it. We are fortunate that the UK tax regime is favourable to entrepreneurial businesses and to the owners of these businesses. 20% of OP business value is allocated to staff using an EMI scheme. Gains in wealth by owners and staff are only taxed at 10% in most circumstances. The result is highly incentivised staff and owners working together to create success for all.

There is general agreement that the NE England

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region needs to grow and strengthen its engineering base. This can be a combination of inward investment from well-established organisations and expansion of existing businesses. But far more exciting is the creation of new businesses to develop new technology and new ways of doing things. This is where greater wealth can be created and greater value to the region established. We have a wonderful engineering heritage in the region to build on.

The aim is to be world-class in niche areas of technology. We must be flexible and opportunistic

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COMPANY PROFILE

Westermost Rough windfarm cable installation deck spread

to identify where there are difficult problems to be solved and there is funding available to allow solutions to be created.

This region has for far too long, relied on government backed funding to grow local prosperity. We are surrounded by a world full of challenging problems to be solved, and customers willing to pay for good solutions. We must use our skill and persistence to extract money from our customer’s pockets - in exchange for delivering excellence.

Osbit Power is growing rapidly and has increased turnover by 500% to ÂŁ8.5m in the year ending 30 September 2014. Staff employed has grown by 50% over the same period. So a very exciting period in OP development. Getting past the first couple of years with a new business is always exciting and anxious with new people and new customers in new business areas. The accounts are poor and start-up funding is a worry. And you have to pay the salaries at the end of every month.

As we grow there will be different challenges in managing more people and not allowing the business ethos to deteriorate.

The OP team has a wide range of experience over the past 40 years in the design and build of offshore, subsea and seabed systems for many of the leading contractors and operators in the world. OP has supplied systems to the oil and

I believe that the benefits of creating a successful business should be shared with all who help to create it. We are fortunate that the UK tax regime is favourable to entrepreneurial businesses and to the owners of these businesses gas, renewables and military markets. It is well known for personnel transfer systems for offshore wind and larger systems for general offshore operations, all under the MaXccess brand name.

A recent delivery is a MaXccess P35 system for Subsea 7 which was a joint project with Tyne Gangway. The system is being mobilised in West Africa at the moment. OP has developed a range of systems suitable for particular people transfer situations. This year OP has delivered a MaXccess T18 system to Marubeni in Japan for use on the Fukushima offshore floating wind turbine.

Other projects this year include a duel launch system for remotely operated vehicles, a cable deployment deck spread for offshore wind and a 150 tonne shock absorber for trenching plough deployment. Osbit Power aims to create entrepreneurial engineers and has a nurturing environment where people can develop rapidly and take on significant responsibility while maintaining high quality and ensuring safety.

We take on many students and fresh graduates,

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hoping to attract and retain the best to the region.

The offshore and subsea industry in our region is vibrant and varied and this is clearly the best location in the UK for our types of activity. There is real opportunity to expand and flourish making use of excellent ports, rivers and universities and create a new and lasting engineering heritage.

Dr Tony Trapp DL FREng, managing director, OSBIT Power Ltd, Broomhaugh House, Riding Mill, Northumberland NE44 6EG T: 01434 682 505 E: tony.trapp@osbitpower.com W: www.osbitpower.com

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SUCCESS STORY

THE ORANGE VAN MEN WHO MADE A GREAT HALL OF CHINA The Crosby family lay on finest ‘silver’ service as they celebrate the little orange van that became their vehicle to success in the catering industry. Brian Nicholls tells their story The Great Wall of China may be immovable but the great hall of china is now up and looking spectacular here in the North East.

It’s the pristine 3,000sq ft showroom in the new HQ of Crosbys, opened amid the firm’s silver jubilee celebration – 25 years supplying the restaurant, bar and catering industry.

The spacious chrome and glass area displaying wares of the major North East provider of crockery, cutlery and catering equipment – a plethora of champagne buckets, cookers, water jugs, work tables and sinks all included and displayed to best advantage beneath inlaid lighting – features a dinner setting fit for royalty. Around £600,000 of stock, including many select brands, takes up the floor.

Changed times, indeed, from when Bob Crosby, founder of this family business, drove his orange van once a week to Stoke to bring back crockery he hoped to sell to local restaurants and cafes.

The first year’s turnover for the present Crosbys, in 1990, was £70,000. Last year, it was £70,000 a week, and this year’s 52 week

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total could exceed £5m. Today the company, whose workforce has almost doubled to 30 in two years, is run by the main shareholders – Bob’s sons Roger, an ex-Barclays Bank manager who’s 45 and lives at Corbridge, and Ben, a 43-year-old former golf professional at Ponteland, who lives at Gosforth.

Almost, it seems, at the speed of the greyhounds lapping neighbouring Brough Park in Newcastle, Roger and Ben, working 12 hour days, have transformed an empty 1960s shell of an industrial unit on Brough Park Way into this modern argosy.

It comprises, besides the display area, 3,000sq ft of modern offices, 18,000sq ft of warehousing trafficked by forklifts, and the entire exterior of the building clad and girded with new car park and landscaping.

The firm’s crockery, cutlery, specialist catering equipment, even paper and janitorial supplies, go out to more than 2,000 customers in the North – not only dedicated eating places but also hospitals and schools. It has sold more than a million cups and saucers over 25 >>

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SUCCESS STORY

years, and toilet roll sold could stretch from Land’s End to John o’ Groats.

Through its internet business, it supplies restaurants and Michelin establishments across the UK and overseas. Private customers from the likes of Ireland, Dubai and London buy online. Orders have included cereal dispensers for the Olympic Village, and cocktail glasses for an Antiguan beach bar.

The in-house van sales service, Chef 7, carries catering essentials directly to hard pressed chefs confined to their kitchens. The family say even restaurants opening within 24 hours have had last minute needs met. “None of our competitors can match that,” they claim.

Their vans service customers between Berwick and North Yorkshire, and the target is to supply 97% of that area’s entire requirements.

With their online “window” – set up with Visualsoft of Stockton – orders from beyond are also growing, often because the purchaser is a national chain or an establishment with some other connection to the North East.

The internet represents, in Roger’s words, a “bit of a dark art” as to how customers come across the website. “Besides sales across the globe, a lot of London gastro-pub type people now look to us – even councils, at Dagenham for example.”

Crosbys only sells online what can be safely sent. So no chemicals. And no cookers entering big costs and devouring profit.

Crockery and glassware sales are risked. Small attractive products are a major attraction though – chef’s gadgets, presentation gifts, and the exclusive brands and items with appealing prices.

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We never consider global pricing.

We price for a margin we hope to achieve, whether for Darlington or Dubai “We never consider global pricing,” Ben says.

“We price for a margin we hope to achieve, whether for Darlington or Dubai. We use Interlink Express for next day distance delivery, and shipping costs have to be included in exporting. So our competitors now aren’t only local or one-man-and-his-band but also national and international. It’s a reactive market. If you can’t deliver when required, the customer can go down a lot of other options.”

Bob Crosby, now 75, has retired and stepped down from the board following an investment

in the company under the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), and the entry of a non-executive director. But Bob still pops in regularly for a bit of crack with longstanding customers. “There’s a great sense of continuity here,” Roger remarks. “Our 25 years seem like five minutes.”

Roger and Ben’s energies are fired by the warm recollections of helping their dad in this and earlier ventures. As children they’d journeyed to Stoke with him on Saturdays.

Bob had decided to go it alone after being employed previously in wholesale crockery.

Through his contacts in Stoke he supplied many Newcastle in-places of the time – Marco Polo, La Roma and the original site of Café 21. The reach spread to restaurants in Middlesbrough, Darlington, Sunderland and Durham, as well as local authorities.

He also opened shops in Whitley Bay, Whickham and Tynemouth. They did well until suburban retail was hit by Eldon Square’s opening in 1977. “We managed to sell the businesses but not for a massive amount by any means,” Ben recalls.

They’re in the know Weekly the Crosbys meet aspiring restaurateurs and discuss with them their business proposals.

“We’re sometimes more aware of their competition than they are,” Roger suggests, “because we deal with them all. If we think someone’s planning an Indian restaurant on Ocean Road at South Shields, where maybe 36 such restaurants already exist, we ask how they’re going to be different.

“We’re close to the North East, close to all the restaurants’ potential customers. We’ll have a fair idea how much is needed to hit the ground running, then make a judgment. We only get it wrong occasionally!

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“We’ve closely followed tableware trends over the years, from early days of pizza and pasta with checked tablecloths to the minimalist style of nouvelle cuisine and on to the rustic approach with boards and baskets today,” says Roger. “Because we now also offer restaurant design, we’re keeping abreast of latest interior trends – fast becoming a one-stop shop for the hospitality industry through this design, technical build, kitchen fitting and provision of specialist equipment.”

They’ve just fitted out the bistro at England’s largest distillery, newly opened at Bassenthwaite in the Lake District. Terry Laybourne the distinguished North East chef who’s consultant chef there, has patronised Crosbys for 25 years.

With Roger and Ben’s early support, the firm branched from crockery into the cutlery, glassware, light equipment and heavy kitchen kit. Five years ago, Crosbys also joined Caterbar, a national buying group providing cost effective access to chemicals, paper and disposable supplies, and last year Crosbys won Newcastle City Council’s contract to supply every chemical and disposable it requires.

“That’s a massive increase in turnover and logistics for us,” says Roger.

Ben had joined Crosbys six months in, driving the van to Stoke while Bob did the selling. If Ben wasn’t in Stoke he was delivering and Bob was selling full time. Roger joined about a year later, and Bob’s twin brother in between.

Ben had been three years a golf pro but accepted it wouldn’t be a permanent career, given needs elsewhere. Roger made his decision after 11 years at Barclays, finding management there unfulfilling. “I needed a new challenge. Dad and Ben wanted a salesman. My challenge was: could I cover one month’s salary? Ben and I had a mortgage then – sharing a place.

“Dad said he’d cover one month. I left Barclays on 31 December and started here on 2 January.

I never looked back. Going to restaurants, bars, open events – talking to people who love what they do – was very exciting.”

They’d intended leaving school at 16 and 14 to work in their dad’s china shops. “But he sold them,” Roger laughs. “So we had to find jobs quickly. Ben did a YTS scheme. We’d both been school champions at golf but Ben played

SUCCESS STORY

Bringing it home Crosbys has featured catering furniture for a year now, meeting “massive” demand from buyers who previously bought in Leeds, Manchester and Glasgow.

Ben explains: “None of the chains here now – Jamie Oliver’s, Café Zizi, Wetherspoons, Café Rouge – was here three years ago. Newcastle’s Grey Street, formerly a street of banks where Roger once worked in Barclays, is now a street of restaurant chains. Carluccio’s, Los Iguanas – great to see them. It shows they appreciate there’s a market in the North East.

“It’s increased competition for our local independents, but they raised their game too. Weekend tourists lacking local knowledge may go to a name they know already and trust. But local diners appreciate the smaller business. They want to be recognised, acknowledged – want to know the £150 they’re spending there for their family is appreciated.”

“Equally,” adds Roger, “anyone coming to us knows that we are 30 people working, living and feeding out of the North East – putting back into the heart of the region. We pay rates here, have 30 staff spending their money here. Our kids go to local schools. We won’t let them down.

They know that. And we’re on their doorstep and accountable.”

a lot more and did exceptionally well. Then, as it turned out, we came back to work with dad, bringing skills and experience we’d found, and which life throws at you.”

Bob’s no longer a shareholder, though his wife Jean, a credit controller with the company, retains a stake. Says Roger: “Though dad’s retired now we still work for him in a sense, and he still reaps the benefit. He’s been able to retire through us joining him. He started at 14 and worked 61 years.”

Growth is partly propelled by hiring key managers who augment the offer: specialists in chemical and disposables, for example, and design and technical, the latter now with a team to design the commercial kitchens on CAD. Abilities of long-term employees are not overlooked either. Their longest-serving employee, field sales manager Keiron O’Neill, started as a dishwasher 16 years ago.

The firm has done well out of property too.

After the orange van came a garage, then

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a unit at Kingston Park, then two units extending to three, and from there to a building opposite Shieldfield’s Biscuit Factory 12 years ago. It outgrew that within five years but could only be relocated to Byker recently.

Now the Shieldfield premises are being sold to provide 450 student accommodations.

It took five years to find suitable new accommodation, and Byker’s Brough Park area was the closest to central Newcastle they could find. For Bob, though, Byker has a sentimental attachment. He may live in Corbridge, like Roger, but he was born a Byker lad – a twin among 10 brothers and sisters, and a wartime evacuee to Scarborough.

Ben says: “We’re a family company – open, honest, transparent and understanding over payment terms. Our business model isn’t about conquering the country but expanding the service our considerable customer base already enjoys.” n

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in association with

HORSE TRADING – IS IT OUT OF ITS TIME? The issue: How can manufacturers across the region maximise potentials of the supply chain to ensure sustainable growth, and what can be done further to support the industry?

Kate Powell opened, explaining that Deloitte is a member of the All-party Parliamentary Manufacturing Group. A recent term paper quoted supply chains as misunderstood, neglected but brimming with potential. “It’s that potential we’re keen to understand,” she said, “and to understand what can be done to maximise it.”

Alan Lloyd’s company Heerema Hartlepool, building offshore modules and constructions for above and below surface, relies strongly on a North East supply chain. “A problem with our type of industry is that we believe we can do everything ourselves. In the old days that might have been true. There’s a large movement by the Government to try to bring content back from the Middle East and Asia - a determination to invest in the UK market. The ageing workforce is something we must consider. We’ve gone to slightly smaller suppliers – they may be large manufacturers in their own right – to support our chain.

Hopefully we have something like 30 or 40 major suppliers. We need to cascade our needs out to the supply chain and get those in the market to understand. In our industry things

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manufactured or designed can’t necessarily be right first time, and chain managements can sometimes be very concerned about cost. It’s important across all spectrums to make it work for everybody.

Steve Bell’s firm Union Electric Steel (formerly Davy Roll) at Gateshead exports about 85% of product. Big issues now are exchange rates – some good, some bad. “Our supply chain tends to be international. We try to buy in cheap and have tried China. It works quite well, good in quality. You just never knew which year it was going to arrive. So we came back ‘local’ – which for us is Europe.”

Marc Hutchinson covers the UK, North America, West Africa, and Malaysia as head of local procurement with Duco at Wallsend (part of the French group Technip). He said: “I have noticed, for many organisations, how difficult it appears to be to find in a vertical supply chain innovation and creativity, and new ideas that we can get through the supply chain.” As a Tier 2 supplier into the Shells and BPs of offshore, he also finds some difficulty in accessing the supply chain. “Engineers with big manufacturers tend to specify to the

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TAKING PART Simon Miller, senior business development manager (group), BAE Systems Graeme Parkins, managing director, Dyer Engineering Keith Miller, chairman, Miller Ground Breaking Andrew Upton, deputy managing director, Seaward Electronics Kevin Gaul, projects director, Tharsus Alan Lloyd, yard director, Heerema Hartlepool Marc Hutchinson, head of global procurement, Technip Kate Powell, director, Deloitte Tom Vallance, director, Deloitte Stephen Learney, managing director, Haskel Steve Bell MBE, managing director, Union Electric Steel Cameron Ross, lead manufacturing advisor, MAS Joanne Pratt, fund manager, FW Capital Chris Ford, managing director, Ford Components Roger O’Brien, director, AMAP Linda Billings, chief operations officer, A-Belco Chairing: Caroline Theobald, Bridge Club Ltd Also attending: Brian Nicholls. editor, BQ; Kevin Gibson, KG Photography; Heather Spacey, Rachael Laschke and Audrey Atkinson (Room 501) facilitators Hosting: Deloitte Venue: The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle

BQ is highly regarded as a leading independent commentator on business issues, many of which have a bearing on the current and future success of the region’s business economy. BQ Live is a series of informative debates designed to further contribute to the success and prosperity of our regional economy through the debate, discussion and feedback of a range of key business topics and issues.

nth degree the requirements and cascade this down the supply chain. So there’s lots of experience and knowledge in the supply chain untapped. That’s a bugbear.”

Simon Miller works in munitions at BAE Systems Washington (previously the Royal Ordnance factory at Birtley). He led the team that built the £75m plant and ran it for two years before entering business development. His frustration is seeking a guarantee that all bits from the supply chain will hit his production schedule. “During early negotiations it’s more about price, whereas for the guy receiving the goods quality is so

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important.” Manufacturing schedules have tightened and there isn’t much local now. “We do some heat treatment ourselves but also go to the Midlands. The quantity of supply isn’t available in the North East. One local company we do use is limited in what it can offer. I’d like to see quality a focus in the supply chain.

Goods delivered on time and at the right price isn’t enough if quality isn’t right.

Working in top-end defence, we especially suffer from that.”

Cameron Ross came to Manufacturing Advisory Service (now part of Business Growth Service) with an engineering background, including 10 years with Nissan. The Government has asked MAS to help people get into supply chains, and also to help people with supply chain issues. Presently MAS is working on an offshore growth programme.

“When the London Array offshore wind

project was built, over 90% of the components weren’t British. The Government has said that’s wrong and we must do something about it.

So a lot of effort is going into trying to make people supply chain capable and aware of how to get into it.” The nuclear sector and one or two other areas may also be looked at, subject to the outcome of the General Election in May. MAS is regularly asked for help in tracing local firms capable of supplying, and also hears from larger companies with supply chain issues.

Kevin Gaul explained how Tharsus at Blyth, an assembly and test organisation, reduces clients’ risk of designing something original that ends up impossible to manufacture.

“We totally depend on our supply chain,” he says. “We also use a limited amount of labour to deter customers from taking the actual manufacturing overseas. We struggle to find suitable suppliers – certainly in advanced

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technology areas – other than in far flung corners of the world.”

Andrew Upton who with Seaward Group at Peterlee, manufacturer of electrical test equipment, has worked in the USA for four years, told how the supply chain goes through cycles of outsourcing then bringing back in.

Seaward struggles for supply chain support during innovation. “It’s a case of trying to persuade them of benefits later. It also has difficulty in recruiting engineers. “We do our own R&D and develop engineers from scratch.

Maybe we could take advantage of good skillsets abroad.”

Stephen Learney says Haskell at Washington, maker of pneumatically driven, high-pressure liquid pumps, gas boosters, air pressure amplifiers, and high pressure systems, reckons there will always be gaps in his firm’s needs from the supply chain. >>

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“The North East is no different to anywhere else.” Tracing specialised steels and other basics is difficult. He’d like to see less antagonism in negotiation. “Many people vital to the supply chain aren’t very professional, particularly in purchasing. I think I’d really struggle to get the right quality of purchasing people.” One person his firm trained up over two years left for another company but that didn’t reduce the company’s belief in the importance of training in purchasing.

Linda Billings at A-Belco, the Ashington manufacture of explosion proof equipment for the oil, gas, pharmaceutical and petrochemical industries globally, describes that firm as at both ends of the supply chain, with diverse difficulties. In construction, she said, it seems to be a drive to almost avoid paying for anything done up the chain. “Some customers do supply finance – a great help and we look to see more of that.” The company also supplies engineering co-ordination skills so the supply chain includes recruitment agencies.

“Again, we suffer from being unable to recruit engineers. We can get them out of London but they want London rates. That becomes uneconomical.” The company finds providers of apprentices often can’t give the training needed. “We’ve had to send our apprentices to some of our suppliers for help with training.

That shouldn’t be happening.” There should be adequate training courses for everything around the North East.” Transport links across the UK can also be difficult. “We try to buy local. But it’s not always possible, and getting things in and out of the North East can be difficult.”

Tom Vallance discussed the business environment for the region’s manufacturers, noting that an important part of this remains the tax landscape against which these businesses operate. Generous and valuable tax

reliefs are available for innovative businesses, and a significant amount of Deloitte’s work with manufacturers in the North East involves supporting investment through successfully accessing such reliefs – from delivering tax efficient capital investment, to maximising innovation tax reliefs such as R&D tax credits and access to the Patent Box regime. While uptake among manufacturing businesses is generally good, many businesses were still either missing out completely, or failing to realise the full benefit of the help available to them in this area.

Graeme Parkins bought Dyer Engineering of Annfield Plain in partnership in 2013 – a company now making a range of product from small “widgets” to 20 ton structures for oil rigs. Besides its serial and batch production and one-off orders, it’s a Tier 1 supplier to Cummins diesel engines.

With the lower oil and gas prices, whereas a customer might previously have design managed a job then sub-contracted it to Dyer, that sort of customer is looking to cut costs by partnering in a joint venture – benefiting Dyer.

“It’s a good example of how manufacturers can work with the supply chain,” he observes.

However, the skills shortage threatens there too. “As a boy I went to an NEI apprentice school,” he recalled. “Large organisations ran big apprentice schools. Apprentices not needed were fed into smaller businesses.

Those big businesses don’t exist now. We’ve 15 apprentices. But it’s very expensive to have a machine just for training. It’s great the Government makes a noise about 200,000 apprentices. But we need some commitment to investment for training facilities. Colleges are great. But their technologies are those of up to 20 years ago, not what we use today.”

Joanne Pratt explained how a big part of fund manager FW Capital portfolio in the

Some customers just go for the price and hammer you down. Some want to work together. I think that’s where the supply chain should go

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North East is for manufacturers. She recounted how a talent hunt initiated by Tees Valley’s LEP countered banks’ demands for security when offering funding for big jobs. “Often companies in the supply chain don’t have the cash to supply that. We can provide that finance and encourage the larger businesses to use the smaller businesses within their supply chain. It would be good to raise awareness of schemes like that.”

Roger O’Brien said the Institute for Automotive and Manufacturing Advanced Practice, part of University of Sunderland, offers manufacturing support around R&D, also skills development.

“We have to ensure graduates and postgraduates can enter industry ready and able to interface with the necessary skills.” The university is about to make a new commitment to advanced manufacturing, he disclosed. The North East Manufacturing Forum is also trying to bring together manufacturers.

Keith Miller told how Miller Group at Cramlington makes advanced attachments for groundbreaking vehicles, serving the like of JCB, Volvo and Komatsu, with operations in Australia, India, and a joint venture in China. It too is at both ends of the supply chain. “When you want to develop a product no-one is interested unless you will place an order with them,” he agreed. “Or they want to steal the intellectual property.” When the group designed a revolutionary bucket, the British foundry’s casting was “awful.”

A Chinese supplier had a product made at a third of the price, the quality four or five times better. Now China, with exchange rates and living costs changing, is becoming less competitive. We’re reviewing our position.” His firm has developed an electronic device in the cab to operate vehicles more efficiently. The product is popular but supply is a nightmare and prices have doubled. It is currently being sold at a loss.

South Tyneside’s Ford Group making aerospace and other parts, is quite far up the supply chain and, says managing director Chris Ford: “Some customers just go for the price and hammer you down. Some want to work together. I think that’s where the supply chain should go.”

A-Belco at Ashington invests heavily in R&D, Linda Billings says, and uses the R&D credit

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A lot of effort is going into trying to make people supply chain capable and aware of how to get into it

scheme. But creating jobs in manufacturing seems undervalued politically, she feels.

“They want high tech jobs paying perhaps £30,000 a year. They don’t want to assist over manufacturing jobs at minimum wage.

Unskilled people need the jobs that we could give.”

Simon Miller questioned that. “We’re measured by jobs created and jobs safeguarded,” he said. “They’re not saying, what’s the salary? They’re wanting full time jobs.”

Linda Billings: “But if you’re trying to access the Let’s Grow Fund you’re up against quality of job. We’ve been told a few times, ‘you can’t access that money.’”

Simon Miller: “My opinion is that’s the way plant managers are managing the plant.

Measurement is not the quality of a job but provision of a full time job.”

Is there a tax allowance for businesses wishing to spend £15,000 to £20,000 a year to train an apprentice, it was asked? Tom Vallance

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replied: “Not from a corporate perspective.

Money’s there but on a grant basis.”

One participant complained about “a very complex system” surrounding grants.

Joanne Pratt replied: “I think the key is to target one individual who understands. If they can’t help they might know someone who can.

We get enquiries. While we may not always be able to help directly we may be able to refer them on.”

Roger O’Brien: “We’re not very good as a region at signposting help.” Another participant said grants were there. “You have to push. Don’t wait for it to come to you.

People do want to help.”

Alan Lloyd affirmed: “It does pay dividends to keep at it. Keep chasing till a door opens.”

Cameron Ross suggested it pays senior executives to network. “The LEPs are doing something and there are moves afoot.”

Alan Lloyd said colleges know who can help about taking on young people. Graeme Parkins pointed out that when the >>

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Government talks about 200,000 apprentices, that’s funding going into the education system not to the businesses.

Roger O’Brien, confirming the skills shortage and problem of an ageing workforce, said his university is helping businesses to form introductions. Linda Billings’ company has formed links with Lancaster University to get young engineers. “We’d love to employ more in this area,” she added.

Roger O’Brien said that, even if the university couldn’t meet a particular skill demand, schemes and transfer partnerships exist with attractive grant funding. A participant whose company had benefited from a grant said it had definitely helped. Keith Miller offered to share emails about some problems if that would help.

Marc Hutchinson mentioned how anything up to 80% of revenue will be on material costs which an individual or team is being charged with managing. So their skills, knowledge and behaviour are important to the success of the supply chain and one’s margins. Often the individuals have ended up moved into purchasing from roles in administration, engineering or project management. “How many would know whether the purchasing, procurement or supply chain person is a professionally qualified individual in their organisation?” he asked.

There was no single answer. But Chris Ford had intentionally brought in a qualified person to go through things line by line with suppliers.

Andrew Lloyd supported that policy but suggested: “No matter how good or well qualified a person, if he’s not an expert in

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If they’re launching a new product, almost at sketch stage they invite our expertise. Other customers have you very much in the horse trading situation the field you’ll never get what you want initially. You have to take time to invest to get the honeymoon right, then build on that relationship. We’ve seen one or two people come through the door and go because the experience has been difficult to take on board.”

Marc Hutchinson: “There’s a cost factor in hiring or developing someone with the right skills. But if they’re responsible for a significant part of your spend saving in your supply chain – in price, schedule or quality – or even just keep hold on inflation that’s going to straighten the bottom line.”

Stephen Learney, who agreed, would happily circulate information about collaborative rather than antagonistic negotiation.

During eight years in the USA Andrew Upton found dealing with buyers refreshing. “It’s very much open. You feel part of their company.

All the way through it’s very harmonious.

There are fresh ways in which we can work and be successful.”

Kevin Gaul, on skills gaps, said his company with many apprentices has transfer partnerships. “Ability to influence the customer makes the whole supply chain management easier. That’s one of our goals.” His company

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works with customers on their IP but they keep it. Further down the supply chain the customer owns the IP. “If we sold their IP to a competitor our relationship would not last.”

Roger O’Brien cited Toyota’s policy of putting their IP into the public domain, and a lot of their patents around fuel cells to accelerate the market to mutual benefit. “It’s a brave step.”

Stephen Learney believed that had worked well. Graeme Parkins praised the value of trade organisations, such as NOF Energy, for signposting and advice but hadn’t been able to access the rail or nuclear industries.

Marc Hutchinson felt NDI worth exploring.

Originally in defence, they are also in surveillance. Chris Ford said ADS, serving the UK aerospace, defence, security and space industries, doesn’t often get into the North East. So tightly knit is aerospace, it’s hard to get in. “To get an Airbus approval would take years.”

Simon Miller stressed the importance of explaining consequences – for example, how failure of a part might take an oil rig out.

“We have supplier days where visitors see products in action they’ve contributed to.

We use the fact we’re supplying British servicemen who have to defend themselves

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in hostile environments others probably wouldn’t want to step foot into.”

Steve Bell: “We have purchasing people trying to tell us what we want to buy because it suits their make.”

Marc Hutchinson – who is “quite heavily involved with the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply” - advocates procurement and purchasing people appreciative of the business strategy and the market dynamics: expert at gathering intelligence and marketing data, drafting contracts, understanding law, and being professional negotiators – “not just people who want to reduce the price.” He suggests teams where the procurement person can rely on engineering and project colleagues.

Joanne Pratt spoke of catalyst funding.

Tees Valley LEP had asked businesses what prevented them from growing? Many SMEs were struggling for funding over new contracts because customers wanted a performance bond or advanced guarantee that they hadn’t the cash for: money needed up front to buy materials was being sucked up by the banks.

The LEP secured a pot of cash to help. “We now provide the businesses’ cash for the bank essentially. Once the performance bond has matured or the warranty period has finished, the bank will return the cash to us.” The finance cost makes little difference to gross margins, she added. The scheme now runs in other parts of the North East and Yorkshire.

Andrew Lloyd: “We don’t impose on anybody down the chain but it’s creeping into conversations. A lot of companies we deal with probably would struggle if we imposed performance bonds.” Would his firm be more likely to work with businesses offering a bond?

“I don’t think it would swing it. Trust remains a big factor.”

Linda Billings finds it common in construction because of concerns about consequences if something along the way disrupted their project.

Kate Powell: “Its great that we’re been talking about the potential and opportunity to change things and to reshape these traditional supply chain relationships.”

Keith Miller said people in procurement needed to be trained and allowed to make mistakes. A whole line of people was

unnecessary if the purchasing person could talk to someone with the necessary expertise.

Linda Billings said that where her firm has a supplier providing more than 20% of its purchasing, an acquisition is considered, to add to group profit. Kate Powell told of clients supporting each other in bonding needs. “People are beginning to be more innovative.”

Graeme Parkins spoke of his firm’s “excellent” relations with Cummins, an American corporation that has invested massively in his organisation. “If they’re launching a new product, almost at sketch stage they invite our expertise. Other customers have you very much in the horse trading situation.” His company is setting up a graduate exchange whereby

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trainees can experience three months in each other’s business.

Chris Ford’s company has set up an academy for traineeships, pre-apprenticeships, in conjunction with South Tyneside College, about 16 students at a time. There are local businesses prepared to take these students on placements period too.

Graeme Parkins: “Something like that at Derwentside would be fantastic.” Cameron Ross suggested approaching South Tyneside College since colleges don’t just work locally now. Keith Miller felt such facilities help young people to realise engineering’s full picture. Andrew Lloyd: “We’ve a road show trying to make it sexy in schools and colleges.” n

Optimism within North East manufacturing Despite operating in unpredictable and unforgiving times, members of the North East’s manufacturing community are committed to seeking new ways of working with a global supply chain to deliver greater benefits and to minimise risk.

Sat around the table at the recent BQ Live debate with businesses focused on different parts of the supply chain, and many finding themselves at both ends, I was delighted to see the positive attitudes which were, without exception, focused on open and collaborative working in order to reshape traditional supply chain relationships.

Gone are the days of arm’s-length relationships based solely on price and delivery dates. What I found was a desire to focus on ways of working that would ensure quality and enough flexibility to allow for greater innovation.

The talk, more often than not, was focused around the needs of the end customer, working towards a common goal and trusting your suppliers.

The issues that were discussed were very much aligned with those that we experience in conversations with clients and based around the pressures of being part of a large national and international supply chain, namely: cost, deadlines, availability, skills, innovation, and access to finance.

However, despite greater exposure to pressures on cost and quality, it was felt that the best ways to mitigate and minimise risk were to establish closer, more cooperative relationships rather than punitive measures, such as performance bonds or advanced guarantees.

What’s most important in the North East is that these manufacturers are supported in their ambition to build a better, more valuable supply chain. That means creating the right economic and regulatory environment to do so by encouraging future governments to take the necessary steps.

Which is why Deloitte is a member of the All-party Parliamentary Manufacturing Group, who work cross-party bringing together Parliamentarians and manufacturing industry organisations to ensure a broad and deep understanding of the issues and progressing the development of new industrial policy ideas. Supply chains are a key area of focus specifically how we can unlock their potential in areas such as innovation, skills, finance and taxation and trade and investment and we see them as being fundamental to the future sustainable growth of the manufacturing sector.

Kate Powell, North East Manufacturing Lead, Deloitte.

Tel: 0191 202 5591. Email: Katpowell@deloitte.co.uk

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COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

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Demand set to increase but shotage of space remains a concern, mixed business hub sold, firm set for record year as it marks 25th anniversary, church on the market, established hotels raise game >> Things are picking up Better property fortunes for the North East are expected this year with increasing occupier and investor demand – though insufficient space could slow progress.

Adam Serfontein, managing director of Hanro, estimates a shortage of “pretty much everything” but out of town offices, where 1m sq ft are available through Cobalt and Quorum. “The North East has never seen a lot of speculative development, so no particularly large overhang of stock,” he says.

“Rarely is there more than 12 months’ takeup – and a reasonably substantial commercial development can take up to 24 months to provide. So quite a few of us in the sector are limbering up to provide more stock.”

The G9 Group of chartered surveyors predicts: • Industrials strongest • Retail weakest, High Street facing shift in dynamics • Supply of industrial space critically low • Likewise city centre Grade A office space • Some rental growth improving viability of office development perhaps • Macro issues in Europe possibly impacting on regional manufacturing • Inward investment and regional branding areas of concern, and • The region’s public sector perhaps stepping in to resolve funding issues G9 comprises: BNP Paribas Real Estate, DTZ, ES Group, Gavin Black & Partners, GVA, HTA Real Estate, Knight Frank, Lambert Smith Hampton, Sanderson Weatherall, Sykes Property Consultants and Naylors Chartered Surveyors.

Industrial prospects rise with ongoing expansion of Nissan’s supply chain, and a supply chain building for Hitachi Rail Europe at Newton Aycliffe.

Up to 250,000sq ft of industrial development will be completed or on stream during 2015 – insufficient to meet a backlog of enquiries, G9 suggests. Office take-up during 2014 exceeded the five year average, with just under 800,000sq ft let across out-of-town and Newcastle city centre markets.

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Opening time: Tsukasa Fuji, chief operating officer of Calsonic Kansei Europe and Councillor Paul Watson, Sunderland City Council leader, unveil the plaque

>> Expanding car parts Car parts manufacturer Calsonic Kansei has invested £800,000 in opening a 100,000sq ft warehouse building at Doxford International Technology Park, Sunderland.

It is the firm’s fourth location in the city, giving it over 500,000sq ft in all. Calsonic Kansei, which employs 1,400 to make exhaust systems, plastic parts and dashboards, invested £4.5m in Sunderland during 2014, including an extension to its Washington plant. It will export 25% of its exhaust products to the Nissan Renault group across Europe and has won new business from Nissan for the Infiniti model.

Patrick Matheson at Knight Frank says the average city centre deal during 2014 was a bit higher than previously at 4,375sq ft. The average out of town deal is 5,388sq ft. Chris Pearson at Gavin Black & Partners adds there are just two city centre buildings on-site, the 14,000sq ft Liveworks and The Rocket at Stephenson Quarter which will deliver 35,000sq ft for occupation in July.

Knight Frank predicts strong rental growth with new development completions securing higher prime rents, up to £25 per sq ft.

A survey for G9 by Dobson Marketing says so far projects have required public intervention to assist with funding, some of it innovative such as that for Stephenson Quarter.

In retail, online competition and discounters, who have already hit market towns and sub-centres, will test the High Street even more. But some major centres have recovered.

Convenience store development is buoyant.

G9 says the UK should remain in Europe to

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protect its export trade if membership terms can be amended to ensure “a level playing field” with other states. And it regrets “lack of a cohesive approach to inward investment across the region”.

It wants the NELEP to communicate more over funds available and set aside money for speculative development. It advocates a return to “gap funding”, where public money helps initiate development.

Meanwhile, the North East’s largest speculative industrial development for more than eight years is being brought forward.

Northumberland Estates’ £12m development on 12 acres of Tyne Tunnel Trading Estate in North Tyneside could accommodate 200 jobs at up to eight Grade A sheds or warehouses, ranging from 14,000 to 80,000sq ft. Gateshead’s first speculative industrial development in six years is under way too at Portobello Trade Park, through Ravensworth Property Development,

Supporting Innovation Automotive Automotive & & Manufacturing Manufacturing in Manufacturing Advanced Advanced Practice Practice

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COMMERCIAL PROPERTY >> Business hub realises £23.45m Lingfield Point, Darlington’s mixed property development created from the world’s largest wool factory, has been sold for £23.45m into a fund managed by Clearbell, an independent investor in UK property.

Various businesses now at Lingfield Point employ more than 2,500 people. Marchday, which bought Lingfield Point in 1998, invested millions in upgrading office space. With Clearbell’s investment now Lingfield Point is expected to continue developing as a regional mixed use hub.

John Orchard, director at Marchday, said: “Last year the first new homes opened at Lingfield Point – fulfilling our ambition to have people living on site as they did in Patons and Baldwins’ heyday.”

P&B’s origins went back to the 1770s and start-up businesses using the Samuel Crompton spinning mule in Halifax and Alloa.

In 1951 the headquarters was relocated from Halifax to Darlington, where the single storey factory employing 4,000 people was developed at a cost of £7.5m. A merger with J&P Coats followed in 1961, but in 1999 the business finally closed.

Business success stories there now include the Student Loans Company (SLC), resident since 2008 and now employing more than 1,300 people – almost double the number since it first set up in Darlington. It has recently taken

11,000sq ft more. Space is still available, ranging from 1,880sq ft to 15,080sq ft.

Facilities include a bistro café, a nursery, and concierge service. It provides social amenities and has been hosting an annual Festival of Thrift drawing visitors from as far as Devon and London. The first attracted 27,000 visitors wanting to save money and live more sustainably, and last year 40,000 attended.

It has not been announced yet whether this festival will continue there.

>> New city quarter Opening of The Core building has established Newcastle’s multi-million pound Science Central development as a new quarter of the city centre. The building, already 90% let, offers office space for firms working on future city issues such as energy, transport, big data and cloud computing. The £11.2m building, owned by Newcastle City Council and managed by Creative Space Management, already has as tenants Urban Foresight, a consultancy for urban ecosystems, transport and energy sectors and Axivity, a firm relocated from York that creates movement sensors.

It’s funded through the European Union Regional Development Fund, Regional Growth Fund and Newcastle City Council.

>> 25 years up Naylors Chartered Surveyors is celebrating 25 years in business, expecting 2015 to be its most successful year in property consultancy.

The Newcastle and Middlesbrough based firm last year disposed of more than 1.3m sq ft of commercial space. It achieved East Durham’s largest office let for more than a decade – at Whitehouse Park. The building consultancy team handled construction works topping £2m and 80 properties are now under management.

Founder Bill Naylor says the firm is now the region’s largest independent in the regional sector.

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Silver celebration: The growing team at Naylors celebrate 25 years

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>> Shopping recovers Stockton’s earlier beleaguered town centre retail is recovering as a £38m regeneration of the borough takes effect. More than 40 businesses opened, expanded or relocated there in 2014. RBS research suggests 3% plus economic growth – a pacesetter in the North East – as 85% of the units on the High Street have filled and Castlegate Centre is 96% let.

>> Taking shape A £2m refurbishment of business units and retail space is under way at Midland House in Linthorpe, Middlesbrough. JR Property Development is behind the scheme, to be rebranded as Central Point, being virtually a gateway site to Teesside University’s main access.

Two retail units have been let, and 12 businesses have taken space on the first floor business centre.

>> Centre sold on The Regent Centre office complex at Gosforth has been sold in an off-market deal to a private family-owned property firm represented by Sheffield based Omnia Offices. Regent Centre management staff have joined Omnia, and letting agents Knight Frank and BNP Paribas Real Estate have been retained.

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>> New-look units Major refurbishment of 22 industrial/ trade counter units at Armstrong Industrial Estate, Washington, complete a £200,000 makeover by Silverstone Building Consultancy for owners IO Asset Management, which acquired the premises from Valad last year. Units range from 2,900sq ft to 12,472sq ft.

>> ‘New village’ plan Hargreaves Services of Durham is after planning consent to develop a virtual new village – 1,600 homes, a school, community facilities and commercial units – on the site of a former opencast mine in East Lothian.

The mining and bulk material logistics firm acquired Blindwells site, near Tranent, in 2013

COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

from liquidators of collapsed Scottish Coal, in a portfolio of around 30,000 acres of land.

The 300-acre site overlooks the Firth of Forth and with housing approval already there, could be a commuter settlement for Edinburgh.

>> Two more hotels

>> Looks different Cosmetic wholesaler Kans and Kandy has relocated from South Shields to Foxcover in East Durham, where it will neighbour the online kitchen and appliance firm Andrew James UK. Both are in units bought after Cumbrian Seafoods went bust.

>> Odyssey expands

A new five-storey Premier Inn of 125 bedrooms, a £7.5m investment at Hind Street, Sunderland, will bring 50 jobs and two apprenticeships on opening this year.

Owner Whitbread also plans an 80 bed hotel for Feethams Leisure Development in Darlington, increasing Whitbread’s UK bedrooms from 54,000 to 75,000 by 2018.

>> 30 job throw-in

Telecoms specialist Odyssey Systems has bought a building opposite its head office on Preston Farm Industrial Estate, Stockton,

Grade II listed church on the market

quadrupling space available and making 20,000sq ft of fully fitted facility available to tenants. Eight more recruits will take the workforce to 40.

A new Aldi store near Whitley Bay FC’s ground is creating 30 full time jobs.

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Meridian House, Kingsway North, Team Valley, Gateshead 2,600 m.sq (28,000 sq.ft) approx Ground floor office and production space.

560 m.sq (6,000 sq.ft) First floor office space available.

>> Ready to convert The Grade II listed West Park United Reformed Church (above) in Sunderland, built in 1883, is for sale: guide price: £385,000. Agents Sanderson Weatherall are handling. The church stands near University of Sunderland, the Civic Centre and Park Lane Transport Interchange.

Currently a place of worship and performance venue, it could be adapted, subject to planning consent.

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For more information call: Nick Atkinson at HTA Real Estate Ltd Tel: 0191

245 1234

or Keith Stewart at Naylors Tel: 0191 232 7030

Scan code for details

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COMMERCIAL PROPERTY

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Things to come: How Rockliffe Hall’s new spa garden may look

>> Al fresco dining A rooftop terrace features in multi-million pound plans for a new restaurant area at Intu Eldon Square in Newcastle. Around £22m is going into the centre’s biggest refurbishment since its 1977 opening, and a Grey’s Quarter food area will include 21 food outlets. Refurbishment of two malls with a dining quarter at the centre’s Sidgate and High Friars shopping streets has council approval.

>> To the Manor born >> Added value is the key at established hotels As new hotels spring up in the region, existing ones are adding to their appeal this year. They include three Newcastle hotels owned by Malhotra Group – plus one the Newcastle family firm has just bought at Whitley Bay. Malhotra plans to revamp Grey Street Hotel in the city centre and the New Northumbria Hotel in Jesmond will be under way soon, while the Three Mile Inn at Gosforth, which has planning consent for a new 67 bed hotel, is getting an additional restaurant and coffee house. At Whitley Bay more than 30 jobs have been saved through acquisition of the seafronting Rex Hotel, which was in administration but is now to be improved and upgraded.

The hotel, launched in 1907, has traded throughout. Elsewhere, three hotels are developing spa and leisure facilities. The privately owned 53 bedroom Matfen Hall Hotel, near Chollerford and the Roman Wall, has spent £300,000 transforming its spa and leisure attraction. Managing the new Aqua Vitae Spa is Tracey Lilburn, twice winner of the training category in British Beauty and Spa Awards. She has a team of 21 running the facility, open to residents and non-residents. At Hurworth, Darlington, the 5* AA Rockliffe Hall, will open next autumn a ‘spa garden’. Adjacent to the current spa, it will have two outdoor hot pools including a hydrotherapy pool with massage features and a warm Jacuzzi, underfloor heated decking and lounging areas, a garden room with glass-fronted sauna cabin, fire pit, water feature, landscaped gardens with views across the hotel grounds and heated relaxation loungers.

Wharton Construction of Darlington is managing the 200m square project now under way. Liz Holmes is spa director there.

Ramside Hall Hotel and Golf Club, along with £15m of developments under way, is introducing a cut-price flexible golf membership. England’s newest golf course opened there last September, making the venue County Durham’s only 36 hole golf resort.

Golfers can now pay for only as much golf as they wish to play. The £15m investment includes a new health club, spa, swimming pool, gymnasium, 47 more bedrooms and 34 executive homes built on the estate. The leisure facilities are expected to open this spring and summer.

At Washington, the Mercure Newcastle George Washington Hotel has had £250,000 invested in a new orangery and outside terrace, giving the 103 bed hotel and spa 2,000sq ft of dining and event space to a capacity of 220. Malhotra Group, which also runs care homes, last year opened a new 50-bed care home in Newcastle’s West End. It now has a similar 67-bed facility under way at Melton Park, Gosforth, and will develop an 88-bed care home in Alnwick this spring following a successful planning appeal. The group, owning and running also leisure and commercial property ventures, plans six more sites throughout the region. Turnover last year was £22.1m, a 14% increase giving over £8.8m pre-tax profits, against £1.59m previously. Under founder and chairman Meenu Malhotra, the group employs 800 people.

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The historic Manor House at Sedgefield is under new ownership as Manor House 1707 and now serves as a business centre with 17 offices to let, as well as rooms and space for events and meetings.

Managing director Ean Parsons says it will also have a more active role in the local community. Early business tenants have been confirmed.

>> One Life revived One Life medical building in Middlesbrough has changed hands for £12.3m. Assura, which owns 233 medical centres across the country and has a contracted rent roll of £48.9m, bought the property from Teessidebased Park Medical Services, a group of GPs who developed it.

Newcastle law firm Sintons advised Park Medical Services. The purchase by Assura follows shortly after its £62.5m acquisition of 32 medical venues owned by North East based Trinity Medical Properties, in which Sintons was also involved.

>> Opening Gates Plans are being considered to transform Durham City’s Gates shopping centre, featuring a multi-screen cinema, restaurants, cafes, student flats and a new parade of shops. Clearbell, a private equity real estate fund management business, recently bought the 130,000sq ft centre for £11.85m and wants also to include a new shopping street with riverside walk.

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LIFE’S A GAS FOR ELDON His drinks company’s roots may be old but the growth strategy Eldon Robson is laying down for 2015 is definitely of the hour, as he explains to Brian Nicholls

ENTREPRENEUR

New year, new strategy. The distinctive Fentimans brand of botanically brewed drinks may have its ‘roots’ in 1905 if you’ll pardon the pun. But the business drive behind it should definitely make 2015 its vintage year, given the firm’s enviable 29% growth rate currently, the negotiations going on to quench thirsts in China and India, and plans to start a third manufacturing operation in Germany.

Already into 51 countries after 20 years of mass production, Fentimans presently has Japan and New Zealand as its markets furthest flung from home town Hexham, where the workforce has risen to 34 and a local relocation from its Battle Hill birthplace to somewhere larger is increasingly pressing.

His may still be a small business by trade definitions. But founder Eldon Robson, tanned, slim and looking fitter than ever in his early 60s, is not deterred in his plans. “In India we know where we should be looking but things ground to a halt recently with the elections there. India is a definite opportunity but import duty there is very high so we’ll have to do what we do in the USA. We’ll have to manufacture over there but first find a suitable partner – easier said than done.”

Japan, though, has already been a customer for 10 years. Forays into New Zealand began by sending out Fentimans drinks for Christmas hampers. “But now we’re dealing with the

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biggest distributor of spirits in New Zealand,” Robson reports. “We’re reference checking at the moment and once that’s over we’ll be sending a lot more stuff out there.”

Labelling for New Zealand should be fairly straightforward though progress into China may put a strain on the resources employing five languages now. And logistical nightmare though Robson admits labelling is, there’s no reason to believe the challenge will not be met successfully.

Exports account for 30% of product. Belgium, Austria and Switzerland are big foreign markets, but Spain’s is the biggest collectively.

There the company does an own range of tonic waters for a company in the south of the country, and has a distributor in Barcelona.

A BQ spot check with retailers at the Northumbrian outlets of Belsay Hall and Kirkharle, and at Raitt hamlet in Perthshire, confirmed Fentimans drinks continue to go down well in this country too. “Our UK level of business may look high on a graph,” Robson elaborates. “But if you add up all the lesser spikes elsewhere, the little bumps when they start to grow the sum will be bigger. So exports to us are very important.

“Britishness is something people underestimate here. The world respects British goods very strongly and we ought to take more pride in what we do. Fentimans has a reputation >>

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ENTREPRENEUR

for quality and integrity, things I regard as absolutely crucial when I develop a new product.

“I always try to get a product right first and worry about the cost afterwards, because when you’re a small company guarding the integrity of your brand is absolutely vital.

Big manufacturers may come in, look at ingredients then buy something of inferior quality. I could name a brand that did that but I don’t want to get into trouble.

“You wouldn’t believe the due diligence we go through in producing our own flavours and that sort of thing – where we source our raw materials, the date on these things and where they were processed and all that stuff.

As a natural product, every now and again something will come up out of the blue and throw a spanner in the works so you need absolute control over these sorts of things.”

Robson has long believed in the value of premiumisation in food and drink, and the

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Britishness is something people underestimate here. The world respects British goods very strongly and we ought to take more pride in what we do 29% growth today bears it out. “We didn’t seem to suffer during the recession,” he says.

“When I first kicked the business off it was very difficult to make people understand why they should pay such a lot of money for a bottle of ginger beer.

“But premiumisation has been to the fore in food and drink for quite a while now. A lot of mass produced brands lack quality, whereas people are prepared now to pay more for something that’s decent. That may sound a bit odd coming from an old fashioned company

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but we’re actually ahead of the game.”

The sediment in the bottom of a bottle of Fentimans ginger beer, for example, is pure Chinese ginger. Robson would never claim to be a modern day medicine man. But he does point out: “Ginger’s very good for all sorts of things we’re not allowed to advertise on the label.”

Customer feedback over the years, however, suggests Fentimans ginger beer is good for bronchial problems and for sickness and nausea brought on by pregnancy and >>

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ENTREPRENEUR treatment by chemo- and radiotherapy. “My stuff is pure and natural,” he stresses, “and without making any false claims it certainly helps certain conditions.”

So to the new strategy, centred on five or six existing mixers. Within five or six years they may overtake the core product, Robson believes, because of the international nature of the mixer market. “Wherever gin, brandy and whisky go mixers go,” he points out.

“We’re one of the few companies making premium mixers, and in export markets they fit in.”

So the big job awaiting a newly appointed marketing head is to devise a mixer strategy.

“We’re going to put a big plan around that, doing showcase events and that sort of thing – bringing it to the fore with buyers and consumers,” Robson says enthusiastically.

In addition, products in the making during 2014 have included an elderflower drink.

“The process has taken quite a long time,” Robson admits. “That’s because the elderflowers have to be picked. Our unique selling point is that we use wild English elderflowers, and the window for picking them is the end of May into June.

“Within 24 hours of picking them you must process them. We turn them into a sugar syrup we then store in packs so it’s there to be used when we do the finished product.

The ones we don’t use we freeze for use at a later date. Whereas 2014 was a bit of a learning curve for that, this year we’ll be going at it full tilt.

“We didn’t want to go berserk at first. It’s a process we’re trying to adjust to, and the people we are using – a company in Hereford is processing the flowers for us – has limited capacity. Now we definitely know what we’re doing and will definitely expand that a lot.”

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And the other new products? “We launched a new mixer in July, a 1905 purple tonic. We’ve also another tonic water we’re developing – not quite there with it yet, but it’s at late stages of development.”

You might think that with all these openings it would be opportune to engage with venture capital. But Robson’s longstanding apathy to such a liaison continues. “Steering clear of venture capital is a personal thing for me,” he admits. “Some people probably have to resort to it. We didn’t have much money for our start-up, to be honest.

“But we did get a £40,000 loan from HSBC in 1996. We’d been going for a while and wanted to expand. The loan came through the government backed loan scheme for small firms. I had to pay it back within three years which I did, so that was a good cushion. Apart from that there haven’t been any borrowings other than a bank overdraft and that sort of thing. “Someone who worked for me some years ago wanted to bring in a venture capital company but I said we’d expand at our own rate. You have control that way and are less likely to make any mistakes. At the end of the day you never know how far you’re going to go with something.

If you give away equity when you’re struggling early on, the equity turns into an awful lot of money later as you do get cracking. It’s just a personal thing.”

Robson doesn’t talk turnover but he does talk cases. “Whereas in the first year of business the company turned over 20,000 cases,” he recalls, “now from what it turns over from the UK base, and from what Fentimans North America produces, we’re a 2.5m case brand.

That sounds good. But it has taken 20 years to get there and we haven’t finished yet.

“Setting up in America was quite a struggle,

I always try to get a product right first and worry about the cost afterwards, because when you’re a small company guarding the integrity of your brand is absolutely vital BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

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to be honest. We invested quite a bit to do it.

While it’s not a huge part of the business it’s still growing, and at least you don’t have all your eggs in one basket.”

As for the German project: “We’ve sent terms of agreement across to quite a substantial brewing company there and nothing negative has come back. It will be quite a coup if this comes off. We may end up manufacturing there sometime this year.”

In the UK Fentimans works through two breweries now: Robinsons Brewery at Stockport, its original manufacturer, and Thomas Hardy at Burtonwood and Kendal.

“And of course,” he adds impishly, “we manufacture also in Pennsylvania – based where the Amish are. I don’t think they drink my stuff. They don’t like to sup with the devil.”

But, judging from those cases being sold increasingly, a lot of us still do. n

Boyhood fun revived it The original Fentimans family business founded in 1905 sold their famous ginger beer, vinegar, orangeade and other drinks to rich and poor alike around the doors of the North East and Yorkshire, pouring it from large stone jars. That business, employing 250 workers, peaked in the 1950s. There were five factories then – at Durham, Leeds, Sheffield, Middlesbrough and Gateshead. But the last factory, Durham, closed in 1970. Memories of the boyhood fun Robson used to get helping to sell it prompted him to track down the original ginger drink recipe through his grandmother at Whickham and another relative at Leeds.

Thus a new Fentimans business entered a new generation’s lives with a fizz after a gap of more than 20 years, offering a range that includes besides the ginger beer and mixers Victorian Lemonade, Dandelion and Burdock and Curiosity Cola.

See Eldon Robson giving his advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, www.bqlive.co.uk/fentimans

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SUCCESS STORY Within the walls of a former fever hospital there’s renewed – shall we say? – diathermancy. It’s gripping Adam Serfontein and like minded property and investment specialists as they consider how best to take the North East’s inward investment aspirations onward from stand E31.

This hospital or “house of recovery”, built by public subscription in the early 1800s, is Newcastle’s original fever hospital, but home now to The Hanro Group, one of the largest property investment and development organisations in the North East, of which Serfontein is managing director; as well as to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

A solid three-storey building, it stands on Bath Lane, immediately outside old city walls still stoutly in place. “At one time,” Serfontein explains, “if you had a fever they, in effect, threw you over the wall. If you got better they let you back in.”

And at this moment Serfontein and fellow members of the recently formed Developing Consensus, which Serfontein chairs, are working in unprecedented unity to get a major chunk of the North East region back into national and international investment prominence.

Developing Consensus comprises what would once have been an uneasy alliance of private and public sectors, the latter in this case represented by investment teams of the seven local authorities within the North East Combined Authority (NECA) that covers the region apart from Teesside – the province of the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (NELEP) in effect.

The private sector’s strong representation includes – besides The Hanro Group – Carillion, Clouston Group, Cobalt Park, Gentoo, Intu, Knight Frank, Quorum Business Park, Ryder Architecture, Sanderson Weatherall, and UK Land Estates.

It also brings in Newcastle Science Central and Northumbria University. The collaboration – through its body Invest North East England – represents Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle, North Tyneside, Northumberland, South Tyneside and Sunderland councils. Some of these councils don’t always see eye to eye on other matters, and Serfontein marvels that even individual members of the private sector,

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UNITED THEY CAN STAND

There’s great opportunity for the North East of England to step up development and attract more foreign investment but the public and private sectors will have to work closer than before. Adam Serfontein tells Brian Nicholls how

normally competitors, should have joined in common cause too.

The public and private sector in unison recently took stand E31 at the first MIPIM UK international show at Olympia in London. This was their three-day springboard into a crowd of more than 4,000 delegates representing some of the most influential international property players from all sectors of real estate.

The event previously, since 1991, had been staged only at Cannes in France. It gave the chance now to project, both nationally and

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internationally, opportunities presently for property investment and development; and business relocations in the North East, such as Newcastle’s newly emerging Stephenson Quarter and the established area of Gallowgate. In the former fever hospital, now all elegantly officed, Serfontein explains how Developing Consensus has reached a pivotal stage. “The jury’s out because what matters is how we follow up and raise our game,” he says.

“We’ve a combined and critical mass of >>

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SUCCESS STORY supporters and members across the public and private sectors, and a good geographical spread. We’re well represented to support the entire NELEP area,” he points out. “And 2015 is our time for action. The North East has been punching below it’s weight in bringing in new business.

“All the individual local authorities have recently been reasonably effective in attracting businesses to their areas. But unless we aggregate the population figures, GDP figures, and housing statistics across the seven authorities, we’re not on the map for panEuropean and global investment.”

There are hurdles. An outstanding inward investment team of recent years has been one Catherine Walker led within the NewcastleGateshead Initiative. It had been co-funded by Newcastle and Gateshead, but Gateshead is now withdrawing its funding from this function of NGI – “given the pressures on its reduced budget,” Serfontein concedes.

“But it’s a challenge, since this was the only inward investment winning business team formally designated to work across more than one local authority area. It was good when Newcastle and Gateshead pitched together.”

Thus, the next couple of months could spell either problem or opportunity. “The loss of Catherine’s team working across local authorities would be a backward step at a time when inward investment has never been more important. Newcastle remains committed to it. But if Newcastle is paying in entirety, how can it promote Newcastle and Gateshead?

“Here’s an opportunity for us all to step in, including the private sector, with funding to advance an effective outward facing organisation for inward investment. We’re looking at funding from the private sector and to use this to attract funding from the public sector organisations across the combined authority area.

“That way the private/public sector could represent the entire combined authority area.

Councillor Paul Watson, leader of Sunderland Council, is charged by the Combined Authority to lead inward investment, and his efforts are very impressive. He’s buying in as much as we are to the importance of public and private

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Newcastle’s emerging Stephenson Quarter is being promoted as an early prospect for foreign investment in the North East

Where kindling cash can come from The biggest plus from the Government during the last 18 months, in Adam Serfontein’s view, has been its introduction of accelerated development zones enabling local authorities to keep and re-invest rate revenue received from new development within those zones, rather than having to turn said income over to the Government. “A fantastic opportunity for the public and private sector to work together,” he says.

He’s confident many private sector participants in Developing Consensus could probably make revenue-raising projects available to the local authorities. Hanro for one holds land for a 175,000sq ft mixed use development on a site bordered by Strawberry Place, Strawberry Lane, Gallowgate and Percy Street close to Newcastle United’s stadium.

Says Serfontein: “The construction of 100,000sq ft of offices would produce to the local authority an income through rates of about £800,000 a year. If local authorities keep income like that, instead of giving it to central government as before, the capital value to the council would be a significant enabler particularly in these times of budget cuts.

“That’s win, win for commercial development. So the stars have never been better aligned for the public and private sectors to work together. We’ve now proved that, working together across sector and geographical regions, we can hold our own with other key UK investment destinations. Clearly we must have in place one single point of entry for all inward investment enquiries.

“This will streamline them, reduce duplication and cost, and improve conversion rate through pro-active targeting. There could also be substantial savings from reduced sub-regional investment products and individual initiatives.” He believes joined-up thinking between NECA and the private sector must replace individual local authority initiatives, “which are less effective on a national and international stage, and potentially divisive.”

Adam Serfontein, aged 50, is also deputy chairman of governors at Northumbria University and serves on the board of NE1, Newcastle’s business improvement district, whose recent re-election by its funding business and other members was the most successful re-election of its kind in the country.

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sector working together, and a team that works across political boundaries.”

Each local authority is perceived to have particular strengths: Newcastle finance and science, Gateshead performing arts, music and culture, Sunderland high-tech and automotives, North Tyneside business parks and renewables, South Tyneside offshore, Durham education and global research, and Northumberland heritage and tourism. “While these need considerable debate, it would be very healthy to reach some consensus,” Serfontein advocates.

He points out: “There’s already a head of steam for working together. To be effective, though, each constituent area must accept it can’t do everything – but can still benefit.

When North Tyneside through Quorum Business Park attracted 1,000 jobs into Tesco Bank, Newcastle and Northumberland benefited significantly too, as did the remaining local authority areas.

“Nowadays only people working in local authorities respect political boundaries, since many of us live in one area but may work in another and find their entertainment in a third. So there’s a win, win here. Even in the private sector, who’d have thought four years ago that Hanro, Clouston Group and UK Land would be working together to promote the region?

“One good thing recession has done for us all is to break down barriers of competition, making us realise that in working together we may lose a couple of battles but we’ve a far greater chance of winning the war for inward investment - both from national and global investment in real estate and business relocation. Like the other private partners and their companies, I’d be delighted to get more interest from national property funds throughout the region because it raises the value of existing portfolios.”

The Hanro Group is a good example of a firm that has seized opportunity. A family business, it was founded over 100 years ago as R Rankin and Sons Transport. It diversified into car and fuel sales with subsidiaries in finance and oil, employed about 650 people and became Minories, named after Minorite Nuns whose retreat its headquarters neighboured.

Foreseeing the motor trade consolidation,

SUCCESS STORY

We focus on mixed use development to create stock for our portfolio. Most developers build to sell. We build to hold

the group in 1987 – Hanro, by then – sold many of its assets retaining just two Mercedes dealerships, the finance company and a core property portfolio.

Thereupon the Rankins concentrated on property development and investment. They have certainly made their mark. Serfontein, who qualified as a chartered surveyor in 1987, worked for Gavin Black and Partners and Chesterton before joining Hanro in 1999.

Within a few months Hanro sold its remaining non-core interests to make property its focus, and Serfontein has been managing director for seven years now.

The business grew significantly between 1999 and 2005, buying property at “sensible” prices. Near its present home Hanro in 2002 completed Citygate, a 200,000sq ft landmark mixed use scheme, establishing a new commercial district near St James’s Park – the first new development there for 30 years. Three years later Hanro undertook development at Abbey Woods Business Park at Durham, and the year after that commercial premises of 35,000sq ft for Peugeot on Benton Road, Newcastle.

In 2010 it achieved for the occupier Ryder architects a striking transformation on Westgate Road of the 20,000sq ft, architecturally listed, former Coopers Motor Mart – into Coopers Studios. The 1897 building, standing over a submerged part of Roman wall, had been a purpose built horse, carriage and cycle display hall – with “ladies’ viewing gallery” – and later one of the city’s first motor dealerships.

In 2011 Hanro provided a 100,00sq ft superstore for Sainsbury on Benton Road, Newcastle. Being both developer and an investor, it acquired properties selectively throughout the recession, including in Edinburgh, Brighton and Liverpool. “During poor markets our activities are more

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investment based for we can acquire products at a sensible price,” Serfontein points out.

“When the market recovers its strength we focus on mixed use development to create stock for our portfolio. Most developers build to sell. We build to hold.”

Hanro, now with 10 staff, expects ongoing growth. Its investment portfolio is worth about £150m. It has rent income of about £10m a year, a development pipeline of about £100m, about 200 tenants and total stock nearing 2m sq ft. “We still own a 64,000sq ft office building at Citygate completed in 2002. Our long term commitment gives us an edge,” Serfontein says. “Our strategy is to maintain steady, sustainable growth. Instead of trading our developments we’re happy to get a return over a longer period. We re-invest that in quality stock.”

Citygate is fully occupied, and recently Hanro negotiated a simultaneous surrender of an 11,000sq ft floor from the training awards body NCFE, which relocated to Quorum, and that floor has been taken by Ernst Young. The success of its personal tax centre is enabling it to hire 200 more staff over the next two years.

The determination that Serfontein carries to see regional inward investment result from a rewarding marriage of private and public sector should not be underestimated. He personally was so taken by the survival of the old fever hospital and its potential for new commercial life that he tried for 10 years to buy it from the city council – finally succeeding on Hanro’s behalf in 2013.

“It’s not the biggest building in our portfolio by any means, but it’s a beautiful building,” he says. “The Rankin family who own this company have such a long history with Newcastle and the North East. While you can’t put love in the bank, we’ve derived a lot of pleasure from bringing this building back into use.” n

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BUSINESS DRINKS

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SAVING LIVES IN AFRICA Less known than his many investments in North East businesses is a project dear to Jeremy Middleton in a remote and sensitive part of Africa. He tells Brian Nicholls how life is being improved for an entire community BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

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We’re hearing, reading and seeing so much distress and negativity over Muslim and Western misunderstanding. So let’s instead consider Jeremy Middleton’s barely publicised African venture.

It centres on Sangailu, a community of 8,632 people on the Kenyan side of the troubled Kenya-Somalia border. They measure wealth in goats, live in huts of mud and straw, and like nomads must always travel to where water lies – until recently.

A life, then, starkly different from what this North East entrepreneur – any North East entrepreneur – has ever known. “I was looking for something a little different to get involved in,” says the youthful looking co-founder of the FTSE-250 company HomeServe plc, a key figure in the North East Local Enterprise Partnership, and a high profile business investor more usually reported financing projects at home.

Now the figure behind Middleton Enterprises is acting as a consultant on a development project totally different from his North East interests, such as in utility cost management consultancy Utilitywise on North Tyneside, and the soon to be launched Atom Bank at Durham.

He describes Sangailu as “a fragile part of the world, suffering terrible poverty. There’s no refugee problem there, but a huge problem from war just across the border. Security is an issue for Western visitors. It wouldn’t help the locals or me to have gone there recently. The Kenyan army has gone over the border to try to improve security. But, as a result, there are frequent raids back across.”

Yet he’s carrying out his work there, partnering World Vision which, since its founding in 1950, has become one of the world’s biggest relief and development charities, helping more than 100m people in 100 countries – and with more than 90% of its 40,000 staff coming from countries being assisted.

“I’ve long supported World Vision,” Middleton says. “It’s best known for sponsoring children.

They were looking at how to extend the support to parts where there’s no aid because it’s too desperate and their traditional programmes can’t operate. We developed >>

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a plan – one of the first pilots they’ve done – where, instead of sponsoring a child, we’re sponsoring a whole community.”

How does it work? “We put a team on the ground for three years. We work with the local community to win their trust, do geological surveys and make proposals to provide clean, safe, reliable water, their vital need. Then we’ll work with the government there, and others, to put in a variety of solutions – irrigation systems and water pans for example.”

The water pans are ponds dug into the ground where water is known to lie. The ponds then have to be lined so the water won’t soak away. “Our plan over three years is to work with the community on putting in the water, working on hygiene and sanitation through education programmes – even handwashing – then help them to take their economy into a surplus. We’re trying to help a community currently nomadic because their children have to chase around the area for water, preventing

How life’s improving Results to date from the project Jeremy Middleton is involved in, according to World Vision: • 2,170 children have been vaccinated against polio, dewormed and given Vitamin A. • A 15% reduction in children suffering from bilharzia (a waterborne disease).

• A 10% reduction in children suffering from scabies through bathing in impure water.

• Average production of goats’ milk up from 2.09 litres to 2.15 per animal.

• Greater community spirit following the installation of a borehole, with four women among the 11 water management committee members running the utility – a sexual breakthrough in community decision making.

• Water can now be collected within half an hour instead of an hour, giving women more time and energy for other economic activities, and enabling girls to attend school more regularly.

• Girl dropout rates down from 35% to 25%.

• School enrolment up from 75 to 125.

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A fragile part of the world, suffering terrible poverty. There’s no refugee problem there, but a huge problem from war just across the border. Security is an issue for Western visitors. It wouldn’t help the locals or me to have gone there recently

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WINTER 15

BUSINESS LUNCH

You can’t just go into a Muslim community as a Western organisation and do this. People don’t trust you enough, are unwilling at first to let you sponsor them. By the time I saw them they were receptive. They’d embraced it many of them from going to school.

“We’re helping them to remain in one place also by improving their strain of goats, enabling them to make more money. Their children will then be able to attend school which will have water, instead of them having to walk maybe 20 miles for water.”

The state provides the schools and, says Middleton, “the children are desperate to attend, even though for many it may involve a 10 mile walk every day. Some even come from 20 miles away and stay there during the week.

They also have to learn a foreign language, English or Swahili, since only their community understands their local language. I’d seen nothing like it. It was an experience for me.

“We provide water butts for the schools, big plastic tubs to catch water running from the roof when it rains. If you’ve water at school you can stay at school,” Middleton points out.

“If not, you have to go home.”

They’re 18 months into the project now and last year Middleton and his daughter Lucy spent a week there, travelling via Nairobi, Mombasa, then for six hours a day, mile after mile, along dusty and unmade tracks. “Lots of charities do a good job. But this is something giving us a full sense of involvement, as well as sponsorship. It’s quite different. I feel the money can impact. I hope it can impact, even though it carries lots of risk, since things can go wrong.

“It’s just across the border from a 100% Muslim area and 100% female genital mutilation. So there are lots of issues to deal with. We’re trying to create a long term change. This is about trying to change something, not about giving food. Giving food is fine until next time it’s needed.

“These people all have goats and we’ve

already improved their goat strain. They’re giving more nutritious milk. This helps children’s development because the surplus milk can be sold. You then start to create an economy.”

Thus, then, directly and indirectly, about 23,000 people can be helped. Elsewhere apiaries have been introduced and a honey surplus created. Middleton has seen a fishery too. “Once you have the fish in and the locals are shown how to do it, they can run a fish farm.

“For water supplies we provide the engineering. They have to dig and run it.

And, quite correctly, a little money is charged, so then it’s valued. That pays for the locals running it, for someone to repair it when necessary, and for someone to guard it so animals don’t come and defecate in it.”

Outsiders, however, must gain acceptance.

“You can’t just go into a Muslim community as a Western organisation and do this. People don’t trust you enough, are unwilling at first to let you sponsor them. By the time I saw them they were receptive. They’d embraced it.

But it has taken them time to understand and be familiar with what it’s all about – also to be confident this isn’t someone trying to change or convert them.”

First and foremost, the local chief agreed, then his council. “When you reach the schools you see incredible things,” Middleton recalls. “The whole village comes out to greet you. There’s lots of singing. Much speechmaking. You see handwashing programmes, and see what the schools are like.”

The outside world is virtually unknown. Only the chief has a mobile phone, apparently.

The only television set was in a café in another village. And there’s no social security. >>

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Malmaison, Newcastle Lunching time being scarce after winter’s long holiday, BQ’s meeting with Jeremy Middleton took place at Malmaison Hotel on Quayside, Newcastle, close to his office.

Brasserie and bar facilities there are being doubled in size. Iain Wood, the hotel’s 25-year-old assistant bar manager delightedly back in Newcastle – he’s from Gosforth – after nine years’ hotel experience in Derby, Cardiff, Bristol, Sheffield and Nottingham, says the Thursday and Friday evening wind-down is increasingly fashionable again, with gins and tonic in renaissance.

“Its revived popularity is due probably to the wider variety of tonics now available – the wider variety of gins also,” Wood says. “Bombay Sapphire is particularly in demand.”

Customers may come in for an hour or two instead of a whole evening as previously and drink less, but they’re tending to pay more, insisting on quality brands. Malmaison is responding with a new drinks menu, combining a revival of classic cocktails and new compositions.

The enlarged bar will open in time for Valentine’s weekend.

Jeremy usually champions Japan and France in his tipples: a cold Asahi lager or a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. This time, though, pure water for two seemed appropriate, which Malmaison happily provided. Here’s to Sangailu!

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

BUSINESS DRINKS “The Kenyan government hasn’t got roads in yet but is working on it,” says Middleton.

“It does have the schools, which is good.

“When you ask children what they want to be, they want to be a teacher, an aid worker or a doctor which is good too. But they don’t know anything else. Success will come when they say also a businessman, a farmer, or an architect – when their horizons have been opened to the fact they could do anything, even coming from mud and straw huts. If they have water, and can go to school they have a chance.”

Another advance: the changing of attitudes towards disabled children. They had previously been kept out of sight in the family huts. It was felt bad to have a child unable to work.

“So there’s this cultural thing also going on too, of persuading families these children deserve to come to school also. You see now various disabilities, but in what seems an environment of care and learning.”

Villagers probably felt assured by the team of five working on the ground being all Kenyan too. They had been trained up. Middleton recalls: “One lovely fellow, a project manager, told me he was originally brought up in a bush village, in a mud hut like theirs. Sponsored by World Vision, he was able to go to school, had gone on to university and now was going back to his roots working for World Vision.”

Middleton says it’s hoped there’ll ultimately a sustainable community that can then support other types of aid. He’s now trying to help World Vision find others interested. “I think there are lots of opportunities for high net worth individuals to engage,” he says. “You don’t have to be a Bill Gates to feel you’re making a difference.

“We haven’t sought to promote this,” he stresses. “I’m not trying to raise money but that’s what we’re doing. It would be great to find one or two people. Everyone must decide what’s right for them, though.

“A lot of people want to do things closer to home. But I’m quite interested in doing this.

It’s different, something I could get involved in with my family. World Vision is at heart a Christian organisation. It doesn’t evangelise.

It doesn’t seek to convert. But they do what it says on the tin – a fantastic organisation, I think, with some brilliant people.” n

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

WINTER 15

A lot of people want to do things closer to home. But I’m quite interested in doing this. It’s different, something I could get involved in with my family A business visionary: Jeremy Middleton’s CV Age: 54. Has been a brand manager with Procter & Gamble and a marketing consultant with PwC. Co-founded HomeServe plc, the FTSE-250 insurance and maintenance company valued at around £1bn. A board member of Utilitywise plc, and investor in Atom Bank.

Founding owner in 1993 of Middleton Enterprises, a £50m business investment company.

Owns minority stakes in numerous SMEs. Ranges also across commercial property and property development, manufacturing, environment and digital media. It invested in the Tim Roth film of 2013, The Liability, set in the North East of England.

Middleton’s other involvements present and past include: Business board member of NELEP. Deputy chairman, Conservative Party Board (2009-2012).

President, National Conservative Convention (2008-9). Chaired the party conferences on Tyneside and in Birmingham in 2008. Board member, Cyrenians. Member of promotions board, St Oswald’s Hospice. Business governor, Studio West school, Newcastle.

Appointed CBE in 2012 for services to politics and charities.

Birthplace: Wolverhampton. Education: Tettenhall College, Wolverhampton, and Kent University.

He and his wife Catherine live in Gosforth and have three grown-up children: Jessica, 23, who works in a London advertising agency, Lucy, 21, who attends Nottingham University, and James, 18, studying at Sheffield.

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09/02/2015 13:57

MOTORING

WINTER 15

THE DADDY OF ALL DRIVING EXPERIENCES

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

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WINTER 15

MOTORING

Leanne English, Director of the LEC Consultancy, follows in the footsteps of her father – a former motor trade worker – and gets behind the wheel of a luxury vehicle that impresses them both From as old as I can remember cars were a big part of my family’s life.

My dad worked in the motor trade for three decades, selling cars and managing dealerships for the likes of Lexus, BMW and Nissan, so it was fairly commonplace for him to come home with a top of the range model which would set you back a pretty penny.

I’d look forward to him coming home each night to see what car he was driving and it was always the luxury vehicles I appreciated the most. There was something about the way they looked, the smooth lines and shiny

exterior which really appealed to me.

I always said to myself that one day I’d own a car like that.

So when I was asked to road test the Infiniti Q50 Hybrid, Nissan’s dip into the luxury car market, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. At least I could say I’d achieved what I said I would, albeit on a temporary basis. Small steps right?

The Infiniti Q50 Hybrid is a bold statement of intent from the Japanese car manufacturer and certainly goes against the grain of what most people would

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expect from a Hybrid vehicle.

Designed specifically to wow and give the driver the ultimate experience, the salesman was quick to point out it’s as fast 0-60 as a Porsche. He wasn’t wrong (that’s a slight assumption on my part given I’ve not actually driven a Porsche).

Fully utilising the 359bhp, 3.5 litre petrol engine combined with a 67bhp electric motor, the Infiniti Q50 can certainly move. The power and acceleration are tremendous.

However, as you open the engine up and push the car through the speeds, it loses none of >>

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

MOTORING COMPANY PROFILE WINTER 15

WINTER 15

Be the best

the qualities which you’d expect from the £35,000 price tag.

The driving position is excellent, ensuring maximum comfort throughout the journey, giving both driver and passengers a feeling of weightlessness. If you’re planning a long distance drive, this is the car you want to be in.

The engine itself is as quiet as any I’ve experienced, barely purring as you accelerate.

It’s clever too, having the ability to switch off to charge its easewith off the My battery journey when startedyou in 1966 seven accelerator,years or are stationaryUniversity at junctions or at Newcastle gaining traffic lights. a BSc and a PhD, in the Agricultural The interior Department. of the InfinitiThis Q50 is by Engineering wasHybrid followed spacious and roomy, at fitted out with a creamI five years as a lecturer Edinburgh University. leather interior heated seats to the front then returned to and the Newcastle department as a and rear. Research Associate, and with Dr Tim temporary The dashboard impressive and Grinsted and led itself

by Dr looks Alan Reece we developed is easy tothe navigate around, though having SMD over following 18 years to be the best said that, and in the four days I hadtrenching the car I’d designers builders of seabed only managed to scratch theowned surface ofrun thein systems in the world.

SMD was and vast array of gadgets it comes with. Maybe the formative years by three engineers.

During a month I’d have them all sussed. this timeand we also bought Pearson Engineering If there is a later downside tothe thebasis car, for it’s the theReece boot, which much became which fairly small‘best for engineering’ a vehicle of its size.in NE Group, is now a major group This was something that, as a golfer, my dad England. was quick toThe point out.

I established Engineering Business in 1997, Overall though, I was impressed.

More and three colleagues from SMD quickly joined importantly, despite the lack of boot space for his golf clubs, so was my dad.

Whether either of us would be tempted to buy one over its more established rivals, such as the Audi S4 or BMW335i, remains to be seen.

However, ranging in price from around £27,000 to £40,000, the Infiniti Q50 Hybrid is more competitively priced which to much form the business, owned and run by four is a big plus. It’s a very niceleading car and for these engineers.

EBalso is now a world supplier reasons wewith both agreed that‘best if we were of pipelayalone, systems some genuine looking for aqualities. car at this of the engineering’ EBend was sold to market, IHC Merwede we’d definitely consider it. significant wealth in 2008 and the sale created That is whatand Nissan for. n for theI suppose owner-directors 70 ofare theaiming staff who received 20% of the sale value.

The car driven Leanne waswith thetwo Q50 S I established OsbitbyPower in 2010, 3.5 Hybrid All Wheel engineer colleagues with Drive. extensive backgrounds in Hybrid Q50s start at A£39,995 SMD andSport Pearson Engineering. fourth engineer (range at joined £27,950). originallystarts from EB as an owner-director The car OP was supplied

by Infiniti in 2013. is entirely owned and run Centre by four Newcastle, EnginetoLane, Silverlink engineers. WeMiddle are determined provide best Business Park, Tyne Wear, engineering valueNewcastle, by using clever and&experienced NE28 9NZworking in a structured but low engineers

Osbit Power aims to be the best. We want to produce the best engineering for the best customers using our best engineers and the best supply chain. We want to create the best value for money while generating the best level of wealth for our staff and owners. And the journey must be fun. That’s a lot of ‘best’ to achieve!

We must use our skill and persistence to extract money from our customer’s pockets - in exchange for delivering excellence

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

Above, The OP team on a ‘Racing day out’ September 2014. Left, MaXccess P35 gangway for Subsea 7.

Right, MaXccess T18 walk-to-work system for the Marubeni Fukushima floating wind farm Japan

bureaucracy environment. I believe that the benefits of creating a successful business should be shared with all who help to create it. We are fortunate that the UK tax regime is favourable to entrepreneurial businesses and to the owners of these businesses. 20% of OP business value is allocated to staff using an EMI scheme. Gains in wealth by owners and staff are only taxed at 10% in most circumstances. The result is highly incentivised staff and owners working together to create success for all.

There is general agreement that the NE England

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region needs to grow and strengthen its engineering base. This can be a combination of inward investment from well-established organisations and expansion of existing businesses. But far more exciting is the creation of new businesses to develop new technology and new ways of doing things. This is where greater wealth can be created and greater value to the region established. We have a wonderful engineering heritage in the region to build on.

The aim is to be world-class in niche areas of technology. We must be flexible and opportunistic

COMPANY PROFILE

COMPANY PROFILE

WINTER 15 15 WINTER

Hadrian HR celebrates second year in business by doubling client base Westermost Rough windfarm cable installation deck spread

NORTH EAST human resources consultancy Hadrian HR has twice as much to celebrate after more than doubling its client base in time for its second year in business In the past year the firm has taken its client total to 25 and welcomed an average of two new clients each month after experiencing an increase in demand for its bespoke services.

Established by Gordon Brown Law Firm in 2013, Hadrian HR anticipates further growth in 2015 with plans to add an accountancy branch to its out of hours helpline support service already underway for the North East’s SMEs. Deb Tweedy, HR Director at the consultancy, said: to identify where there difficult problems “The pace has picked upare considerably over the to be solved andwe there funding to allow past year and are isthrilled to available have experienced solutions to be created. such growth.

This are region forasfar relied on “We nowhas seen antoo HR long, Business Partner, government funding to grow local has not simply HRbacked advisors, and our expansion prosperity.

We focus are surrounded byalignment a world full of placed greater on strategic with challenging problemsplans to bespecifically solved, and customers our clients’ business reviewing willing to pay forselection good solutions.

We must use our recruitment and strategies, budget and skill and persistence to extract our forecasting, identifying suitablemoney rewardfrom packages, customer’s - in exchange for delivering training andpockets development opportunities and the excellence. implementation of concise, streamlined policies Osbitprocedures.

Power is growing rapidly and has increased and turnover 500% to £8.5m the year ending “Our teambyunderstands that in one size definitely 30 September 2014. Staffbyemployed grown doesn’t fit all, reinforced our addedhas value by 50% over theofsame period.

Soin a very exciting approach offer pro-bono work the early stages period in OP relationship; development.demonstrated Getting past by thean first of the client couplefree of years a new business isatalways initial thirtywith minute consultation exciting and anxious with new people and new the outset.” customers new business areas. The accounts Hadrian HRinoffers tailored consultations covering poor andspectrum start-up funding is aincluding worry. And aare very broad of sectors, theyou havesector, to pay retail the salaries the end ofindustry every month. care sector,at hospitality and As we grow there will be different challenges professional services. in managing people and not Offering a 360more degree approach to allowing clients, itsthe businessinclude ethos to deteriorate. services assisting in the production of all The OP team has handbooks, a wide rangesupporting of experience documentation, clients over the the pastrecruitment 40 years inand the selection design and build of through process, offshore, subsea and seabedhandling systemsdiscipline for many performance management, of the leading matters contractors operators in theand and grievance and and identifying training world. OP hasneeds. supplied systems to the oil and development

I believe that the benefits of creating a successful business should be shared with all who help to create it. We are fortunate that the UK tax regime is favourable to entrepreneurial businesses and to the owners of these businesses gas, renewables and military markets. It is well hoping to attract and retain the best to the region. known for personnel transfer systems for offshore The offshore and subsea industry in our region wind and larger systems for general offshore is vibrant and varied and this is clearly the best operations, all under the MaXccess brand name. location in the UK for our types of activity. There L-R: Deb Tweedy, at Hadrian HR and Gill, Gillopportunity Group Director A recent deliveryHR is aDirector MaXccess P35 system for client Sonny is real to expand and flourish making Subsea 7 which was a joint project with Tyne use of excellent ports, rivers and universities and Gangway. The system is being mobilised in West create a new and lasting engineering heritage.

Deb continues: “Home-grown is a key factor To mark the firm’s second year, Hadrian HR has Africa at the moment.

OP has talent developed a range in recruitment strategy and we have set selected North East based FACT as its dedicated of Hadrian’s systems suitable for particular people transfer out plans forThis 2015 to OP build our existing internal charity for 2015, with Deb taking up the cancer situations. year hasup delivered a MaXccess talent to upskill staff andinoffer them charity’s ‘£2k Challenge’ in a bid to help build T18 system to Marubeni Japan for further use on the opportunities for progression.” the UK’s first ever cancer support awareness and Fukushima offshore floating wind turbine.

Hadrian HR client, Gill, Gilla Group Director, education centre in Dunston, Gateshead.

Other projects thisSonny year include duel launch said: “Deb not just delivervehicles, ‘off the shelf’ system for does remotely operated a cable employment law advice. really understands the deployment deck spread She for offshore wind need wellabsorber trained commercially and afor 150efficiency, tonne shock for trenchingaware employees and the need forPower cost effectiveness. plough deployment.

Osbit aims to create Dr Tony Trapp DL FREng, managing director, “As Hadrian’s first ever client I am to be entrepreneurial engineers and hasdelighted a nurturing OSBIT Power Ltd, Broomhaugh House, Riding continuing towhere work with them their second year environment people canindevelop rapidly Mill, Northumberland NE44 6EG of business have theresponsibility team currently reviewing and take onand significant while T: 01434 682 505 For further information regarding Hadrian HR our long termhigh strategy by and aligning all ofsafety. our policies maintaining quality ensuring E: tony.trapp@osbitpower.com visit www.hadrianhr.com and procedures the business plan.”graduates, We take on manytostudents and fresh W: www.osbitpower.com

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BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

SHARP ON WINE

WINTER 15

A REFRESHING WAY TO END MY DRY RUN The chance to try two tempting wines gives the CBI’s regional director Dianne Sharp the excuse she needs to call time on a month of abstinence There was much anticipation in our house for ‘Wine Wednesday’ not least because this review was the perfect excuse to end our dry January a few days early. As we were preparing one of my favourite home cooked fast foods – mussels, then the Chateau du Cleray, seemed the perfect first choice. In less than 30 minutes after walking in the front door you can have prepared fresh steaming bowls of goodness that just need some tasty bread on the side - or ‘frites’ (posh word for chips when you are trying to be healthy), if you are my husband. The recipe also called for 150ml of dry white wine, preferably Muscadet, which allowed us to kid ourselves that we didn’t drink the whole bottle…….! And a most enjoyable drink it was. Zingy with citrus fruits, it has a light initial taste but carries through to show real depth. I thought there was also some slight, almost saltiness, to it, before combining with the mussels. I clearly take my cooking inspiration from Keith Floyd on Wednesdays. It was dry and refreshing, not at all what I was expecting. It would be a perfect accompaniment to any fish dish, and is a great bottle for the price.

Dry January now being completely forgotten, Friday night was steak night and time to break open the Finca Resalso. The smell took me immediately back to my ‘70’s childhood due to the cherry rich black forest gateaux aroma.

I wasn’t the cook tonight as my husband

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makes a peppercorn sauce that can’t be beaten, though I suspect that the recipe is never quite the same twice. So as the steaks sizzled I enjoyed a first taste of this surprisingly fresh glass. Very smooth and full of forest fruits, there is also a spicy note too. It is a deep cherry red colour and is perfect for a cold, Friday, January evening. It was a great accompaniment to the steak and peppercorn sauce, but I can also imagine it going well with good quality bangers and mash. Any robust, even spicy meat would work well.

This bottle was so popular in our house it was photographed as a reminder for our next wine shopping trip to Majestic, and named as a must buy. Whilst at the top end of what we would spend on an everyday bottle (not literally I hasten to add), we will be ensuring that a few more bottles make it home. After all I need to try and pick up the liquorice flavour that my husband said he could taste. n The wines Dianne sampled were Finca Resalso Emilio Moro, £11.99, or £8.99 each when you buy two.

3 February - 27 April.

Chateau du Cleray Muscadet, £9.99, or £8.49 each when you buy 2. 3rd February 27th April Wine supplied by Majestic Wine Warehouse, Gosforth.

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Château du Cléray Muscadet de Sévre at Maine Sur Lie 2013, Sauvion Origin: Château du Cléray have 30 hectares of vineyards which stand on the characteristic sandy soil of the commune of Vallet.

The estate has been run by the Sauvion family since 1935, and is today run by winemaker Pierre Sauvion, graduate in oenology at Bordeaux University.

Grape: Melon de Bourgogne.

Taste: Steely and focused, this shows its class from the very first aromas of well defined citrus and stone fruit, flowing seamlessly into notes of wet stone. Dry and incisive on the palate, with great length.

Enjoy: A must with haddock, crusted sardines and other fresh classic fish dishes.

Finca Resalso 2013, Emilio Moro, Ribera del Duero Origin: Finca Resalso is a collection of vineyards ranging from 5-15 years of age; the youngest vines in the Emilio Moro estate. The wine is a lighter alternative to their signature wine, still of 100% ‘Tinto Fino’, having undergone less extraction and oak ageing.

Grape: Tempranillo Taste: Dominated by primary fruit character, combining ripe mulberry and cherry with forest fruit characters. Subtle notes of liqourice and spice add a hint of savoury depth.

Enjoy: Perfect with grilled merquez or other spicy, smoky meats.

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BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

FASHION

AMERICAN DREAM TEAM Its designers created clothing that defined a nation, but now the Italian CEO of US company Brooks Brothers is pushing for change. Josh Sims speaks to Luca Gastaldi Luca Gastaldi is the 47-year-old Italian CEO of the Italian-owned Brooks Brothers, almost 200 years old and about as quintessentially American a clothier as one could find. It was Brooks Brothers that invented the button-

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

down collared shirt, that pioneered the stripy, so-called ‘rep’ tie, that shaped preppy style and which, by introducing the boxy, wearable sack suit, effectively defined the template for business dress for much of the last century.

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Abraham Lincoln wore Brooks Brothers – he was even assassinated wearing it – as did Kennedy, the Vanderbilts, Morgans and Astors, and Hollywood greats from Valentino to Clark Gable, Cary Grant and Fred Astaire.

“But if you want a real contradiction, it’s not the fact that an Italian is running such an American company,” adds Gastaldi – who admits to having discovered the company through close study of the dandy attire of another Italian, Fiat supremo Gianni Agnelli, “it’s that it was only seven years ago that Brooks Brothers even had a store outside of the US. Brooks Brothers has deep American roots – and that American nature is a pillar. But now we have to build on that. We all travel more now and trends move faster. The trick is not to lose the American wardrobe and the styles we pioneered, while staying tuned to changing modes of dress.”

Gastaldi, who came to Brooks Brothers after 20 years in senior positions with Italian luxury goods company Loro Piana, concedes that is a tricky path to walk. On the one hand has been Brooks Brothers’ more progressive moves over recent years: the launch of Black Fleece, a more directional premium capsule collection designed by Thom Browne, Red Fleece, a more trend and cost-conscious collection, and now the appointment of designer Zac Posen to oversee womenswear as creative director – the first time the company has brought in an external designer, established in his own right, to oversee a whole segment of its business, from clothing to packaging and marketing. It is a statement of the company’s intent to fulfill its “huge potential” in womenswear.

Then there is the sizable international store expansion programme, which will see over 50 new Brooks Brothers shops (some whollyowned, some in partnership) open over the coming year, including 12 in the Middle East, the same across Scandinavia, 10 in eastern Europe and Russia, and up to 15 across India and Australia.

And yet, on the other hand, there is Brooks Brothers’ deeply-embedded culture of clothing a conservative American customer that remains the company’s bedrock – this is the company, after all, that still provides those Ivy League uniforms to the US’ collegiate blue bloods. For every Brooks Brothers aficionado – Gastaldi

FASHION

Some people are scared by change – we’re all human.

But we’re ready to exchange ideas, even if that means the process takes longer than I’d like

speaks of devoted customers who know more about the company’s history than those working for it do – there is a fashionisto more inclined to dismiss it as staid and, well, too American: ”To excite attention by anything at all remarkable in the way of colour of texture is considered both vulgar and ridiculous,” as the company stated in an ad back in the 1920s.

“Modernising while respecting heritage is easier to say than to do,” says Gastaldi.

“And sometimes there’s resistance within the company itself,” Gastaldi adds. “Some people are scared by change – we’re all human. But we’re ready to exchange ideas, even if that means the process takes longer than I’d like.

I like to challenge that American part of the

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company that says there’s still demand for that very American cut of suit – very full, wideshouldered – by introducing more tailored styles too, which are selling well. Even very traditional customers like the idea of bringing something fresh to their wardrobe. And we have to remember that talking about, for example, how Agnelli wore Brooks Brothers shirts, is a totally meaningless conversation for a lot of people.”

That is to say that, incredibly, there are those men – it’s mostly men – whose interest in clothes goes only as far as keeping warm and within the law and not looking silly. Gastaldi is not one of those men. He can wax lyrical on the unique extent of Brooks Brothers’ >>

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

FASHION

contribution to the menswear canon – on how it’s “a good thing to have the originals in so many menswear items, the many copies of which just make the makers of the originals stronger” – but also on the hazards of relying on them. “There’s a danger when a [clothing] company culture is too tied to those classics, when you can’t see how dress is changing,” he says. “One advantage of our international expansion will be that we’ll have people working in different regions challenging that American culture to adopt what is new while also being consistent with Brooks Brothers.

It’s good to provoke our design teams.”

Intriguingly, however, Gastaldi is not so caught up in the idea of riding the patriotic manufacturing wave that certain consumers have ridden over recent years. While the company has historically acquired specialist manufacturers with which it has had a long, close working history, and while Gastaldi remains keen on bringing more manufacturing back to the US, his motivations for doing so are, unsurprisingly, entirely pragmatic ones.

“Offering the best value for the price is the priority, so I wouldn’t stake so much on being made in the US, or made in Italy, at the expense of that,” he says. “We go wherever

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

is best – Turkey, Morocco, Asia or now, as is happening, more so in the US. Of course, some customers want their Brooks Brothers made in the US – and if you’re going to bring manufacturing back to the US, who better than Brooks Brothers to do it? – but I think they’re a minority. They’re very keen on Brooks Brothers, more like collectors – I’m one of them. But the fact is that the majority just isn’t so bothered, even if they’re American.

They buy Brooks Brothers because they trust it to provide the right quality at the right price. That’s what has made Brooks Brothers’ customers so loyal.” n

It’s a good thing to have the originals in so many menswear items, the many copies of which just make the makers of the originals stronger. But there’s a danger when a company culture is too tied to those classics, when you can’t see how dress is changing

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EQUIPMENT

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

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EQUIPMENT

Y T I L A QU REMAINS TIMELES S Innovation and sophisticated design counts for more than passing fads when it comes to creating timepeices, as Josh Sims discovers

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Talk to the elite end of the watch business, and the question of trends is increasingly met with a blank stare. “I have no idea what the trends are. I’m not sure there are any,” says Peter Harrison, the CEO of Richard Mille, one of the more progressive independent brands. “We just do what we like.”

Or, as Michael Parmigiani, the watchmaker behind Parmigiani, puts it, “the industry just doesn’t focus on a few big styles anymore – now it’s a question of ever small trends being added to what’s already available, so each watch becomes more like an art work in its own right. It’s more individualistic, because these days everyone wants to be different.”

Indeed, if SIHH – the Salon International des Haute Horlogerie, held in Geneva each January – is anything to go by, the mass market may continue to thrive on consumers identifying with status brands and their iconic models, but at the very top – where prices in six figures are not rare – it is the piece itself that matters; a piece, indeed, which may have taken many years to create. As IWC’s creative director Christian Knoop stresses, ever-longer development times mitigate against trends in a watch industry making ever more sophisticated watches – “this is not the fashion industry”.

This is not to say that the new watches for 2015 don’t reveal certain loose patterns. There is a playfulness with shapes, for example, with watchmakers the likes of Vacheron Constantin (celebrating its 260th birthday this year), Chaumet and Cartier setting round dials in squared off cushion cases.

A push towards more unusual materials is also on the rise, with, according to Knoop, many more unexplored materials set to undergo investigation for their use in watchmaking over the next couple of years, especially those that improve durability and reliability. In the meantime, most are pursued for their visual and textural appeal. Audemars Piguet has used forged carbon in its new designs, Parmigiani meteorite and Piaget onyx, in a re-edition of Andy Warhol’s Black Tie watch.

Ralph Lauren – perhaps, thanks to its fashion foundation, the most willing to push forward on the use of unexpected materials solely for their aesthetic appeal – has introduced models featuring shot-blasted steel, for a distressed effect, and dials ringed with burl wood. >>

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

EQUIPMENT

A decade ago TechnoMarine caused outrage for much of this conservative industry by teaming precious jewels with a plastic case – but now the idea returns thanks to Roger Dubuis, which has developed a method for setting diamonds in rubber.

Black and off-white may remain the dominant colours for dials, but blue continues its assent and grey is on the up – even if subtly: A. Lange & Sohne’s Datograph Perpetual brings the colour of storm clouds right across its face, but the company’s first minute repeater with a digital (as opposed analogue) display – in development since 2010 and yours for €440,000 – achieves a similar shade by using blackened German silver.

If you’ve spent that much on a mechanical movement of such exquisiteness you might well want to see it, and show it off, so skeletonised movements, stripped back and fully visible front and rear of the watch, are more widespread too.

Cartier introduces one for its classic Tank,

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and for its 60s Crash model, Ralph Lauren has created its first and Roger Dubuis has introduced new star-effect and creeping ivy skeleton architectures for its models.

But perhaps the most striking skeletons are from Parmigiani. Its Tonda 1950 Squelette – with clear glass – is also available as a model for women. A skeleton for women may be unusual enough as the industry is only recently

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coming round to the idea that women are interested in the mechanism that drives their watch, not just the superficial aesthetic, ideally covered in gemstones. But this one comes with a semi-opaque milky glass which, when lit from behind, shows the movement’s parts with all the evocative blurred edges of shadow play.

Indeed, if an overarching trend out of SIHH can be discerned, it might be more one in business culture than in the popularity of certain approaches to the look and feel of the new year’s clutch of timepieces – and that would be the waking up to the potentiality in the growing demand among women for serious craft beneath the pretty exterior of their watches.

“The fact is that women’s attitude to watches is changing,” says Piaget’s marketing and creation director Frank Touzeau. Piaget has introduced a refinement of a bracelet first devised in the 1960s, and comprising some 300 tiny, hand-assembled links. “Compare the industry today with 15 years ago and there’s a distinct change. Then it was men who wanted a strongly recognisable watch with real technical value, and now women want that too. Recognising that is a process that you can see starting now.”

Certainly, as Peter Harrison and Michael Parmigiani hint at, some of the most impressive watches launched for this year are simply going their own way in style and innovation, and, what is more, doing it for women. Cartier, for example, has created a new setting for diamonds that, in effect, mounts them on tiny springs with just the right amount of vibration

EQUIPMENT

to give the stones movement and so added shimmer. Tellingly, Richard Mille, meanwhile, offers its first flying tourbillon, and offers it to women: the tourbillon cage is set amid a series of petals which open and close every five minutes, allowing the tourbillon to rise through this mechanical blossoming.

It’s a marvellous little moment to behold.

But for how long will such extreme craft be appreciated? Montblanc has produced arguably the single most culturally relevant watch of 2015, and the interest lies less in the timepiece as its strap.

Its Timewalker Urban Speed has what the company is calling an E-strap. This comprises a small touch screen through which the wearer can manage mobile phone calls and texts and monitor their activity. It is highend watchmaking’s first riposte to Apple’s recently-launched watch, tapping as it does into the younger generation’s obsession with connectivity as well as its general disinterest in wearing watches that simply tell the time, in however artful a fashion. The E-strap is, perhaps, a sign of what’s to come. n

15 years ago it was men who wanted a strongly recognisable watch – now women do too

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ENTREPRENEUR

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A SAVAGE FLAME OF AMBITION Even with a mortgage to pay and a son on the way John Savage was determined to make a go of it in setting up a business. His confidence and experience have paid off, says Brian Nicholls You’ve heard many sad tales by now about business victims of recession, but what about launch successes in that time?

What about John Savage who, with a mortgage to pay and a third son, Jack, on the way, quit his management job during dodgy 2011 and, at age 31, lit a Flame – Flame Heating Spares, a company whose annual turnover after three years is now at £1.4m, and all achieved with a team of 11 working from three centres?

From 200,000 parts in stock, the firm’s counters at its outlets in Gateshead’s Team Valley, Durham and South Shields supply trade and retail customers with replacement parts for all domestic and commercial boilers, heaters, catering appliances, warm air units, gas and oil

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

burners including heating controls, combi boilers – also UV cylinders and solar equipment in a growing range of new and renewable technology.

The company mainly supplies engineers, gas suppliers, large contractors, utilities like

British Gas and Scottish Power, but also some consumers directly online and through a little marketing. It has also got onto the preferred supplier list at Durham County Council and is in talks with South Tyneside Homes. “With stock readily available on the shelf, we’re >>

Unfortunately, the company we used went bust so we had a lovely website we didn’t know how to use. There was noone to phone for any support. But at least we’ve got presence online

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ENTREPRENEUR

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

ENTREPRENEUR going to approach all the local authorities,” Savage says. “They’re being more sympathetic towards local businesses now.”

Could this rapid success be the manifestation of an MBA? Hardly. Savage left St Wilfrid’s College in South Shields at 16, having been neither “interested nor drawn into it”, and indeed with no outstanding grades. “When I left I still didn’t know what I wanted to do in life,” he admits.

Initially he went on the dole. He announced at his weekly obligatory encounter for job allowance that he didn’t want to work anywhere for less than £100 a week. In his heart, and his innocence, he wanted really to run a business of his own.

Bless them, the placement people steered him towards the interview for a job as a £120 a week management trainee at Plumb Centre, the nationwide supplier of plumbing and heating products, which had just opened one of its 490 branches in his home town of South Shields. He got the job and at 17 was working in the warehouse. “I thought that great at first, but then truly hated it for two years, until I found I actually liked dealing with customers on the trade counter.”

His first management role came at 20. His personal amity, knowledge, experience, and sound relationships, cemented over years through providing good service, took him upwards in two national businesses, then finally enabled him to set up a business along with a former boss turned personal friend.

“I could have tried anything, truth known. But I’m pleased I’ve stuck to what I know. You feel you know a lot. But you learn even more once you’re having to do everything from sending a letter to chasing debt. Previously that was all done for me in back office, though I had experience in running it, and in employing and managing staff.”

His experience at Plumb Centre was complemented by years at Plumber Trade Supplies in Sunderland, where he built strong relationships. “I had a great career, mind, at PTS. I was branch manager for four years. I got well looked after, had a good boss and a great team. But I thought while still young enough I’d try to set up for myself.”

Did he start at the right time, then? Savage laughs. “If I’d started 10 years earlier I’d

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have made a lot more money by now!”

However, he contacted his good friend and former colleague Gary Riseborough, with whom he’d worked for 15 years, and who in fact had been Savage’s immediate boss before setting up his own heating company. Together they had nearly 50 years of experience to put into their venture.

“We had a good chat about setting up together. We agreed: ‘Let’s just go for it.’

People thought us mad because we were right into the recession. All was doom and gloom.

But I never read the newspapers or watched the news. I just went ahead, doing what I wanted to do. You need a bit of cockiness and self-belief.”

had dealings with Thompsons, says that although unpaid tax appeared to force that closure, goods in his view had been sold too cheaply there. “When we first opened we were always coming across various prices.

We felt they were selling very, very low, knowing what the costs were. I think that was certainly detrimental.”

Flame Heating Spares did pick up a little business as a result. “But I like to think we were already pretty well established by then.”

Ironically, the administrators tried to keep Thompsons trading initially but found stock levels so low that after two days’ trading just £12,118 was taken across the firm’s stores and a deficit of £5,000 was recorded over

I could have tried anything, truth known.

But I’m pleased I’ve stuck to what I know. You feel you know a lot. But you learn even more once you’re having to do everything from sending a letter to chasing debt They opened their first unit at Perth Court, Team Valley, in 2011. Kathryn, his wife from Horsley Hill like him, thought him crazy at first, giving up an area manager’s job. “But deep down I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to go on doing. It was bit of a rocky road to start with, but I knew what we wanted to do. Gary and I put a business plan out there and stuck to it.

In 2013 both the trade and North East business generally were surprised – but not Savage or Riseborough – to learn that one of the top independent builders’ merchants of the region, the Sunderland based A Thompson & Sons and sister company TAPS, had collapsed under two years’ losses. Managing director Anne Ganley, business award winning daughter of the firm’s founder Albert Thompson, had hoped to save the operations. But a winding-up petition from HM Revenue and Customs forced administration.

Weeks later KPMG administrators announced the sale of the businesses and certain assets to Grafton Merchanting GB Ltd. Savage, who’d

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that period. Debtors owed £1.59m, fated not to be fully recovered.

Undeterred by bad news from any quarter, Savage opened a second outlet at Dragonville Industrial Estate, Durham, then recently a third at South Shields, where he has lived all his life.

This year the firm will expand further, with Stockton, Newcastle and Sunderland all being considered for the next couple of openings.

“It depends where we find the right person to run it,” Savage says. “If things go well from there we might move beyond.”

The hardest part of setting up, he found, was getting established and making sure the business grows. “That’s ongoing. Raising finance also. I spoke to a lot of owners with their own business in my industry. It was amazing what doors and opportunities opened up. Some became clients.”

While there’s no fat evident on the bone, there’s clearly a structured organisation and innovative thinking guiding it. Fittingly for hard times, the Flame was lit for a mere >>

ENTREPRENEUR £80,000, with Savage and Riseborough, who is sales director, putting in £10,000 each, the balance coming from a local private investor.

That has become the pattern. Each location has an investor director, someone perhaps working in the area already with experience.

“It works very well both ways,” Savage says.

The only state support was “a little funding” through Business Link for Flame’s e-commerce website. “Unfortunately,” Savage recalls, “the company we used went bust so we had a lovely website we didn’t know how to use.

There was no-one to phone for any support.

But at least we’ve got a presence online.”

Better presence online, more branches and the hire of two apprentices and perhaps a spread into commercial piping are the immediate intentions. “Our website doesn’t reflect our business in total at the moment. I’d like to incorporate our financial incentives on the site – all the kind of stuff reflecting the full service we provide. We want to make it mobile friendly too.”

The financial incentives extend both to industry and domestic customers, for while a lot of its supplies reach the general public through the former, domestic buyers have been increasing all over the country via the internet.

The critical third year for a start-up has presented no concerns but, then, there is never a shortage of work for plumbers and heating engineers, and therefore for heating parts suppliers either, especially as demand is well spread over the year – summer time for schools work, for example, and winter for domestic jobs. Even as we talk, the temperature is dropping, the phones are ringing.

“It’s exciting times at Flame, and I’m delighted to be part of the business,” says Gary. From John’s position too, mortgage concern seems a thing of the past now. Little Jack is three happy years old and life is good for brothers Keiron, 14, and Daniel, seven, too. Even Kathryn must surely feel John jumped in the right direction, showing that it’s an ill recession indeed that blows no-one any good.

And if it does mean him working an 11 hour day during the week, and an emergency callout some Saturdays, that surely suggests a business continuing to move in the right direction – and especially if housebuilding continues to pick up. n

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Little things mean a lot At a time when interest charges remain low, Flame is devising new services, selling new products and making financial offers other merchants don’t.

“Through finance, we’re helping local engineers to run their businesses.

I think we’re the only ones in merchant trade, definitely within the North East, offering financial support.

“If a customer’s boiler breaks down, and the parts are obsolete meaning a new boiler and an unexpected cost, our finance can help. We can spread costs over 12 months, interest free. So, indirectly, we’re also helping people to replace old or broken down boilers in their homes.

“And, by enabling home owners to apply directly now for finance, the service helps improve the warmth in their homes on reduced bills, simply by delivering improved efficiencies similar to those available through government funding schemes.

“We’re doing this because, as the Government has rightly identified, too many homes are running on inefficient boilers, many of them nearing life’s end and costly to replace. We’ve been finding that the public see some funding schemes currently operating as complex and daunting.

“Our aim is to provide a simple service at source, making the process easier and quicker. Working with many people in the trade across the region, we’re also able to help home owners find a reliable installer in their area.”

There’s a rental service for the engineers too. They have to use a flue gas analyser to commission boilers, once installed. The instrument needs to be sent yearly to its manufacturer for calibration, which can mean a period with no analyser – in other words, downtime. They can hire a temporary analyser from Flame.

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1

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

MONDAY 25 MAY 2015 SUNDERLAND STADIUM OF LIGHT CONCERT HOSPITALITY

Enjoy one of the biggest rock events the North East has ever staged, from the relaxed comfort of the Stadium of Light’s fantastic hospitality suites.

Brand new American-themed hospitality packages for this summer’s must see show.

GOLD PACKAGE The informal GOLD PACKAGE option offers concert goers: • Red carpet entry • Reserved prime concert seat • Reception drink on arrival - cocktails and bottled beers • A range of American-style sharing food/tapas (equivalent to a buffet) • Private bar facilities • Access to post-show bar with music £175 per person + VAT. PLATINUM SUITES PACKAGES Enjoy the show in true American style with hospitality in one of the stadium’s fantastic platinum suites.

• Red carpet entry • Reserved premium concert seat • Professional photographer to provide group shots of your party • Specially crafted Champagne cocktails from mixologist on arrival • Grazing tapas and sizzling platters (equivalent to three-course menu) • Table service bar facilities and host service • Access to post-show bar with music £235 per person + VAT (please note, tables of 10 or less will be grouped together).

VIP PRIVATE PLATINUM BOXES Rock the night away from the comfort of your own private balcony with our VIP PRIVATE PLATINUM BOX package.

• Red carpet entry • Exclusive seat on the balcony • Professional photographer to provide group shots of your party • Champagne cocktails and tapas canapés on arrival

• Menu of grazing/sizzling platters (equivalent to three-course menu) • Table service bar facilities and host service • Mini bar stocked on request (additional cost) • Two bottles of table wine to accompany menu • Access to post-show bar with music £285 per person + VAT (minimum of 10 guests).

DIAMOND VIP SUMMER BBQ PARTY The DIAMOND VIP SUMMER BBQ PARTY, hosted in the stadium’s Riverview Brasserie and James Herriot Suite, featuring stylish garden party balconies, provides concert-goers with the perfect pre-party atmosphere.

• Red carpet entry • Exclusive high level seat • Professional photographer to provide group shots of your party • Specially crafted Champagne cocktails from mixologist and Pimms on arrival • Complimentary pre-show beers/house wine and soft drinks • Pre-concert feast > Starter-style snacks/tapas/bowl food > Specialist BBQ food including steaks, fish and chicken served with salads, breads, potatoes and a range of accompaniments > Canapé desserts • Exclusive outdoor balcony garden, with table service bar facilities and host service • Cloakroom facilities • Post-show food snacks including corn on the cob, chilli dogs and tacos • Access to post-show bar with music £325 per person + VAT (please note, tables of 10 or less will be grouped together).

TO BOOK OR FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT A MEMBER OF OUR CONCERT TEAM TEL: 0871 911 1555 OR EMAIL: FOOSHOSPITALITY@SAFC.COM FULL DETAILS ARE AVAILABLE AT WWW.SAFCCONCERTS.COM FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @STADIUMOFLIGHT #FoosAtSol 1304

IN ANOTHER LIFE

WINTER 15

A SCRIPT FOR LIFE AT THE CHALK FACE Stephanie Boulton is joint managing director of First Class Supply, an independent supply teaching agency in the region. But away from the chalk face, she loves penning a TV script – the soapier the better

Life couldn’t be more different from soap life and, to be fair, I’d probably hate to live in a soap opera

True, I rarely get the time these days while running a thriving business from Whitley Bay, but in another life I’d have liked to be a script writer. I’m delighted one of my scripts has been used for an episode of Channel 5’s popular soap opera Family Affairs.

Ironically, before putting pen to paper, I was never really into soaps. But I was aware of the eventful goings on in Coronation Street and on Albert Square. Life was never dull and mundane, as real life can sometimes be.

It was always high drama, waterworks and bittersweet moments. I think the thing people love are the quite complex interplay between the characters and the storylines that play out between them. There’s simply never a dull moment, and that’s what I believe has the nation hooked.

I always felt I had a good storyline inside me. I came up with an idea for an episode, submitted it and, to my joy and amazement, it was accepted. I was given two weeks to write the episode, and I enjoyed every minute!

I’d dabbled before, but never taken it to the

point of submitting something. Friends and family persuaded me to submit an outline script, as I was forever coming up with plotlines.

The most amazing feeling was to see my episode aired on TV. It gives me an enormous sense of pride to see how I had made the characters come “alive”. Since the episode went out, I’ve dabbled at script writing, again for the soaps, but haven’t yet had time to finish anything. That’s where real life has intervened. Life couldn’t be more different from soap life and, to be fair, I’d probably hate to live in a soap opera.

Business life is very full on at the moment, though, amid a period of expansion, taking on more staff, more supply teachers and maintaining the relationships with our partner schools. Running our supply agency is exciting, and while I enjoyed seeing my edition aired, and would like to devote a bit more time to it in future, I can honestly say I’m in my true vocation. However, who knows what would happen in another life… n

Stephanie Boulton set up First Supply 10 years ago with co-director Lesley Robinson.

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COMPANY PROFILE

Venturefest North East: providing a platform for public, private and academic collaboration, to aid regional economic growth Over 500 of the region’s entrepreneurs, businesses, investors and innovators joined together last year for the inaugural Venturefest North East. A resounding success, the 2015 event promises to be even bigger, with a launch last month unveiling its return for Tuesday 13th October.

While the commercial impact of Venturefest North East 2014 is still being calculated, the immediate wins are easily recognisable: business advice and services were accessed from more than 40 exhibitors; over 250 ‘elevator pitch’ meetings were held between funders and businesses; and, 14 start-ups were offered funding at the event itself.

The full programme for 2015’s conference is still in development, with the organisations supporting the event, Innovate UK, the Knowledge Transfer Network and the North East LEP, committed to expanding Venturefest North East’s reach and influence.

Simon Green, Head of Business Support at Newcastle Science City and event lead, explains: “Venturefest North East is a truly collaborative platform, bringing together national innovators, public bodies and start-ups, all under one roof. We had some truly inspirational experts speak at last year’s event– the likes of Google’s Joe Faith, the region’s Innovation Champion, Roy Sandbach and Paul Callaghan from The Leighton Group.

“In addition to all five of our region’s universities being on board, the conference ran innovation workshops led by industry partners including Ward Hadaway, the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult and Escher Group. Looking back, the bar for this year’s Venturefest North East has been set incredibly high!”

Around 600 delegates are expected to attend this year’s event at the Hilton NewcastleGateshead in the Autumn and can sign up for free, to hear from a plethora of high-profile guest speakers, gain in-depth knowledge through a series of workshops or pitch for investment to some of the UK’s leading financiers. Sponsorship and exhibition packages

L-R Ian Tracey, Roy Sandbach and Simon Green

We had some inspirational experts speak at last year’s event– the likes of Google’s Joe Faith, the region’s Innovation Champion, Roy Sandbach and Paul Callaghan from The Leighton Group will be released shortly, and Venturefest North East organisers are keen to hear from funds and investors who would like to participate in 2015’s Innovation Showcase, which will once again be led by the North East BIC. With the agenda focussed on innovation, speakers will share their experiences, success stories and learning to encourage delegates to make their start-ups, SMEs or larger businesses even more commercially attractive and sustainable.

Simon continues: “At our launch in January we announced our Autumn date to 150 partners, businesses and supporters, illustrating the appetite for October’s conference. Last year’s

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event was a sell-out, so we have our sights set on welcoming even more participants this year.”

Venturefest North East is the region’s major annual innovation conference, part of the national Venturefest Network. It is a free, full-day, annual event focussing on how companies can embrace innovative thinking, designed to bring together businesses, corporates, investors, academics and advisors with specific expertise in innovation.

The programme includes the chance to hear from high profile speakers and take part with in-depth workshops and one-to-one coaching sessions from industry experts, and will give businesses new ideas, contacts and approaches to innovation.

NORTH EAST 2015 For more information and to register for 2015, visit: www.venturefestnortheast.com

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

PRINCE’S TRUST

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and 2003. Sponsors for the dinner are Newcastle University Business School, PWC and Bond Dickinson.

>> A life changing year unfolds Exciting times are ahead as The Prince’s Trust supports 4,000 disadvantaged young people of the North East to access education, training or jobs.

Businesses of the region are providing vocational training opportunities through the trust’s Get Into programmes. Longstanding supporter Greggs has donated a further £25,000 to running Get into Retail with Greggs in the North East.

The trust is delighted also that its interim chairman of The Prince’s Trust Development Committee in the region, John Marshall of law firm Bond Dickinson, has agreed to make his role permanent.

John says: “I’m delighted and honoured to be invited to take this role as the trust approaches its 40th anniversary. It continues to focus on building personal confidence, ambition and aspiration for disadvantaged young people on our doorsteps. We can change their lives with continued and vital support from our generous business community”.

>> Demolition Ball November’s Demolition Ball raised £32,000 for the trust in the North East. Held by

long time supporters of the trust, Meldrum, the ball is a highlight of the fundraising calendar, bringing together construction’s best to raise funds for disadvantaged young people. Held in the stunning Stephenson Works, it is something not to be missed next year.

Set to it: Peter Taylor (fourth left) of funder UK Steel Enterprise lends a hand at the Beechwood Allotments with Martin Copley (left) and members of The Prince’s Trust team and the Harmony Growing Project

>> Growing enterprise In the south of the region, thanks to funding from UK Steel Enterprise, nine young people from the trust helped The Harmony Growing Project in Middlesbrough as part of their Prince’s Trust Team programme.

UKSE’s support ensured the project’s success, helping provide transport, two cabins, a chicken coop and equipment towards providing more organic food for homeless people, including victims of substance abuse. The project was part of a 12-week programme, run through Stockton Riverside College for 16 to 25 year olds. UKSE has now backed 16 trust teams in the area. The trust is hugely grateful.

I’m delighted and honoured to be invited to take this role >> Election insight On 12 March the region’s business community will gather for The Prince’s Trust’s annual business dinner at the Hilton, Gateshead, hosted this year by Kim Inglis.

The last event raised over £50,000 for the trust’s work in the region.

Alastair Campbell will be speaker, giving an insider’s view in the run-up to the Election.

He’s best known for his work as director of communications and strategy for the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, between 1997

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

Soaring support: Tickets are on sale for the shoot that raised £35,000 for the trust last year

>> Coming fundraisers Tickets are on sale for May’s annual Bond Dickinson Charity Clay Shoot supporting the trust, and held on Lambton Estate. Last year’s shoot, hosted by Bond Dickinson and John Holland of JR Holland Food Services, raised £35,000-plus. Hundreds saw 28 teams compete. For booking and information, please call 0191 497 3212 or email zoe.mulvenna@princes-trust.org.uk.

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MEDIA BRIEFS

WINTER 15

>> Biz Quiz 1. Who’s founding the new Atom Bank opening in Durham shortly, and which bank did he found previously?

2. When did coal mining in County Durham reach its peak, employing 170,000 workers?

3. Which company is sponsoring the Great North Run for the first time this year?

4. In what year was Middlesbrough’s iconic Newport lifting bridge opened?

5. Which North East company is reviving the manufacture of washing machines in the UK this year?

Answers at the foot of the page.

The Scrutator Something positive: Frances Moffatt explains creative doodling

In the swim: Michael Gilkes, project manager of Enterprise Europe Network, enters Peter Brunton’s world of Sally the seal

>> All at sea with an oil rig writer

>> Doodle and learn Frances Moffatt, a Teesside University graduate in fashion marketing, is promoting creative development in a book she’s having published. Her Fashion Exercise Book: Drawing, Doodling and Colouring In, features exercises with doodles and drawings that need completing, along with creative colouring-in exercises. Batsford is the publisher.

More and more young people are being entertained by the writings of former oil rig worker Peter Brunton. The Middlesbrough author already has many young readers in this country enjoying his stories about Sally the seal, based on a real-life seal that used to visit the rig Peter worked on in the North Sea, off Aberdeen, in the 1990s.

After retiring in 2009 he had two children’s books published, Sally the Oil Rig Seal and Sally to the Rescue, both of which sold in the North East. Now Teesside University, lead partner in Enterprise Europe Network North East, has found a Norwegian translator and publisher to prepare tales of the friendly, rig loving seal for Norwegian children to enjoy.

Brunton says: “A lot of rig workers on Teesside particularly gave copies of the books to their children while they were working away. It comforted the children, I think, to know what their fathers were doing. Then it struck me there was probably a market for the stories in Norway, since so many of the oil workers’ experiences there would be similar.”

He has just finished writing a third book, Sally and her Pups, which may also be translated.

>> No more manana After a double-dip recession, many now work more for the same (or less!) pay. Get Things Done

by Robert Kelsey (Capstone £10.99) outlines war on procrastination and how to wage it.

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Answers: 1 Anthony Thomson, Metro Bank. 2 1923. 3 Morrisons. 4 1934. 5 Ebac at Newton Aycliffe.

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

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05/11/2014 14:10

BIT OF A CHAT

with Frank Tock >> Rod tests a top gear marriage Now, here’s a test for a happy marriage.

This month Rod Taylor competes in a gruelling 8,000km car rally, Malaysia to Mandalay. The boss of the Seaward electronics group at Peterlee is pitting his 1972 Datsun 240 Z’s staying power in only his second such event.

In 2012 he contested London to Cape Town and was third midway when, sadly, the vehicle rolled in Tanzania. Gamely, he finally finished 11th. Further east, as he hopes for better fortune, he’ll have his wife Rosemary navigating. Could one wrong turn prove a risk to marital bliss?

“Time will tell,” he replies phlegmatically.

“Time will tell.”

>> Training the mind I’m askance at people in high North East places advocating HS2 as good for our region – relieved, therefore, to hear contrary from Adam Serfontein, whose vocation, property development and investment, is much involved.

His views on the £50bn higher-speed train service proposed are his alone, and consequently measured. “While I like the idea in principle,” he says, “HS2 would make our region about an inch taller and other major cities about six inches taller.

“London to Leeds would gain 45 minutes, to Manchester an hour. And Birmingham through HS2 will effectively be pulled

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

WINTER 15

into London’s conurbation – quicker to reach than one side of London is from the other. Against that, the gain between London and Newcastle would be 11 minutes. Relatively speaking, we’re a loser.”

And since the North East would not come online, so to speak, until more than a decade later, the immense UK-bound investment projected as a pay-off would by then have been made elsewhere, in his view.

The managing director of Hanro Group, still speaking personally, firmly believes the North East’s best prospects for prosperity are (a) to maintain the growth of indigenous businesses “which, in fact, are doing very well” (b) through inward investment and (c) by retaining more graduates from our five universities.

He’d love local authorities and private sector companies to bang on Whitehall’s door as one to say: “Here’s what we really want.”

We’ll only have ourselves to blame otherwise, he fears.

HS2 would make our region an inch taller and other major cities about six inches taller >> Cavalry’s here Given this growing menace of cyber crime, it’s re-assuring that Newcastle College is securing funding to develop skills in support of the National Cyber Security Strategy. It’s the only UK college, and the only provider in the North East, to win this opportunity.

But then, it’s also the only college in the country apparently to have validated its own foundation degree in cyber security. It’s getting almost £35,000 from the Higher Education Academy and the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills.

A cyber security lab now being set up will support IT employers wishing to address the

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security gap. Carole Kitching, the principal, points out: “The national shortage in cyber security skills is huge. This project will help to put the region on the map in terms of worldclass training as well as helping to support the national strategy.”

>> On your guard Barely a day passes without hearing of some incidence of cyber or other business crime. Hardly surprising, now that cybercrime costs the global economy £367bn a year – more than the economies of many countries. Roger and Ben Crosby at Crosbys, the Newcastle catering supplier, affirm that ne’erdowells are incessantly trying to work a flanker.

Roger recalls: “We received an email from someone the other day saying they’d paid a cheque for £50,000 into our bank but realised they’d overpaid us by £49,000.

Could we send the £49,000 back? The cheque had indeed arrived. But the bank warned us off it.”

It makes a change, though, from the individual coming in to say they’re about to open a restaurant but haven’t all the money to hand yet and could they have credit?

>> Hacking it And did you know PwC employs ethical hackers who, with your permission, will test-hack your systems? Bill MacLeod, senior partner in Newcastle, explains: “We’ll try under this safeguard to get an email’s logon details. We got 60% of one company’s employee log-on details.

“One MD came to us believing his systems were completely secure. We offered to whizz round his external CCTVs remotely from our office there and then. Our laptop soon had control of his CCTVs. We could also access the financial and business data.”

MacLeod never ceases to be amazed at how many big companies still have default passwords sitting in their systems that can be logged into – perhaps by a disgruntled employee or someone just out for kicks.

EVENTS

WINTER 15

BQ’s business events diary gives you lots of time to forward plan. If you wish to add your event to the list send it to editor@bq-magazine.co.uk and please put ‘BQ events page’ in the subject heading

FEBRUARY

24 ICAEW Northern group of semi- and retired professional accountants’ lunch (12.30pm) 24 Women in Leadership Dinner, CBI NE (6.30pm) tbc

17 FSB networking meal, Hartlepool (5.30pm) 17 Defects under NEC, CECA NE/Watson Burton seminar, Durham CCC, Chester le Street (8am).

0191 228 0900.

25 NECC Local, Hart Biological, Hartlepool (10am) 26 Customs Compliance, Processes and Documentation, NEEC Durham (9.30am)

19 Leon Clarence (Motion Picture Capital) addresses Mussel Club, Newcastle (6pm)

31 PAYE, NIC and PIID update, ICAEW Northern (12.30pm), book online

20 Mussel Club networking, Newton Aycliffe (8am)

31 An Evening with Sir Peter Vardy, EF event, Durham (7pm)

21 Mussel Club networking, Gateshead (8am)

31 Last minute planning for tax year 2014/15*

24 An Evening with Graham Wylie, businessman and philanthropist, Community Foundation event, Close House, Heddon (6pm).

APRIL

24 NECC 200, Tees Valley review and agm, Preston Hall Park Museum, Stockton (11.30am)

13 Oil and Gas international visit to South Korea, NOF Energy

24 Digital Catapult briefing for FSB, Sunderland Software Centre (8am).

14 How to Manage Projects/ How to Manage Disputes, CECA NE/Watson Burton seminar, Durham CCC, Chester le Street (8am). 0191 228 0900.

26 Tyneside and Northumberland Business Awards, Marriott Gosforth (6.30pm)

MARCH

15 Capital Taxes and the Family Business, ICAEW Northern (1.30pm), book online

2 A 5% late payment penalty on any 2013/14 outstanding tax due on January 31 and still unpaid*

21 Dr Sam Whitehouse, Quantumox, EF event, Science Central, Newcastle (8am)

16 ICE NE annual dinner, Marriott Gosforth Hotel

3 Resilience Brilliance, Service Network master class, Business & IP centre, Newcastle City Library (8am), events@service-network.co.uk 3 M Club, CBI NE, Newcastle University (8.15am) and Teesside University (noon)

21 Spring Tax Update, (9.30am) and Accounting Update Refresher (12.30pm), ICAEW Northern, book online 21 Geotechnical Aspects of Reopening Dawlish railway, Newcastle 22 HR Directors’ Forum, CBI event, Gateshead (9am)

3 NECC 200, Durham review and agm, Lumley Castle (11.30)

22 Inheritance Tax, am I Bothered? ICAEW Northern (1.30pm), book online

4 Discover South East Asia, NECC networking, Copthorne Hotel, Newcastle (10.30am)

23 Human Resources Knowledge, legislation update, NECC/Croner NECC (9.30am)

5 CDM Regulations 2015, EEF briefing, Gateshead (8am)

23 North East Business Awards, Hardwick Hall Hotel, Sedgefield (6.30am)

5 Alex Brodie, ex-foreign correspondent, on Hawkshead Brewery, Darlington campus, Teesside University (4.30pm)

29 Developing the Supply Chain, CBI NE manufacturing event tbc

5 Import Processing, Compliance and Documentation, NECC Durham (10.30am)

30 Mike Matthews, Nifco, at EF dinner event, Darlington (7pm)

9 Canada, a NOF Energy briefing, time tba, NOF Energy, Durham

30 Key Risks for Accountants, ICAEW Northern (1.30pm) book online

10 NECC 200, Tyne and Wear review and agm, Discovery Museum, Newcastle (11.30am) 10 Business Confidence Monitor and Export Confidence, ICAEW Northern with UKTI and UKEF (8am)

MAY 5 M Club, CBI NE, Newcastle University Business School (8.15am) and Teesside University (noon)

10 Accountancy Issues and Current Issues, ICAEW Northern (2pm),

6 Attracting and Retaining Top Talent, EF round table event, Newcastle (2.30pm)

10,11 NOF National Conference: Energy, a Balanced Future, The Sage, Gateshead.

Kristie Leng, 0191 384 6464. kleng@nofenergy.co.uk

6 Laws and Regulations for the Practising Accountant, ICAEW Northern (9.30am), and Spring Tax Update (2pm), book online

11 MP Lunch and Question Time, CBI NE, tbc

7 Leading Strategic Change, IoD NE/CPD workshop (6pm)

11 Farming Update, ICAEW Northern (1.30pm), details online

14 Entrepreneurs’ Forum annual conference, The Sage, Gateshead

12 Age Inclusion Solutions, supporting an ageing workforce, NECC/Age Inclusive Ltd seminar, NECC Durham (9.30am)

19 Resolving Disputes, CECA NE/Watson Burton seminar, Durham CCC, Chester le Street (8am).

0191 228 0900

12 NECC 200, Durham and Wearside Business Awards, Ramside Hall Hotel, Durham (6.30pm) 13 Sales and the Art of Negotiation Exchange, EF event, Durham (8am)

The diary is updated daily online at www.bqlive.co.uk

13 Mussel Club meeting, Stockton 16 Strategic Decision Making, IoD NE/CPD workshop (8am) 17 Tales from a Court Room, CECA NE/Watson Burton seminar, Durham CCC, Chester le Street (8am). 0191 228 0900.

17 NECC 200, Northumberland review and agm, Horton Grange Hotel (11.30am) 18 Budget Day Live, EF event, PwC, Newcastle 18 Annual Emerging Engineers’ Awards, ICE event, Newcastle University 19 Employment Law Update, EEF event, Gateshead (noon) 19 Search of a Time Lord 102, career and personal development, ICAEW Northern (1.30pm), 24 What the New GAAP Means to You, audit and assurance, and financial reporting, ICAEW Northern (9.30am),

BUSINESS QUARTER | WINTER 15

Please check with contacts beforehand that arrangements have not changed. Events organisers are also asked to notify us at the above email address of any changes or cancellations as soon as they are known.

KEY: Acas: Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service, CIM: Chartered Institute of Marketing, CECA (NE): Civil Engineering Contractors Association (North-East), EF: Entrepreneurs Forum, EEF: The Manufacturers’ Organisation, HMRC: Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, ICAEW: Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, ICE: Institution of Civil Engineers, IoD: Institute of Directors, NEA2F: North East Access to Finance, NECC: North-East Chamber of Commerce, NSCA: Northern Society of Chartered Accountants, FSB: Federation of Small Business, Tba: to be arranged, Tbc: to be confirmed, Tbf: to be finalised. *Tax reminders from the website of Joseph Miller & Co, independent chartered accountants and business advisers of Newcastle, www.joseph-miller.co.uk, where further detail may be found.

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