Crain's Manchester Business - 9 - 13 November, 2009 - (Page 1)

CRAIN’S LIST Commercial Litigation Law Firms Page 14 STARTS ON PAGE 13 Law Why small firms are taking a hammering CRAIN’S MANCHESTER BUSINESS VOL. 2, ISSUE 45, NOVEMBER 9 - 13, 2009 CrainsManchesterBusiness.co.uk £2 What’s News ■ A resilient sales performance has helped Neville Johnson Ltd, the bespoke home furnisher, to post operating profits up 11 per cent at £1.56m. Newly filed accounts for the year to April 30, 2009 show that turnover fell by 1 per cent to £16.73m, which directors described as “an excellent result” considering the challenging economic conditions. Pre-tax profits were 6.4 per cent up at £1.57m. The Trafford Park-based company, which supplies home offices, bedrooms and cinema rooms and has a number of celebrity clients, was sold in March last year by turnaround fund Endless to Key Capital Partners, which paid £4.25m for a majority stake. The accounts show that the business owes £4.47m to its private equity fund owners. ■ The Eastlands Homes Partnership Ltd is building a new 20,000 sq ft depot on a site in Pottery Lane, Longsight, which it acquired from Quorum Property Investments. Pochin has won the construction contract and the new building, split between offices, warehouse and stores, will be a centralised base for services to the social landlord’s 8,000 tenants. The depot is due for completion in Spring 2010 and will be occupied by more than 150 staff. Quorum development surveyor Paul Cook said the deal was more good news for South Manchester office market. The deal leaves Quorum with an additional 1.7 acres available at the site, and the firm is currently in discussions with a potential occupier for a 25,000 sq ft office building. ■ Blue Rainbow Apartments Ltd, the Manchester based aparthotel company has acquired the Royal Garden Apartments in Edinburgh for an undisclosed sum. Blue Rainbow said it intends to invest £500,000 to refurbish the 30 apartment hotel in order to elevate it to 5 star standard. Will Hannah, managing director of Blue Rainbow said: “On a daily basis we are presented with potential hotel sites for purchase. We have been eager to expand for a while and out of all the properties, this has been the most attractive by far. Edinburgh is an exciting and vibrant city and we are delighted that Blue Rainbow Apartments can be a part of it.” Over the summer Blue Rainbow came close to buying the Yang Sing Oriental Hotel in Manchester but the deal fell through after private investors pulled out. ■ British Airways has denied national newspaper reports that its Didsbury call centre had been earmarked as an area of the business which would bear the brunt of 1,200 job cuts nationally. The airline — which posted losses of Co-op to run off £9.3bn of property loans Mutual finance giant remains upbeat on benefits of Britannia merger despite risk of write-downs BY MICHAEL FAHY Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) has set aside £9.3bn of property loans made by the Britannia Building Society prior to its recent merger into a specialist vehicle known as Optimum, which is to be wound down. The loans, which contain highrisk self-certification mortgages — or “liar’s loans”, as they have been described — were typically offered to property investors and non-society members through independent financial advisors. John Reizenstein, managing director of CFS’s corporate and markets division, said of the merger: “If we have any trouble, that’s where it’s going to be.” He said the assets were transferred at fair value when the merger was completed, but added that the combined business would “take what provisions are needed” in terms of write-downs both to this loan book and to the £4bn commercial loan portfolio inherited from Britannia. Reizenstein said CFS recognised that in placing the loans into run-off mode, it still had a duty to the 100,000 or so customers “to make sure we treat them fairly and communicate with them properly”. Opportunities The size of the loan book – equivalent to a quarter of Britannia’s net assets of £37.2bn at December 31, 2008 — is significant, but Reizenstein said the supermutual created by the merger, which has assets of more than £70bn, nine million customers and 12,000 staff, is already creating opportunities both for retail and corporate customers. For instance, he believes that there are some early wins that can be gained, such as the introduction of personal accounts for Britannia customers, which the former building SEE CO-OP, PAGE 18 Duerr’s to leave Old Trafford after 113 years BY MICHAEL FAHY F Duerr & Sons, the family-owned maker of jams and peanut butters, is to leave its 113-year-old Old Trafford factory and relocate operations to Wythenshawe. The company has submitted a planning application to Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council to demolish its Prestage Street factory, which opened in 1896, and build 16 new houses on the site. The factory produces the firm’s own-brand and private label peanut butter ranges and operations will move to a new site next door to the firm’s existing jam and honey-making plant at the Roundthorn Industrial Estate in Wythenshawe. Sales and marketing director Richard Duerr, a fifth-generation family member who runs the business alongside brother Mark, said that although the firm had strong emotional ties to the old factory, it placed too many restrictions on the business. “In the end you’ve got to be level headed about these things,” he said. “It was an old building and keeping it up to retailers’ requirements was expensive.” The fact that it was in the middle of a residential area also meant Duerr’s was restricted to operating for one shift each day. This has precluded it from bidding for significant new private label contracts as the facility was already operating at close to capacity. “We were looking at ways of increasing production and this was the best option,” said Richard. “On RETRO GURUS GO OWN LABEL BY JAMES CHAPELARD Oi Polloi owners Steve Sanderson, left, and Nigel Lawson SEE WHAT’S NEWS, PAGE 2 ig brands are beating a path to a Manchester menswear store to find out how to make money out of their back catalogue in the retro clothing market. Steve Sanderson and Nigel Lawson, owners of Oi Polloi in the Northern Quarter, have decided to turn their consultancy work into a new sideline. The pair began giving advice on an ad hoc basis having worked for shoe giant Clarks, outdoorwear supplier Berghaus and British menswear brand Sunspel in the past. Sanderson told Crain’s: “It’s also about advising on what is relevant in the market place at the moment. The consultancy side is in its infancy but people are willing to pay for the knowledge we have built up. We are opinion formers that other people look to.” He said typical advice involves identifying which lines from previous decades would sell well today and what colours the brand should bring them out in. The Oi Polloi founders hope the consultancy will help bolster sales to £5m within two years. They are planning to move to larger premises, still in the Northern Quarter, and to launch an own label collection. Oi Polloi positions itself as an alternative to mass market high street SEE BRANDS, PAGE 18 SEE DUERR, PAGE 18 Leading Page 3 LEGO HELPS SOFTWARE DEVELOPER REMAIN ON TOP OF ITS GAME http://CrainsManchesterBusiness.co.uk

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crain's Manchester Business - 9 - 13 November, 2009

Index
Taking Stock
Opinion/Our View
The City Region: Oldham
Focus: Law
Crain's List
For the Record
Events, People, Gossip

Crain's Manchester Business - 9 - 13 November, 2009