In today's Daily Business Briefing: Simon and Robyn discuss soaring profits at a South East winemaker, Alvarez & Marsal expanding across the North and plans for a new nuclear fabrication facility in Lancashire.
Today's stories on insidermedia.com:
https://www.insidermedia.com/news/north-west/major-milestone-in-wec-groups-expansion-plans
https://www.insidermedia.com/news/wales/distillery-to-release-first-whisky
https://www.insidermedia.com/news/north-west/backing-for-new-building-at-jlrs-halewood-site
https://www.insidermedia.com/news/yorkshire/alvarez-marsal-launches-yorkshire-and-the-ne-corporate-finance-offering
https://www.insidermedia.com/news/national/chapel-down-hails-landmark-year-for-english-wine
Today's stories on insidermedia.com:
https://www.insidermedia.com/news/north-west/major-milestone-in-wec-groups-expansion-plans
https://www.insidermedia.com/news/wales/distillery-to-release-first-whisky
https://www.insidermedia.com/news/north-west/backing-for-new-building-at-jlrs-halewood-site
https://www.insidermedia.com/news/yorkshire/alvarez-marsal-launches-yorkshire-and-the-ne-corporate-finance-offering
https://www.insidermedia.com/news/national/chapel-down-hails-landmark-year-for-english-wine
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NewsTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 Good morning, and welcome back to Insider's Daily Business
00:16 Briefing.
00:16 I'm Simon Keegan.
00:17 I'm the editor of the Northwest Business Insider.
00:20 And I'm joined today by Robin Hewson, business editor
00:23 here in the Northwest.
00:24 Hi, Robin.
00:25 What's caught your eye today, then?
00:28 So a big business story that's caught my eye today
00:30 is about wine.
00:31 Business brief.
00:33 So apparently, it's been a fantastic year
00:35 for English wine.
00:37 We've had an exceptional harvest,
00:38 and that's led to Chapel Down Group, a Kent winemaker,
00:42 achieving record sales.
00:44 So they also do other alcohol, gin and vodka,
00:47 but the star of the show this year has been wine.
00:49 And it's meant that their profits before tax in 2023
00:53 have risen from 1.2 million to 2.3 million.
00:56 I'll drink to that.
00:58 And something that's caught my eye as well
01:00 is a new whiskey that I've seen is coming out of Wales.
01:04 It's actually a distillery near Cardigan,
01:08 and it's called the Welsh Wind.
01:10 And this whiskey, they're only launching at first 680 bottles
01:16 of this limited edition, as they often
01:18 do the smaller distilleries.
01:20 And it's all locally grown grain.
01:22 So I think that's nice for Wales,
01:25 and I'm certainly--
01:27 I'm making a sound like a right pair owner.
01:29 I'm certainly looking forward to trying that one as well.
01:32 Yeah, and if you do any free samples, send them our way.
01:33 Absolutely, send them our way.
01:35 So another story that's caught my eye,
01:38 though, is Jaguar Land Rover, JLR,
01:41 in Hayward in the Liverpool City region.
01:44 So they've got plans for a new building at the Hayward plant.
01:49 It's a 1,000 square foot facility
01:52 where they're going to store the chemicals that's
01:54 associated with the body paint for the cars.
01:58 Now, I went over to that factory a couple of years
02:01 ago for a feature.
02:03 And it's so fascinating to see, because you actually
02:06 see the steel coming in in great big cubes.
02:10 And then you see the finished Land Rover driving out of there.
02:14 It's so interesting.
02:16 And they've got a thing that looks--
02:18 it looks almost like a golf course,
02:20 where you can drive the cars and do test drives and things
02:23 like that.
02:23 It's fantastic.
02:24 It's so quiet as well.
02:25 You know, as you go around the production line,
02:28 you would expect it to be really noisy, wouldn't you?
02:30 Yeah.
02:31 It's absolutely fascinating.
02:32 I think that's one of the best things about our job,
02:34 isn't it, when we get to put the hard hat, the high vis,
02:38 and go look around a factory and really get
02:42 to see how these companies work.
02:45 So what other stories have caught your eye?
02:47 Well, another one from the Northwest
02:49 is about a new nuclear facility in Lancashire.
02:52 So WEC is investing 10 million to build Europe's largest
02:56 subcontract heavy machining and nuclear fabrication facility
03:00 over in Blackburn.
03:02 So the development's going to create 60 new jobs, including
03:06 10 apprentices, which is great for the local region.
03:08 Yeah.
03:08 So what sort of sectors does that cover then?
03:11 So it's going to help the UK's capabilities in nuclear,
03:14 defense, offshore, and engineering.
03:16 All right.
03:17 And fantastic for Lancashire as well.
03:19 Well, another deal story that caught my eye
03:23 was, I suppose, here in Manchester,
03:25 it's fair to say, Alvarez and Marcell
03:27 are the talk of the town.
03:29 They've recruited some really high-profile people,
03:32 the likes of Jonathan Boyers, who we mentioned a few days
03:35 ago, top dealmaker formerly of KPMG.
03:38 Also Victoria Price.
03:40 She was an EY for many years, and she
03:41 was associated with the Young Entrepreneur of the Year
03:45 Awards, which is one of the reasons why Victoria was
03:47 one of my judges this year for Made in the Northwest,
03:50 our manufacturing awards.
03:52 But they're opening now a CF division in Yorkshire
03:55 in the Northeast as well.
03:56 So Duncan Mawpeth is going to be leading that.
03:59 He's going to be based in Leeds.
04:00 So that's something we're definitely
04:02 going to be keeping an eye on.
04:04 And I think we can expect great things from them.
04:07 Definitely.
04:08 So that's all we've got time for today.
04:10 So thanks for joining us on our daily business briefing.
04:13 Robin, I think you're going to be back tomorrow.
04:15 Yeah, with Miri, our editorial director.
04:17 Fantastic.
04:17 So you can follow up on any of these stories
04:20 on insidermedia.com.
04:22 You can follow us on LinkedIn as well.
04:25 So thanks again for joining us.
04:26 I'm going to see you soon.
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