Watch: Insider's Business Briefing - July 11th
In today's Daily Business Briefing, Miri Thomas and Simon Keegan discuss the retirement of Domis's cofounder and the return of an influential figure to Manchester City Council. In the South West, Chris Ward is asking the readership what they want to see from the new government. Sam Mercer, chief executive of Plantforce, shares his thoughts.
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00:00Coming up in today's Daily Business Briefing, the Southwest Selection Reaction Survey, a
00:04look ahead to Insider's Salford event, the retirement of Lima Caron from Domus, and the
00:08return of an influential public figure in the Northwest.
00:12Good morning, I'm Mary Thomas.
00:19And I'm Simon Keegan.
00:20So, Simon, you've got an update on the Dealmakers Awards in the Northwest, haven't you?
00:24I have.
00:25It's the deadline for entries today.
00:27So, it's the 30th annual Dealmakers, you know, so it's set to be the biggest Dealmakers
00:32yet.
00:33If you want to win at Dealmakers, this is the one you want to win.
00:36And the deadline for entries is today.
00:38Now, Mary, there has been a rumor of a deadline extension, but people must not listen to these
00:44rumors, Mary.
00:45They've got to get their entries in because they wouldn't want to miss out, would they?
00:49Absolutely not.
00:50There's only one way to be certain, isn't there?
00:52Enter today.
00:53Enter today, right?
00:54Exactly.
00:55So, in the newsletter today, I spotted a couple of interesting stories about retirements as
01:01well.
01:02So, in the Northwest, they're both from the Northwest.
01:06One of them is Lima Caron.
01:07So, he's the co-founder of Domus, the construction business, and Domus' partner is Soulboy.
01:13Soulboy, as you know, the directors are Simon Ismail and also Fred Doan of Betfred.
01:21So, from Domus, it's Lima Caron's retirement, and that will see Kingsley Thornton take over
01:26as managing director.
01:27He's currently director at the business.
01:29But then coming back out of retirement is Eamon Boylan.
01:34His retirement didn't last long, did it?
01:35No, not at all.
01:36So, he's confirmed that he's returning to Manchester City Council as interim chief executive
01:42starting from August as the council looks for a replacement for Joanne Roney.
01:47So, that was an interesting move, I thought.
01:49He got a front cover out of us as well, didn't he, on his retirement, and he won as well
01:54at the Property Awards.
01:55That's right.
01:56Outstanding Achievement Award in this year's Northwest Residential Property Awards.
01:59So, yeah.
02:00Great to see him back though, isn't it?
02:01Yeah.
02:02Good luck, and we look forward to working with him as he returns to the council.
02:07What else have you seen, Simon?
02:08Well, I'm going to see Andy Burnham tonight.
02:11We are covering in the next issue of Northwest Business Insider, obviously, we're continuing
02:17with our reaction to the new government.
02:21I mean, it's quite interesting that the Metro Mayors from all over the country went down
02:25to 10 Downing Street for the first time all of the Metro Mayors got together, and the
02:31Prime Minister's announced the launch of a Council of Regions and Nations for the Metro
02:36Mayors.
02:37Sounds a bit Game of Thrones, doesn't it?
02:38Andy Burnham, King of the North, all that kind of thing.
02:41And so, we'll see what that brings.
02:43And also, James Timpson, one of the Northwest's most influential business leaders, taking
02:50a step back from Timpsons to concentrate on his new role in government as the Prisons
02:55Minister.
02:56Because obviously, Timpsons have got various programs where they employ people who've been
03:03in the prison system, and what they find is that it lowers the rate of re-offending instead
03:10of just being that like vicious circle, I suppose, of coming out of prison and going
03:14back in prison.
03:15It actually gives them something to kind of focus on.
03:18Strikes me that he's a good man to have in a job like that.
03:21Seems like a really good appointment.
03:22And speaking of elections, in the Southwest, we are now running a survey to gauge the community's
03:28view on what the government should focus on from a business perspective.
03:32Here's editor Chris Ward to tell us a bit more.
03:35Thanks guys.
03:37I'm in North Somerset with Sam Mercer, who's the CEO of PlantForce.
03:41PlantForce, 40 million plus turnover plant hire company here in Western Super-Mare, hiring
03:49out to all sorts of industries, construction, energy, rail, and for big projects like Hinkley
03:55Point C and the Gravity Gigafactory and HS2.
04:01Sam, I'm sure you would have been laser focused on the election results over the last few
04:07days.
04:08Talk to us as a business leader about some of the things that you'd like to see from
04:13the Labour government in order to stimulate some of the business that you do here at PlantForce.
04:19So I think three key things really for us to look for would be the softening of planning
04:25regulation.
04:26I think that would have a really positive effect.
04:29Really stimulating the house building sector and then a push on energy, on the energy sector
04:35as well.
04:36Well, thanks Sam and yeah, these are important questions for business leaders such as yourself
04:41and Insider Media will be running a survey over the next week or two, trying to gauge
04:46the opinion of business leaders all across the South West, business leaders such as Sam,
04:52trying to understand what it is that they're hoping for from a new government.
04:55So please do watch out for that and we'll share a link to the survey in today's business
05:00briefing.
05:01Back to you guys.
05:03And thanks Chris.
05:04Simon, what else are we looking forward to in the week ahead?
05:08Well, I've got my Salford Vision event on Tuesday.
05:11So this is going to be held at Eden over at New Bailey, which is, it's got to be one of
05:17the most striking buildings in all of the North West I think, hasn't it?
05:21Yeah, I hear it's got the tallest living wall in Europe.
05:25I would say so, yeah.
05:26I haven't seen all the others, but that sounds about right.
05:29We've got some amazing speakers.
05:30We've got Muse there who are behind that, BDO who, you know, I'd say one of the biggest
05:36accountancy firms they're moving into there.
05:39We've also got speakers from Salford Uni, from the council, a Salford legend, Jed Mason
05:45from Mawson's, who as well as, you know, running a big business like that, he also does a lot
05:50in the Salford area.
05:52He works with the unis a lot.
05:54He does a lot of employment programs and apprenticeships and things, so it'll be really interesting
05:58to hear from Jed.
05:59We've got the Scarborough Group there behind Middlewood Locks, which is a fantastic development.
06:05The way they've created that from kind of nothing really in Salford I think is really
06:10impressive.
06:12We've also got on the panel one of our most exciting companies, Sam from Spice and Ground.
06:17As well as being on the panel, she's also providing the coffee for that event and it's
06:21nice coffee as well, you know, so I'm looking forward to that.
06:24Yeah, me too.
06:25I'm going to be there on Tuesday as well.
06:26So we should have a lively audience because they'll all be suitably caffeinated, so I'm
06:30looking forward to that.
06:31Fab.
06:32And if you want to find out more about any of those stories, head to insidermedia.com
06:37and we'll also post a link to the Southwest survey as well so you can have your say.
06:41See you soon.
06:42See you next time.