Watch: Insider's Business Briefing - 8th August
In today's briefing Simon Keegan and Miri Thomas talk about the international ambitions of clothing brand Seasalt, the legacy of Sir Howard Bernstein, Deloitte's new equity capital markets hub, employee ownership at a Lancashire construction firm and a little gold pill.
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00:00Great success for a clothing brand, a new hub for one of the big four, a construction
00:05firm moving to employee ownership, and an update on the 4242. That's what's coming
00:11up in today's Daily Business Briefing.
00:19Hi, I'm Simon Keegan.
00:21And I'm Mary Thomas.
00:22So, Mary, I believe one of the stories that's caught your eye today is from your old patch
00:27of the South West.
00:28I can't get away from the stories from the South West. I do love a story from Devon and
00:32Cornwall. And today it's Sea Salt, the clothing brand. So they're not surfwear, they're
00:38ladieswear. So the sort of things you might be able to find on the high street, but also
00:42in stockists like Next potentially as well. So Sea Salt have had an absolutely storming
00:48year with profits and turnover, both up. The brand has 73 stores across the UK, as well
00:55as an international website. And as I said, stockists, and it's sort of turnover up
00:59from 118.9 million to 132.6 million pounds. And profits were also up from 1.7 million
01:08to 7.3 million pounds. And what I found really interesting in the results, Simon, was that,
01:14you know, we've all heard about the high street and how hard it is and various stores
01:18closing down and having a tough time. But Sea Salt are saying their stores are up 10%.
01:22They've had a record breaking year in store. And they are going on with a sort of a store
01:28opening program, not just in the UK, but overseas as well.
01:31Sounds like they're riding the crest of a wave.
01:33Well, there you go. A bit of a sort of Cornish Peninsula joke for you there.
01:38I know. I know.
01:40So on the store opening program, they've had what they call a longstanding ambition to open
01:45stores in the US. And that's about to start. They've got plans to open something like 20
01:49stores over the next three years in America. And, yeah, they're really excited about the
01:55year ahead. So watch out for Sea Salt.
01:57Wow, that's brilliant. Well, I've just got back from an interview, actually.
02:01I've been interviewing Jonathan Bernstein, who is the son of the late Sir Howard Bernstein.
02:07Mary, I know you knew Sir Howard really well, didn't you, from doing events with him?
02:10Yeah. And he always had so much time for Insider as well. You were always able to schedule a
02:15meeting in his office, in the council offices there.
02:19The Manchester City Tribute Suite.
02:21Exactly. Yeah, he had loads of times for Insider. Such a formidable presence across the city.
02:26Yeah, definitely. Well, in the next issue, in the September issue of Insider, we're doing a
02:30special feature called Bernstein's Manchester, where we're looking at a lot of what he did
02:36for the city. But I feel like his influence wasn't just the city. I feel like his influence
02:41is found in things like devolution as well. And maybe the way national government thinks
02:46of places like Manchester. I think he was a real pioneer, wasn't he? And so I'm speaking
02:52to the kinds of people you'd expect me to speak to for that feature. Some of the property people
02:56in the Northwest. But it was also really nice that Jonathan Bernstein got in touch. And we had
03:02a really good chat because obviously he was able to tell me what his dad was talking about around
03:07the dinner table. What his motivations were for some of the things. So if you guys look out for
03:14the September issue, I think that's going to be a really interesting feature. Now, obviously,
03:19when Sir Howard retired, he moved sectors, if you like. He went to work for Deloitte, didn't he?
03:27And Deloitte's in the news today because they've got a new regional equity capital market hub.
03:35In Manchester. I think it's a CF department, basically. Deloitte, get in touch and tell us
03:40what that is. But it's going to be a team that specializes in IPOs, by the sounds of it, and also
03:47services the large corporates. It's going to be run by Tim Grogan and Ian White. So we look
03:53forward to learning more about that department. IPO is not really a feature of the last year.
03:58Well, it hasn't been for a few years, really, has there? And so maybe it's telling that we're
04:03going to start seeing the markets picking up a little bit. Interesting. So talking of which,
04:08Dealmakers. It's the 30th anniversary of Dealmakers this year. The dinner is on October
04:14the 17th. I've just finished doing the shortlist. This is the bit where, you know, everybody falls
04:20out with me. So the shortlist is going out really soon. The event itself is already sold out, which
04:28is a testament to the event, really, that it's sold out before the shortlist's been released.
04:33But I know there are a lot of people who are trying to get tickets. So we do have a waiting
04:38list. So if you do want a table or maybe just a few seats, if you get in touch with our events team,
04:45they can put you on the waiting list and, fingers crossed, we can get you in there.
04:50It's a deal story that actually I wanted to finish with today, which is Conlon Construction
04:55in Lancashire. Now, we know them quite well. They're quite a well-known firm. They're family
04:59owned, started by five brothers. The family is still in charge up until recently. So
05:07the chairman is Michael Conlon, but they have had a change of ownership. They've moved into
05:11employee ownership. But they say, despite this change, it's still business as usual, with all
05:17the directors now reporting into the board of trustees rather than, you know, the simple board,
05:22the board reports that we would associate with a sort of limited company. So the advisors
05:28that worked on that deal include Stephen Hadlow at Brabner's and Kevin Stephen at Pearse Corporate
05:34Finance in Blackburn. Well, another market trend that, isn't it? EOTs, we're seeing a lot more of
05:39them. Well, we are in the Northwest anyway. I think they're really growing, aren't they, as
05:43a way of exiting kind of thing. Yeah, potentially. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, talking of awards, in the
05:50October issue, we're doing the 42 under 42, the annual 42s. We've actually just about finished
05:57pulling the list together. So in the October issue, you can find out more about that. I'm
06:02doing a bit of a catch-up with some of the 42 under 42 alumni at the moment for the September
06:08issue. And you might have seen one of our 42 as Alyssa Corrigan in the National Papers recently.
06:15Right. So Alyssa is really, she's a really nice girl. She used to be a journalist, actually.
06:22And then she's done like reality TV. She was a desperate scouse wife, and she's been on,
06:29she was trapped on a desert island for some reality show or something like that. But
06:33she does a product called El Serar, which is a little gold pill. And it's got all sorts of like
06:39ginseng and beetroot extract in it and stuff like that. But it's for people's hormone, well,
06:43for women's hormones and things like that. So menopause, it's been dubbed the female Viagra,
06:49because it can kind of liven things up. And it was in the National Newspapers because Abby Clancy,
06:55the WAG, is a customer of theirs. And she's a big fan of it, apparently. And I'm sure
07:04Albie is as well. So I'm merely on that bombshell. I think that's all we've got time for, isn't it?
07:09Thanks, Simon.
07:09Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.