Watch: Insider's Business Briefing - 12th August
In today's Daily Business Briefing, Robyn and Simon discuss increasing turnover at a rugby club, deals and profits climbing in the retail world, and the North West rich list.
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00:00Rhino's Retail and Rich List, that's what's coming up and more in today's
00:04Daily Business Briefing.
00:11Hi, I'm Simon Keegan. And I'm Robin Hewson. So Robin, I know as a proud
00:17Sheffield lass you've probably picked out a Yorkshire story for us today, haven't you?
00:22I have. Every time I do the briefing I try and pick out a Yorkshire story.
00:26You can set your watch by it. But it's not a Sheffield one today, it's about
00:29Leeds. So turnover is up at Leeds Rhino's Rugby Club. So the Leeds Rhino's Club and
00:37Headingley Stadium are both owned by Caddick Group, who viewers, readers might know from
00:42property construction in the North West and Yorkshire. So they also own the club
00:46and the turnover grew to £11.6 million, which was slightly up on 2022. However,
00:51it was a bit of a difficult season on the field. So the men's side finished eighth in the Super
00:57League. The women's team fared a bit better. But unfortunately, they lost to St Helens at Wembley.
01:04North West team, you say?
01:06That's it.
01:07Although I grew up in Wigan, so I've got to be careful with my allegiance to St Helens.
01:10Yeah, there you go.
01:11I'm not saying anything else.
01:12Cheering for Leeds. So the club was boosted by record catering revenue this year of more
01:17than a million, as well as increased rental income from some new tenants. And they also
01:22boosted their attendance numbers. So more people wanting to watch the rugby.
01:25Oh, that's nice. Well, I've picked out some retail stories today, the ones that caught my eye.
01:31One in the South East, Primark, because they're Dublin headquartered.
01:36They've moved into Tunbridge Wells for the first time. And they've taken over the former BHS,
01:42which you're probably too young to remember.
01:44Yeah, I'm not familiar.
01:45British Home Stores used to kind of dominate the high streets and kind of like, you know,
01:49Debenhams. We're seeing the buildings getting used for other things.
01:54In the South West, it's a deal story, but it's also got a retail flavor.
01:59As a consortium of private equity investors have bought Hargreaves Lansdown for 5.4 billion,
02:07which has got to be one of the biggest deals, I would say, of the year.
02:11And that's the UK's largest retail investment platform.
02:15So some of the retail stories that caught my eye. Turtle Bay, which we've got one near us,
02:21haven't we?
02:21I've been for Bottomless Brunch there.
02:23Bottomless Brunch. Well, that sounds good.
02:26They're experiencing record high sales for that. That's great.
02:29They've got new sites in Blackpool, Camden, Lincoln and Glasgow.
02:34So there you go, readers and viewers, if you're near there,
02:38the Bottomless Brunch comes highly recommended.
02:41So talking of Turtle Bay, do you want to hear about the time
02:46I went to get a book out of the library on turtles?
02:49Go on.
02:49The librarian said, hardback. And I said, yeah, with a little head.
02:54Gosh.
02:55No.
02:56That was a dad joke.
02:57It is a dad joke. Other retail stories I picked out.
03:01Iceland, pre-tax profit of 15.6 million, compared to a 16 million quid loss the previous year.
03:09So they've obviously read more about that story online.
03:13They've obviously done great at turning things around.
03:17So you can read about any of these stories on our website as well.
03:22But talking of the magazine, we're just finishing off the September issue today.
03:27I've already told the viewers about Bernstein's Manchester,
03:30which I've been working on, and about the 4242 update.
03:35Of course, the 4242 list we've got next month.
03:39I did an interview with Together Money.
03:41But I know you've also been working with Together Money,
03:44haven't you, for a new interview series.
03:46So tell us a bit about that.
03:47So we've partnered with Together to do a new interview series
03:50all about the property leaders of the Northwest.
03:53So we kicked things off last month with Stephen Ashworth from Hurstford Holdings,
03:56hearing about how he sort of built that business up, which was really interesting.
03:59This month, we interviewed Adam Higgins from Capital & Centric.
04:03So I'd say Capital & Centric are one of, if not the most sort of high profile
04:07property developers over this way, after TV appearances and things like that.
04:11So a lot of people know who they are.
04:13But we sort of got into the backstory of how they got started
04:17and how Adam and Tim met and things like that, which is quite interesting.
04:20Talked about some of Adam's favourite schemes over the years.
04:23And then we also looked to the future at some of the new things they're doing.
04:26They're working on delivering homes for Northstow,
04:30which is going to be the UK's largest new town.
04:33So obviously, a really key priority for the new Labour government
04:35is creating these new towns across the country.
04:37So whereabouts is that new town?
04:39It's Cambridgeshire.
04:40So they're going to be delivering 2,000 homes there.
04:42And Adam gave us a bit of an insight into the type of homes that we're going to be seeing.
04:46So yeah, really interesting stuff.
04:47Oh, fantastic.
04:48Well, also in the issue, we've got the annual rich list.
04:52But what we're going to do is we're going to tell you more about this in the next couple of days,
04:56because we've taken a different approach to it this year.
04:59And we're going to have some exclusive online content for you.
05:03So watch out for that.
05:04Well, Robin, I think that's all we've got time for today.
05:06No more jokes?
05:07No more jokes, I'm sorry.
05:08Thank God.
05:09Maybe I'll have a few more next time.
05:11So it's goodbye from me.
05:13Goodbye.