In today's business briefing, Simon and Robyn discuss international deals, the transformation of Bootle Strand and the upcoming budget.
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00:00An international acquisition? Will the Halloween budget be a frightening one?
00:06The regeneration of bootle and levelling up private equity. That's what's coming
00:11up next on today's Daily Business Briefing.
00:19Hi, I'm Simon Keegan. And I'm Robin Hewson. So Robin, let's get the ball
00:25rolling with a nice international deal. Why don't you tell us about that. Yeah, so
00:30on the Northwest patch today we've got an exciting deal for Weatherby
00:34Building Systems, who are being acquired by a Denmark-based group. So
00:38Weatherby were founded in 1998. They're a privately owned company and they've
00:42previously been on our fast-growing owner-managed business list, things
00:45like that. Now they've been taken over by Rockwall Group, who are looking to
00:50expand their presence in the UK. Well, I don't think that they're going to be the
00:54only company being bought and sold of late. From Dealmakers Awards, which was
01:00last Thursday, I was talking to a lot of people and they were saying they've
01:05never been so busy with the amount of deals that they're working on. And I
01:09think a lot of it is down to the impending budget, capital gains tax,
01:15all that sort of thing. The Halloween budget, as I've taken to calling it,
01:20might be frightening for some. A trick or a treat? Well, who knows, we'll certainly
01:26find out, won't we? Chancellor Rachel Reeves is off to Washington and she is
01:32set to tell the IMF meeting that there's going to be an economic reset for this
01:38country. And she's going to talk about what a strong, stable economy we're going
01:44to be. Strong and stable. I think we've heard that one before, haven't we? I know. Now, there's a lot of
01:51speculation on this capital gains tax. Don McGregor, formerly of Social Chain,
01:55now Fearless Adventures, he's been very vocal on LinkedIn, hasn't he? He said if CGT
02:03doubles, the UK is finished. It would signal the death of entrepreneurial
02:08spirit in this country. So, that's nice, isn't it? Interesting times ahead, yeah.
02:14Absolutely. So, talking of dealmakers, obviously we do the Dealmakers Awards
02:21every year. It was the 30th anniversary this time around. But now, the
02:26kind of dealmakers brand we're taking further. And we've got the first
02:30dealmakers lunch on November the 19th at Manchester Hall. So, this is going to be
02:36sort of a conference feel to it. And the topic is going to be levelling up
02:41private equity. So, what we mean by levelling up private equity is how can
02:46we do the deals in this region that are currently going to London, maybe they're
02:51going to Silicon Valley. You know, how can we get the best out of what's here?
02:55Everybody knows how amazing we are. You know, second largest PE community in
02:59Europe and all that. But how can we do more? That's going to be the topic. We've
03:04all already got some great sponsors, some great speakers. Gatelier announced
03:09as our headline sponsor. We're going to be announcing more sponsors in the
03:12coming days and weeks. Speakers, we've got Jonathan Boyers, the most kind of
03:19prolific dealmaker in recent memory. We've got Claire Alvarez, no relation to
03:26Alvarez and Marcel. She's going to be there from Foresight. We've got Alex
03:33Brandreth from Lunar Investment Management as well. And Alex is going to
03:37give us a kind of economic forecast. The budget is going to be clear by then. And
03:43he's going to be able to break down all these kind of macroeconomic factors on
03:48what it's going to mean to business and to corporate finance. So, really excited
03:55about that. Anyway, I need to shut up about deals and give you a chance to
03:59tell us something a little bit more property orientated. Yes. So, I mean, we've
04:03recently had our Liverpool City Region Property Awards and we did a Future
04:07Ambition Award, which is something where we're looking at a project that's
04:11going to really have an impact in the years to come. So, the one from last year
04:15that won was Bootle Strand and the kind of transformation there. And we're
04:18already seeing that kind of making strides forward, which is really exciting.
04:21So, the latest news around that is a planning application has gone in
04:26for the regeneration and they're moving forward with plans to transform the
04:30former M&S building, create a new town square, link up kind of key areas across
04:35the town and things like that. So, it's really nice to see one of the projects
04:39from our Future Ambition really kind of going full steam ahead now. And the
04:43one from this year was Central Docks, which is a Peel Waters scheme. So,
04:47hopefully we'll see in years to come that sort of following the same path.
04:50Yeah, not a million miles away from things we've discussed before, like
04:54Everton's new stadium, the Titanic. It's all that kind of dock area, that kind of
04:58waterfront, isn't it? So, really exciting as we're starting to see all that join
05:02together. So, I'm just going to plug one more event, if you don't mind. We've got
05:08the International Trade Awards on December the 4th. It's always a good night.
05:11Yeah, definitely. It's kind of like your first Christmas do of the year, I think,
05:15because it always falls on about December the 4th. It's going to be in
05:19the Midland Hotel this year, which is... I love the Midland, don't you? Yeah, I'm a fan of
05:23Young Professionals Awards there and things like that. Yeah, it's great. And so,
05:26if you're shortlisted for the International Trade Awards, or even if
05:31you're not, you should come along to that event. So, check that out. So, you can
05:34check out any of these stories and events on our website, insidermedia.com,
05:39and you can also follow me and Robin on LinkedIn, or on Twitter, or anywhere else
05:47you might find us. I think that's all for us. Yeah, that's it for today. See you
05:52next time.