Laurence and Dan discuss a job-saving deal at a bespoke furniture maker, investment in children's healthcare and funding for an AI-powered bra fitting start-up.
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00:00A job-saving deal, investment in children's healthcare, and funding for an AI-powered
00:05bra-fitting start-up. That's all coming up in today's Business Briefing.
00:14My name is Lawrence Kilgannon. I'm Daniel Zambartas.
00:17Well, morning Daniel. Morning.
00:20An interesting story from the world of furniture manufacturers. Perhaps you can tell us a little
00:24bit more. Yes, I have some quite good news actually.
00:27A bespoke furniture manufacturer in the West Midlands has been acquired out of administration,
00:32a deal that secures all the jobs at the business. Joinery Classics was founded in 2004 and it's
00:37been sold to Bespoke Joinery in a move that secures all 24 jobs at the business.
00:42And is this sort of handcrafted pieces that you use?
00:45Yes, mostly premium bespoke furniture. So Michaela Daly and Chris Wigfield of Begbee's
00:51Trainer were appointed as joint administrations on 27th February and the new company will
00:55continue to trade from its previous location at Western Industrial Estate in Honeybourn.
01:00So hopefully the company can now start to thrive again in the coming years.
01:05Excellent. We'll keep an eye on that one. Away from that, we've got news of a major
01:10investment at Alder Hey. As a former Liverpool resident, you'll be aware of Alder Hey, the
01:15big children's hospital. Well, a more than £9 million project is going to be received
01:23by the trust at Alder Hey and that's coming, well, about £4 million of that is coming
01:29from the combined authority, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, as one of its innovation
01:34zones. So they were announced, I think, a year ago in the budget and it allows investment
01:40into certain sort of areas and they're going to be deploying the funding to help with sort
01:47of increasing their testing and developing of life-saving technology. So a great story
01:51for the wider region as well because I think Alder Hey takes in children from quite a large
01:57area. That's fantastic news and quite a major investment as well. It is, yes. So a real
02:02feather in the cap of the combined authority there. Now, you've also got news of another
02:07administration. I do. Another one. This one is not in furniture but in hospitality. It
02:13is and it's about a company going into administration. A luxury hotel spa in North Yorkshire has
02:19entered administration but the venue is continuing to trade as normal and no redundancies are
02:24planned as of now. Oliver Collins and James Sleight of PKF Little John Advisory have been
02:29appointed as joint administrators of the Helmsley-based Feversham Arms Hotel. So the hotel has 33 guest
02:36rooms and a luxury spa. A bit of history about it, it was built as a coaching inn by the
02:41Earl of Feversham and it's had a number of different owners throughout the decades before
02:45it was acquired in 2008 by Feversham. But as of now, the hotel will continue to operate
02:51as normal under control of the joint administrators and it's going to be put on the market shortly.
02:57All the hotel staff are going to be retained and no redundancies are planned. All deposits
03:02paid and bookings already made, including for events, will be honoured and it will go
03:06ahead unaffected as planned. So keep an eye out for a potential buyer there. Excellent.
03:10Well, let's hope that's talking about it and running stories about it helps with that.
03:14North Yorkshire, absolutely beautiful part of the world. Have you been there, Dan?
03:18I haven't actually, no.
03:19No? Well, you should go and then maybe you can stay at the Feversham.
03:22It does sound really nice. I mean, a spa sounds perfect.
03:25It does, definitely. On these sort of spring days as well, it does sound like just a ticket.
03:29Okay, well, finally, we've got a really interesting story about an AI-powered bra-fitting start-up
03:35based in Manchester. That is called BraRista and they've secured more than £500,000 of
03:41funding to help its aim of transforming the bra and swimwear buying experience for customers.
03:47The business is going to be using that money to help sort of advertise its offer, make
03:54appointments as well, and then also to work with its technology. And the funding round
03:58was led by GC Angels alongside a grant from Innovate UK and private investment. So, yeah,
04:06fantastic because when you think of AI, you think more of number crunching and what have
04:09you, but machine learning is obviously going into all manner of different areas.
04:15It feels like there's nothing it can't do at the moment.
04:17Yeah, no.
04:18Love the name of that business as well. Very creative.
04:20Very creative indeed. Yes, well, to read more about the stories that we've discussed today,
04:24go to insidermedia.com. There, you can subscribe to our newsletters. You can also subscribe
04:29to our magazines and find out about upcoming events. That's everything from us. See you
04:35next time.
04:39Bye.