Insider Business Briefing: 17th April 2024

Insider Media

In today's Daily Business Briefing: Simon and Robyn discuss soaring profits at a South East winemaker, Alvarez & Marsal expanding across the North and plans for a new nuclear fabrication facility in Lancashire.   Today's stories on insidermedia.com:   https://www.insidermedia.com/news/north-west/major-milestone-in-wec-groups-expansion-plans   https://www.insidermedia.com/news/wales/distillery-to-release-first-whisky  https://www.insidermedia.com/news/north-west/backing-for-new-building-at-jlrs-halewood-site  https://www.insidermedia.com/news/yorkshire/alvarez-marsal-launches-yorkshire-and-the-ne-corporate-finance-offering  https://www.insidermedia.com/news/national/chapel-down-hails-landmark-year-for-english-wine

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:03 Good morning, and welcome back to Insider's Daily Business

00:16 Briefing.

00:16 I'm Simon Keegan.

00:17 I'm the editor of the Northwest Business Insider.

00:20 And I'm joined today by Robin Hewson, business editor

00:23 here in the Northwest.

00:24 Hi, Robin.

00:25 What's caught your eye today, then?

00:28 So a big business story that's caught my eye today

00:30 is about wine.

00:31 Business brief.

00:33 So apparently, it's been a fantastic year

00:35 for English wine.

00:37 We've had an exceptional harvest,

00:38 and that's led to Chapel Down Group, a Kent winemaker,

00:42 achieving record sales.

00:44 So they also do other alcohol, gin and vodka,

00:47 but the star of the show this year has been wine.

00:49 And it's meant that their profits before tax in 2023

00:53 have risen from 1.2 million to 2.3 million.

00:56 I'll drink to that.

00:58 And something that's caught my eye as well

01:00 is a new whiskey that I've seen is coming out of Wales.

01:04 It's actually a distillery near Cardigan,

01:08 and it's called the Welsh Wind.

01:10 And this whiskey, they're only launching at first 680 bottles

01:16 of this limited edition, as they often

01:18 do the smaller distilleries.

01:20 And it's all locally grown grain.

01:22 So I think that's nice for Wales,

01:25 and I'm certainly--

01:27 I'm making a sound like a right pair owner.

01:29 I'm certainly looking forward to trying that one as well.

01:32 Yeah, and if you do any free samples, send them our way.

01:33 Absolutely, send them our way.

01:35 So another story that's caught my eye,

01:38 though, is Jaguar Land Rover, JLR,

01:41 in Hayward in the Liverpool City region.

01:44 So they've got plans for a new building at the Hayward plant.

01:49 It's a 1,000 square foot facility

01:52 where they're going to store the chemicals that's

01:54 associated with the body paint for the cars.

01:58 Now, I went over to that factory a couple of years

02:01 ago for a feature.

02:03 And it's so fascinating to see, because you actually

02:06 see the steel coming in in great big cubes.

02:10 And then you see the finished Land Rover driving out of there.

02:14 It's so interesting.

02:16 And they've got a thing that looks--

02:18 it looks almost like a golf course,

02:20 where you can drive the cars and do test drives and things

02:23 like that.

02:23 It's fantastic.

02:24 It's so quiet as well.

02:25 You know, as you go around the production line,

02:28 you would expect it to be really noisy, wouldn't you?

02:30 Yeah.

02:31 It's absolutely fascinating.

02:32 I think that's one of the best things about our job,

02:34 isn't it, when we get to put the hard hat, the high vis,

02:38 and go look around a factory and really get

02:42 to see how these companies work.

02:45 So what other stories have caught your eye?

02:47 Well, another one from the Northwest

02:49 is about a new nuclear facility in Lancashire.

02:52 So WEC is investing 10 million to build Europe's largest

02:56 subcontract heavy machining and nuclear fabrication facility

03:00 over in Blackburn.

03:02 So the development's going to create 60 new jobs, including

03:06 10 apprentices, which is great for the local region.

03:08 Yeah.

03:08 So what sort of sectors does that cover then?

03:11 So it's going to help the UK's capabilities in nuclear,

03:14 defense, offshore, and engineering.

03:16 All right.

03:17 And fantastic for Lancashire as well.

03:19 Well, another deal story that caught my eye

03:23 was, I suppose, here in Manchester,

03:25 it's fair to say, Alvarez and Marcell

03:27 are the talk of the town.

03:29 They've recruited some really high-profile people,

03:32 the likes of Jonathan Boyers, who we mentioned a few days

03:35 ago, top dealmaker formerly of KPMG.

03:38 Also Victoria Price.

03:40 She was an EY for many years, and she

03:41 was associated with the Young Entrepreneur of the Year

03:45 Awards, which is one of the reasons why Victoria was

03:47 one of my judges this year for Made in the Northwest,

03:50 our manufacturing awards.

03:52 But they're opening now a CF division in Yorkshire

03:55 in the Northeast as well.

03:56 So Duncan Mawpeth is going to be leading that.

03:59 He's going to be based in Leeds.

04:00 So that's something we're definitely

04:02 going to be keeping an eye on.

04:04 And I think we can expect great things from them.

04:07 Definitely.

04:08 So that's all we've got time for today.

04:10 So thanks for joining us on our daily business briefing.

04:13 Robin, I think you're going to be back tomorrow.

04:15 Yeah, with Miri, our editorial director.

04:17 Fantastic.

04:17 So you can follow up on any of these stories

04:20 on insidermedia.com.

04:22 You can follow us on LinkedIn as well.

04:25 So thanks again for joining us.

04:26 I'm going to see you soon.

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