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Alice and Laurence discuss BGF backing for a laser production and special effects company, a £30m cruise contract for an Irish fit-out firm and the acquisition of an accountancy firm established more than 100 years ago.

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00:00BGF backing for a special-effects firm, the acquisition of a long-established

00:04business advisory firm in the Northwest, and a cruise liner contract win for a

00:09fit-out firm in Northern Ireland. That's all coming up in today's Business Briefing.

00:18My name is Lawrence Kilgannon. And I'm Alice Bird. Alice, I think the one that

00:23caught my eye at the start was the special-effects firm, so perhaps you can

00:27tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, so BGF has backed the laser production

00:32pyrotechnic and special-effects company ER Productions, which has worked on some

00:37huge events such as Glastonbury, the London 2012 Olympics and Eurovision.

00:42Is that kind of indoor fireworks and stuff like that you see? Yeah, so it kind of does all of

00:47the things that make the show really impressive, basically. Yeah, I imagine what it is, okay.

00:51Yeah, so the business, it was established in 2007 and is based in Dartford, and BGF

00:57has acquired a minority stake in the company, and it's going to support it as

01:01it looks to grow both organically and through acquisition. So as part of that,

01:05you know, it's worked with, alongside the events, it's worked with some really big

01:09artists such as Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran and Katy Perry. I see, to provide the same

01:14sort of pizazz for their shows. Yeah, so obviously it's got like a really big

01:19presence and a global presence, but that's also something they're going to

01:21focus on moving forward, so in particular they want to grow their US presence.

01:27But, you know, following the deal, its founders, Mark Webber and Ryan Hagan,

01:31they will remain as majority shareholders and they're going to continue to lead the team,

01:35which is now, stands at about 110 people. Wow, really interesting company, so I'm sure

01:40that will help them grow further. Sticking with deals, we've got a story about AAB has acquired

01:46a sort of business advisory firm, they do accounts, they do sort of general business,

01:52they do M&A, Barlow Andrews and its sister entity Beach Business Services. Now they were

01:59established more than 100 years ago, currently employ 70 people and AAB itself has been backed

02:05by August Equity since 2021 and in that time it's travelled in size, so this is just the latest

02:14acquisition for them and further growth is expected. Now we've been talking about deals a

02:20bit, but I understand you've got some news from manufacturing? Yeah, so IPAC Packaging Innovations,

02:26that's a sustainable packaging manufacturer, has reached a major milestone after opening a new

02:31site. So the business has established the site in Tanfield, now that's in County Durham, and before

02:38that all of its operations were based in Gateshead, so obviously this has expanded its geographical

02:43footprint, it's also given it lots of new warehousing space and new production lines.

02:48So IPAC is family-owned, it employs about 80 people and it actually set up the site with the

02:54support of two investments from Maven Managed Regional Funds, now that includes a £600,000

03:00investment from the Finance Durham Fund that was established by Durham County Council and is

03:05overseen by Business Durham. And of course you're always happy to see northeast businesses doing well.

03:10Of course, especially ones in Durham. Yeah, well fantastic and then we've also got an interesting

03:15story from Northern Ireland, that's Portadown Headquartered, the deluxe group, they've won a

03:20fit-out company contract for a £30 million contract to fit out a cruise ship. It's fitting

03:28out these sort of dining areas and so on, so I've got visions of Jack from the Titanic, that's what I

03:33always imagine, you know those sort of opulence around it, but I'm sure they do a magnificent job.

03:37And they won that contract after securing a £10 million funding package from Dansker Bank,

03:43which is also guaranteed by UK Export Finance, so it's really helping them

03:47go out and win some big contracts and the cruise liner I think is set to set sail

03:51next year, so hopefully with me on it, but who knows, please write in. And I also noticed today

03:58there's so many stories across the whole sort of Insider platform, so go to insidermedia.com

04:05to find out more about the stories Alice and I've been talking about. There you can subscribe to our

04:10newsletters, you can find out about upcoming events and subscribe to our magazines. And yeah,

04:15that's everything from us, see you next time.

Watch: Insider's Business Briefing - 7th October

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