Watch: Insider's Business Briefing - 26th November - video Dailymotion

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Laurence and Alice discuss an employee ownership deal at a South Wales recruitment firm, the phased MBO of Wilkinson Cowan Partnership, and a new headquarters for a clean air tech firm.

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00:00Employees taking control of a South Wales recruitment firm, a new head office

00:05for a clean air tech firm and a phased MBO completes. That's all coming up in

00:10today's business briefing.

00:17My name is Lawrence Glegannon and I'm Alice Bird. Right so Alice I mentioned in

00:22the intro there that we we had a we've got a new employee ownership deal they

00:27always catch my eye so perhaps you can tell us a bit more about that. Yes so

00:30this one is with a South Wales recruitment firm which was established

00:34in 2016 and today has a turnover of about 20 million pounds and so yeah as

00:40we said that's transition to employee ownership. The company in question is

00:44Hoop Recruitment. Now they have offices in Cardiff and in Swansea and they

00:48employ about 40 people and so the business specializes in recruiting

00:53across loads of different sectors including social care, social work, HR,

00:58professional services so very busy and the founders actually set up the

01:04business because they worked together at a previous recruitment firm and then

01:07they left there worked on their own careers but they always kept in touch so

01:11that's how they kind of joined together to create Hoop. Nice story now they're

01:15sort of like giving a legacy for their for their employees and are they staying

01:19involved? Yes so they are going to be staying involved but they have said that

01:24the ownership trust model the employee ownership trust model is critical for

01:28the business's future success. Okay great well the people always sort of talk

01:34them up as a good option for both the staff and and the founders so it's good

01:38one to see and staying with with Wales and Cardiff in particular news of two

01:44big property transactions by Grainger you know you'll know them from the

01:48North East yeah so the UK's largest listed landlord they have acquired two

01:54development sites in in Cardiff one is a 6.25 million pound investment at John

02:00Street that also includes the long leasehold of five railway arches I really

02:06like it when they repurpose them. So do I and they put like nice little shops in there. Exactly so you're gonna have a

02:11built-to-end department scheme yeah and then shops and maybe a cafe and so on

02:15there and then the other investment is a further two million pounds that's in a

02:21multi-story car park in the capital quarter which is next door to pre-existing

02:26Grainger scheme so then you know they're keen to sort of build up their presence

02:31in in in Wales and actually you see built-to-rent all over the all over the

02:36country so obviously a lot of demand for people for rental homes. Now we've

02:40opened out with a couple of stories from Wales but perhaps we can spread our wings

02:44a bit further afield and you've got a phased MBO to tell us about. I do yeah

02:47this one is in the northwest and it's a property and construction services firm

02:52Wilkinson Coen partnership and so yeah they've completed a phased management

02:57buyout so the business is headquartered in Sheedle Hume it also has an office at

03:02Liverpool Innovation Park now over the past four years the previous owners have

03:06retired and they've sold their shares in different stages now this has paved the

03:12way for the new directors to take over so they are Mark Jensen, Ben Dawson and

03:17Stuart Talkington and they've now acquired the business fully and together

03:21the three new owners have about 75 years of experience in the industry so

03:27obviously very well placed to take it forward and one of those owners Mark

03:31Jensen said that the directors are looking forward to building on the

03:34legacy of its predecessors. Now lovely but it's another nice sort of deal where

03:38it seems like it's well set for the future yeah much like the employee

03:42ownership from the start and then finally we've got news of Haworth

03:46Technology relocating its head office to a flagship Bolton scheme which is

03:52Logistics North, we sort of followed that from planning phase through to now people

03:57coming. It's really cool when you see that. It is, it's excellent and they are going to be

04:01relocating later this year, running out of year I suppose, but they've been at

04:07their current base for almost 150 years, so bittersweet I suppose, going to a

04:12sort of all singing all dancing place but then must be lots of

04:16memories associated with the earlier base which is, it's Victoria Works on

04:21Lawn Street in Farnworth. Their operation in Salford is unaffected by the move and

04:27there is actually a deal in place for the old head office as well so again

04:31it's got like a sort of certain completeness to it. Yeah, a nice full

04:34circle moment I guess. Exactly, exactly. Well to find out more about the stories

04:38we've been talking about go to insidermedia.com, there you can

04:42subscribe to our newsletters, you can subscribe to our magazines and you can

04:46also find out about upcoming events. That's everything from us, see you next

04:50time.

Watch: Insider's Business Briefing - 26th November

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