00:00An MBO at a Northwest law firm, an energy company relocates and new kids on the
00:06block in city trading. That's what's coming up in today's Daily Business
00:11Briefing.
00:17Hi, I'm Simon Keegan. And I'm Phil Conliff. So Phil, I believe you've got some news
00:22about an energy company relocating. Not only an energy company but a very large
00:29one. OVO Energy, the utility provider founded by entrepreneur Stephen Fitzpatrick,
00:35has agreed a deal to relocate its UK headquarters to a landmark office in
00:41Bristol, which is great news for Bristol of course. Savills negotiated the
00:46deal on behalf of investment and development company CEG, while C Squared
00:52acted for OVO. OVO is the fourth largest energy provider in the UK and it'll be
01:00the first occupier of the building called Crescent. And it's taking 22,000
01:05square feet of space, which includes the entire fifth floor of the building and a
01:10fourth floor suite as well. The business said it was attracted by the wide
01:14range of facilities on offer and the building's sustainability credentials. CEG
01:19is targeting BREEAM excellent, an EPC A rating and net zero carbon in its
01:29operation as part of the refurbishment of Crescent. It includes energy
01:34efficient systems, a bike friendly design and employees will have a flexible and
01:41sustainable approach to working in the building. So really exciting and it just
01:46shows you that the South West and Bristol is really becoming a big
01:50hub for that type of business, so very exciting. Sounds that way, well not
01:55only the South West but we've got some exciting news for the North West as well.
01:59Indeed, as ever. Absolutely, so this is an MBO, there's a management buyout at
02:04Harrison Drury Solisters. So six members of the management team, so it's Simon
02:13England, Nick Booth, Hannah Hughes, Malcolm Ireland, Rick Life and Mark
02:18Traynor. Now Simon England's going to assume the role of managing partner, now
02:24the current majority shareholder and Executive Chairman John Chessworth is
02:31going to become senior partner and he's going to support the new ownership. John
02:37is Mr. Lancashire as well, whenever I want to know anything about Lancashire I
02:42go to John, he's a really good guy but really good guys on the new
02:46ownership as well. Excellent. I was out with a couple of them the other week
02:52combating dry January. I don't think we want to know any more. I won't get
02:56into that, I won't get into that, but under John's leadership that firm has
03:01really grown, I mean it started off just from 12 partners in Lancashire they've
03:0912 staff in Lancashire I should say, they've now got 190 staff they're across
03:15Lancashire, Cumbria, Manchester, Southport and you know the firm has been named 28th
03:23in the UK's top 100 mid-sized companies to work for. So the buyout really makes
03:30sense for them. Absolutely yeah, you know they've got 42 solicitors ranked in the
03:35national legal 500 as well, so really really good operation and it'll be
03:41exciting to see what what the new leadership does with it as well. Indeed,
03:45absolutely. Well I want to talk about a business as we've taken investment from
03:53a private equity firm, a very successful business but also taken equity from a
03:59very very prolific investor, YFM Equity Partners. So YFM have invested 12.4
04:08million pounds in audiological science, which is a leading independent
04:13audiological provider. So the firm provides hearing tests, hearing aids and
04:20a broad range of audiology services to both NHS and to
04:26paid private patients. As a specialist community-based provider AS plays a
04:33crucial role in supporting the NHS and its ambitions to take low-complexity ear
04:38care out of hospital settings, reducing waiting lists and freeing up hospitals
04:43to focus on complex procedures. And the company is expanding its footprint to
04:49make high-quality hearing more accessible at a time when demand has
04:54never been higher, with an ageing population as we have of course. So
05:00YFM's investment will support AS's ambitious growth plans enabling
05:07further expansion into additional NHS regions as demand for community-based
05:11care continues to rise. So it's a really, it's an interesting investment from YFM,
05:17it's exactly the sort of thing they normally invest in and we'll see how
05:24that boosts the business further in a really interesting area.
05:28Absolutely, well look, talking of investment, I met some young investors
05:34recently. So somebody that longtime readers of Insider will know, Mark Dechem,
05:40one of our 4,242, company CEO, he's led companies that have actually
05:47listed on the stock market. So he knows what he's doing? He knows what he's
05:51doing. Now what he's doing is he's passing that wisdom on to the next
05:55generation. So he's going into schools and he's teaching the young
06:01people, I think age 16 to 18 sort of age, how to play the stock market. So what
06:07he's doing is he's set up a competition called Junior Trader and they're given
06:14sort of types of sectors that their client would like to invest in and it's
06:20basically a competition to see which team can do the best and
06:26they pit the kids, if you like, against the professionals as well.
06:32So I was invited to go down to Manchester. As one of the kids or one of the
06:36professionals? Well yeah, I was invited to go down to Manchester High School for
06:41Girls and we've got teams there and Mark actually, he put me on the spot Phil,
06:48he said Simon's just gonna say a few words to you now. So I had to get up on
06:52the podium, no prep whatsoever, very very unlike me. The way you like things.
06:57Yeah, so I said a few words about kind of business to them and so on but
07:02he revealed that all of the girls had made money and they had also, some of the
07:11teams, beaten the professionals who'd failed to make money. So really... The
07:16investors of the future are probably going to be women. Well, that may be the
07:20case and I think what it comes down to is, it comes down to diversity. I don't
07:25think there's any coincidence that they were able to beat
07:30the professionals. It's not about luck and so that's quite interesting because
07:34I think the city has got this reputation of, you know, being in a
07:39certain way, should we say, you know... A bit old-school. Exactly, so that was a
07:44really really interesting day. We can read about that. Yeah, that story is
07:51online, you can see some of the pictures as well. So that was good fun. Something else
07:55which is good fun, we've got one of our events this Thursday night. It's called,
08:00this is a really snappy title, I wish I could take credit for this,
08:04Northwest Asset-Based Lenders Charity Dinner. My goodness, well it took hours to
08:09think about that one. We call it NWABL. NWABL? Yes, NWABL. So we've got
08:13NWABL on Thursday night. Sounds good. At the Midland. It's sold out. All of the
08:18asset-based lending community and the sort of associated sectors are going to
08:25be there. It's always a good night. I bet it is. I bet you're looking forward to that one.
08:32Well that's it for today. If you want to read about some of these stories and
08:36other events we've got coming up, please go to insidermedia.com and you'll find
08:41everything there. And that's it for us. We'll be with you again tomorrow, but for
08:47the time being, have a great day. See you next time.
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