Watch: Insider's Business Briefing - 8th August - video Dailymotion

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In today's briefing Simon Keegan and Miri Thomas talk about the international ambitions of clothing brand Seasalt, the legacy of Sir Howard Bernstein, Deloitte's new equity capital markets hub, employee ownership at a Lancashire construction firm and a little gold pill.

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00:00Great success for a clothing brand, a new hub for one of the big four, a construction

00:05firm moving to employee ownership, and an update on the 4242. That's what's coming

00:11up in today's Daily Business Briefing.

00:19Hi, I'm Simon Keegan.

00:21And I'm Mary Thomas.

00:22So, Mary, I believe one of the stories that's caught your eye today is from your old patch

00:27of the South West.

00:28I can't get away from the stories from the South West. I do love a story from Devon and

00:32Cornwall. And today it's Sea Salt, the clothing brand. So they're not surfwear, they're

00:38ladieswear. So the sort of things you might be able to find on the high street, but also

00:42in stockists like Next potentially as well. So Sea Salt have had an absolutely storming

00:48year with profits and turnover, both up. The brand has 73 stores across the UK, as well

00:55as an international website. And as I said, stockists, and it's sort of turnover up

00:59from 118.9 million to 132.6 million pounds. And profits were also up from 1.7 million

01:08to 7.3 million pounds. And what I found really interesting in the results, Simon, was that,

01:14you know, we've all heard about the high street and how hard it is and various stores

01:18closing down and having a tough time. But Sea Salt are saying their stores are up 10%.

01:22They've had a record breaking year in store. And they are going on with a sort of a store

01:28opening program, not just in the UK, but overseas as well.

01:31Sounds like they're riding the crest of a wave.

01:33Well, there you go. A bit of a sort of Cornish Peninsula joke for you there.

01:38I know. I know.

01:40So on the store opening program, they've had what they call a longstanding ambition to open

01:45stores in the US. And that's about to start. They've got plans to open something like 20

01:49stores over the next three years in America. And, yeah, they're really excited about the

01:55year ahead. So watch out for Sea Salt.

01:57Wow, that's brilliant. Well, I've just got back from an interview, actually.

02:01I've been interviewing Jonathan Bernstein, who is the son of the late Sir Howard Bernstein.

02:07Mary, I know you knew Sir Howard really well, didn't you, from doing events with him?

02:10Yeah. And he always had so much time for Insider as well. You were always able to schedule a

02:15meeting in his office, in the council offices there.

02:19The Manchester City Tribute Suite.

02:21Exactly. Yeah, he had loads of times for Insider. Such a formidable presence across the city.

02:26Yeah, definitely. Well, in the next issue, in the September issue of Insider, we're doing a

02:30special feature called Bernstein's Manchester, where we're looking at a lot of what he did

02:36for the city. But I feel like his influence wasn't just the city. I feel like his influence

02:41is found in things like devolution as well. And maybe the way national government thinks

02:46of places like Manchester. I think he was a real pioneer, wasn't he? And so I'm speaking

02:52to the kinds of people you'd expect me to speak to for that feature. Some of the property people

02:56in the Northwest. But it was also really nice that Jonathan Bernstein got in touch. And we had

03:02a really good chat because obviously he was able to tell me what his dad was talking about around

03:07the dinner table. What his motivations were for some of the things. So if you guys look out for

03:14the September issue, I think that's going to be a really interesting feature. Now, obviously,

03:19when Sir Howard retired, he moved sectors, if you like. He went to work for Deloitte, didn't he?

03:27And Deloitte's in the news today because they've got a new regional equity capital market hub.

03:35In Manchester. I think it's a CF department, basically. Deloitte, get in touch and tell us

03:40what that is. But it's going to be a team that specializes in IPOs, by the sounds of it, and also

03:47services the large corporates. It's going to be run by Tim Grogan and Ian White. So we look

03:53forward to learning more about that department. IPO is not really a feature of the last year.

03:58Well, it hasn't been for a few years, really, has there? And so maybe it's telling that we're

04:03going to start seeing the markets picking up a little bit. Interesting. So talking of which,

04:08Dealmakers. It's the 30th anniversary of Dealmakers this year. The dinner is on October

04:14the 17th. I've just finished doing the shortlist. This is the bit where, you know, everybody falls

04:20out with me. So the shortlist is going out really soon. The event itself is already sold out, which

04:28is a testament to the event, really, that it's sold out before the shortlist's been released.

04:33But I know there are a lot of people who are trying to get tickets. So we do have a waiting

04:38list. So if you do want a table or maybe just a few seats, if you get in touch with our events team,

04:45they can put you on the waiting list and, fingers crossed, we can get you in there.

04:50It's a deal story that actually I wanted to finish with today, which is Conlon Construction

04:55in Lancashire. Now, we know them quite well. They're quite a well-known firm. They're family

04:59owned, started by five brothers. The family is still in charge up until recently. So

05:07the chairman is Michael Conlon, but they have had a change of ownership. They've moved into

05:11employee ownership. But they say, despite this change, it's still business as usual, with all

05:17the directors now reporting into the board of trustees rather than, you know, the simple board,

05:22the board reports that we would associate with a sort of limited company. So the advisors

05:28that worked on that deal include Stephen Hadlow at Brabner's and Kevin Stephen at Pearse Corporate

05:34Finance in Blackburn. Well, another market trend that, isn't it? EOTs, we're seeing a lot more of

05:39them. Well, we are in the Northwest anyway. I think they're really growing, aren't they, as

05:43a way of exiting kind of thing. Yeah, potentially. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, talking of awards, in the

05:50October issue, we're doing the 42 under 42, the annual 42s. We've actually just about finished

05:57pulling the list together. So in the October issue, you can find out more about that. I'm

06:02doing a bit of a catch-up with some of the 42 under 42 alumni at the moment for the September

06:08issue. And you might have seen one of our 42 as Alyssa Corrigan in the National Papers recently.

06:15Right. So Alyssa is really, she's a really nice girl. She used to be a journalist, actually.

06:22And then she's done like reality TV. She was a desperate scouse wife, and she's been on,

06:29she was trapped on a desert island for some reality show or something like that. But

06:33she does a product called El Serar, which is a little gold pill. And it's got all sorts of like

06:39ginseng and beetroot extract in it and stuff like that. But it's for people's hormone, well,

06:43for women's hormones and things like that. So menopause, it's been dubbed the female Viagra,

06:49because it can kind of liven things up. And it was in the National Newspapers because Abby Clancy,

06:55the WAG, is a customer of theirs. And she's a big fan of it, apparently. And I'm sure

07:04Albie is as well. So I'm merely on that bombshell. I think that's all we've got time for, isn't it?

07:09Thanks, Simon.

07:09Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.

Watch: Insider's Business Briefing - 8th August

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