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Laurence and Stephen discuss an MBO at a design agency, a new office for a professional services firm and summer transfer spending.

Transcript

00:00An MBO at a design agency, a new office for a professional services firm, and the summer

00:05transfer window spending, featuring today's business briefing.

00:13I'm Stephen Fammill.

00:14And I'm Lawrence Gorgannon.

00:15So, what's caught your eye this morning, Lawrence?

00:18Yes, well, it was actually a deal in the North West, Stephen, and that was the MBO of Manchester

00:24headquartered design agency Epigram.

00:28They are a design agency that works with many of the world's best-known law firms.

00:33And they were established in 1993 by Nicky Owen.

00:38They have diversified from just law firms, but that's a big corner card of theirs.

00:44And they have been acquired an MBO with Susan Siddall, who joined the business in 2018,

00:51taking sole ownership of the business.

00:53Some of the firms that they've worked with include DLA Piper, DWF, Evershed Sutherlands,

00:59among many others.

01:00And the deal actually caught my eye because I noticed in the photograph that we received

01:06that a former insider and a colleague worked at the firm, so that was a nice one to see.

01:14And the deal's going to allow Nicky to sort of carry on with her charity work, which is

01:19great.

01:20Oh, great.

01:22And you mentioned in the intro a new office for a big four firm, so tell us more.

01:27So PwC have opened their new office in Bradford, which is home at the moment to a 179-strong

01:34team.

01:35Now, the firm opened in 2019 originally with 66 people, so already grown very strongly

01:41there, and it's aiming over the next five years to grow that team to 500 strong.

01:45So the new office is a big part of that.

01:47It's a really interesting building at one city park.

01:50We've covered that development fairly frequently over the last few years.

01:54It's been developed by Muse for Bradford Council.

01:57It might be familiar to the guests at our inaugural Yorkshire Placemaking Awards back

02:02in June, where it won the Design Excellence Award.

02:06So yeah, a really new landmark building there for Bradford, and one of a number of big projects

02:13there for every generation.

02:14Yeah, because it's the City of Culture, isn't it, next year?

02:16Yes, next year you've got City of Culture.

02:17But yeah, not stopping there, there's plans for a new rail station, plans for 1,000 homes,

02:23and the West Yorkshire Mass Transit Network would be calling in there as well.

02:27So yeah, a lot of regeneration going on in Bradford at the moment, and it's just one

02:31part of it.

02:32Excellent.

02:33Good.

02:34Well, sticking with property, but over in Northern Ireland, there's a story about Double

02:39Tree by Hilton, which is opening its first location in Northern Ireland's second largest

02:44city dairy, London Dairy.

02:47They are going to be taking over the former City Hotel, which is on the banks of the River

02:52Foyle.

02:53Now, it's sort of well-catered for sort of tourists, but also the business community

02:59as well.

03:00It's a short walk to all the major cultural attractions in the city.

03:04It's also five kilometers from the border, but there's also conference facilities and

03:08what have you, so it suits the business traveler as well.

03:10So it has almost 160 rooms, so a really big boost to Dairy London Dairy's tourism offer.

03:17Another former city of culture, I believe, in Dairy London Dairy.

03:20Yes, that's right.

03:21Yes, indeed.

03:22Big news for agriculture today.

03:23Yes.

03:24So the last thing for us, I think, is the summer transfer spending.

03:28You're a Liverpool fan, Lance, so I suspect not such a happy time for you, but...

03:33No, very interesting, because my view, just as a layperson looking in, was it was quite

03:38subdued summer.

03:39It certainly was for Liverpool.

03:40They had a number of outgoings, but only one big sign, and they're the sort of club you

03:46associate with those big splash sort of headlines.

03:49So what was the overview then?

03:50Well, FIFA found that $6.4 million in total was spent, which is the second highest figure,

03:57but the actual number of transfers, just under 11,000, was the all-time record in men's professional

04:03football.

04:04The English leagues led the way as well, with $1.6 billion spent, again, possibly a surprise

04:10if you've been following the Premier League, if perhaps your club's not spent in the way

04:14you'd like, but yeah, still spending big.

04:18In the women's game, record for both the total amount spent, which was $6.8 million, and

04:25the number of transfers itself, so just over 1,000 there, so yeah, record for men's and

04:30women's professional football.

04:31Right, so perhaps it was more sort of the volume deal rather than sort of the headlines.

04:35Yes, I think this year there was less and, of course, last year you had the Saudi Pro

04:39League spending quite a lot of money as well, so perhaps that's affected some of the figures

04:42too.

04:43Oh, okay.

04:44Well, to find out more about the stories we've been discussing, go to insidermedia.com.

04:48You can also go there to subscribe to our newsletters, our magazines, and find out about

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04:59Anyhow, that's everything from us.

05:00See you next time.

05:01Goodbye.

Watch: Insider's Business Briefing - 4th September

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