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Dan and Ben discuss a Hollywood-Wrexham crossover, a merger in the South East, a bus supplier securing an eight-figure funding package from HSBC, and the acquisition of a renewables provider in the South West

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00:00Energy companies merging in the southeast, a Hollywood Jew are revealed as

00:04the new owners of a historic brewery, an automotive company securing more than

00:0890 million and the acquisition of a renewables provider in the southwest

00:12all feature in today's business briefing.

00:19Morning Ben. Morning. So you've written a blinder of a story which is flying on

00:24the website, do you want to tell us a bit more about it? Yes, it's absolutely flying now, more than a thousand page views.

00:28Great stuff. It's doing really well. So you have this Hollywood Jew, Ryan Reynolds and

00:33Rob McElhenney, which I'm sure everyone's familiar with. They're the new co-owners

00:37of the oldest lager brewery still existing in Great Britain, so that's the

00:42Wrexham Lager Beer Company and they'll be the co-owners alongside the Roberts

00:47family, so you may know that they're the Wrexham AFC owners and the brewery

00:54itself dates back to 1882 by the way, so it's a real historic brewery and back in

01:002020 Reynolds and McElhenney became the co-owners of Wrexham, overseeing the

01:06club's return to the Football League and that's been well documented, the journey

01:10in the popular Disney Plus series Welcome to Wrexham, have you seen that?

01:14Yeah I have, yeah it's great. It's a great club with such passionate fans. Yes and

01:18it's been transformative for Wrexham both on and off the pitch, the crowds have

01:22rose from about 5,000 to more than 10,000, they're now in League One after

01:27being in National League, which is non-league and they're now only one league

01:32below Cardiff and Swansea, traditionally the two biggest clubs in Wales, so a club

01:37really on the rise and it's really put the city on the map as well, it's now a

01:41city as well and away from that in September it was also revealed that the

01:46pair were reportedly in talks to buy shares in Cardiff-based 100 Cricket

01:51inside Welsh Fire, so that's yet another venture that they could be looking at, so

01:57yeah this is the latest thing for them and I'm sure it'll be a really good move.

02:02Definitely, it's such an interesting cross over into Hollywood and Wrexham

02:06Football Club and all breweries. It's not something you would expect, no, it's a really great good news story.

02:11It's a really good story and you must go and check it out.

02:14Moving away into the southeast, my patch, SureServe, the energy and

02:19compliance services provider, has merged two of its subsidiaries in Kent, a huge

02:25name, they were founded in 1972 and they deliver a range of energy and

02:29compliance services to households across the UK and they employ over 3,000

02:34people, so quite a major firm with a lot of influence, like you say, so K&T

02:38Heating and Swale Heating will merge to form SureServe Compliance South,

02:41obviously combining their expertise to operate as one brand, which will

02:45help them drive their growth strategy and following the merger, SureServe

02:48Compliance South will maintain over 325 social housing properties in the

02:52southeast, so it's a hugely significant deal for properties in the

02:56county. Moving away from the southeast, I understand you've also got a story

03:00about SureServe with a southwest spin. Yes, so a really busy time for them, so

03:04they've now acquired a 29 million turnover renewables provider, so they're

03:10based in Weston-super-Mare, Low Carbon Exchange Limited, LCX, so they're the

03:15largest renewable energy installation and maintenance business in the region

03:19and they provide installation and maintenance services for renewable

03:24energy services, so they have expertise across solar PV, air source heat pumps

03:29and whole house retrofits and they've got 151 employees, so they'll all be

03:34added to SureServe's team and the acquisition was said to increase

03:39SureServe's geographic coverage as well as deepen its service offering, so

03:44another big move for them there and as I said a very busy time.

03:50They've been very active, very interesting to see the impact that has on their growth in

03:53the future. Yes, interesting to see how they get on going forward. So moving away from

03:57mergers and acquisitions, we've got a funding story up and off in Wakefield, so

04:02Pelican Engineering, an automotive company based in Wakefield, they've

04:06secured a 90 million pound funding package from HSPC. That's a big package

04:10there. It's massive, yeah, which will be used for the supply of 600 electric

04:13buses, obviously aren't cheap. The loan is specifically for Pelican Bus & Coats,

04:17which is part of the wider Pelican Engineering group, which will enable them

04:21to order the buses which are manufactured by the Chinese manufacturer

04:25Yutong, so they'll obviously import and distribute the vehicles which will grow

04:29the number of these buses operating in the UK to nearly 1,000, so it's quite

04:33significant and the fleet will actually save over 25,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions

04:38from British Transport, so a hugely sustainable scheme. It's a real

04:42significant sector as well, isn't it? It's very much going that direction.

04:45It's very much growing. I haven't seen a funding package that maybe is quite as

04:49big as this for a scheme like this. It's great to see. So that's all from us, but before we go,

04:54our South West editor Chris Ward is going to tell us more about what we can

04:58expect to see in the next issue of the South West Business Insider, so over to

05:03you Chris. Hello, Chris here. So South West Business Insider's November issue has

05:08gone to print as we speak and we've got a number of exciting features in the

05:13magazine focused on the themes that matter most to business. With the budget

05:17being announced whilst we've gone to print, the future of finance, investment

05:21and merger acquisition has come into sharp focus and so it's a great time to

05:26be publishing our annual Corporate Finance Guide. Also in the magazine we've

05:31got an interview with Renishaw's CEO Will Lee. Now I'm filming this from Renishaw's

05:36HQ in Gloucestershire and it's a fascinating time for this global

05:39manufacturer with Sir David Murtry stepping down as chairman of the company

05:44he co-founded with John Deere over 50 years ago. And that brings me nicely on

05:49to the final piece I want to reference in the magazine, our annual South West

05:53rich list. Sir David has been a fixture on that list for many years, but will it

05:59remain that way? Well subscribe and get our November issue to find out. Thanks

06:04for that Chris. If you want to subscribe to the South West Minutes Insider

06:08magazine make sure to check out our website insidermedia.com where you can

06:12also subscribe to the other magazines and our newsletters and also check out

06:15the stories we've spoken about today and find out about upcoming events as well.

06:19Thank you for watching. Thank you.

Watch: Insider's Business Briefing - 1st November

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