Watch: Insider's Business Briefing - 25th February 2025 - video Dailymotion

Insider Media

Simon and Phil discuss the Ovo Energy relocation to Bristol, the investment in Audiological Science by YFM Equity Partners, the results of Junior Trader and the North West Asset Based Lending Dinner.

Transcript

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.

Watch: Insider's Business Briefing - 25th February 2025

Category

Transcript

Recommended