Crain's Manchester Business - 22-26 March, 2010 - (Page 1)

CRAIN’S LIST Largest Industrial Lettings 2009 Page 14 FOCUS Page 11 Commercial Property Bearing the Brunt CRAIN’S MANCHESTER BUSINESS VOL. 3, ISSUE 12, MARCH 22 - 26, 2010 CrainsManchesterBusiness.co.uk £2 What’s News ■ Warrington-based distribution and marketing company Nutrition Point is supplying Tesco’s first range of frozen gluten and wheatfree foods. The Dietary Specials range will includes pizza, Yorkshire puddings, beef lasagne, steak pie, sausage rolls and shortcrust pastry. Nutrition Point was set up in 1998 by Chris Hook, whose wife and son suffer from wheat intolerance and struggled to find gluten and wheat free products in the shops. It will support the Tesco launch with a major consumer marketing campaign including press advertising, direct mail, couponing, sampling and online communications. ■ Online and directory advertising group Yell is closing its Manchester studio as part of a restructuring. A total of 169 jobs are under threat at Yell Adworks, the design and production arm of the Yellow Pages publisher, which is also shutting studios in Bristol, Birmingham and Slough. Advertising layout and repro work now done in Manchester will be moved overseas. Reading-based Yell has been forced to cut costs because of the impact of the advertising downturn on its directories business. It is still recruiting staff for its media sales team at the Venus Building in Trafford Quays. ■ Cheshire-based printer Port Of Call is being taken to court by union Unite alleging a series of breaches of contract and unfair dismissal. The union is making tribunal claims on behalf of three of its members who were employed by the Hyde-based company. Around 30 staff are believed to have been made redundant from Port Of Call at the end of last year and the majority of the company’s non-union members are also believed to be pursuing claims through the Employment Tribunals Service. In addition, Nora Ashton, Unite’s regional officer, said that staff wages were not paid for the three months from September to November 2009. ■ Warrington-based golf retail firm Channel M co-founders bid to wrest back control of station BY MICHAEL FAHY Two of the three founding partners in Manchester-based television station Channel M are seeking to wrest back control of the business. TV producer Philip Reevell and the University of Salford are invoking a clause in the agreement they made with MEN Media when the Manchester Evening News publisher took overall control in 2004. This included a provision for the shares to be transferred back to Clause in agreement could scupper Guardian Media Group’s hopes of lucrative EPG slots sale them if MEN Media, now Guardian Media Group, no longer intended to use the channel for local broadcasting purposes. Reevell, owner of London-based TV production and consulting company City Broadcasting, has written to Carolyn McCall, chief executive of Guardian Media Group, which last week scrapped all of Channel M’s original programming. “I’ve asked them to respect the agreement, so if they decide to close or try to sell it, that original vision isn’t lost,” Reevell told Crain’s. “GMG have told us that it isn’t closed and that they haven’t sold it. My main concern is that the opportunity to use it for voluntary and educational purposes could be lost when it finally decides what to do with it.” Reevell said the original vision for the channel when its licence application was set up in 2003 was a partpublic, part-private model where Salford University provided a partial funding stream for its operations as well as giving students a medium for airing course work. He and the university agreed to SEE CHANNEL, PAGE 18 Flood: I’ll go to court in £250m fight with bank BY SIMON BINNS Brendan Flood, chairman of collapsed property developer Modus Ventures, is prepared to take his £250m fight with Anglo Irish Bank all the way to court, in a case which could open the floodgates to more litigation from distressed borrowers. Anglo Irish’s Asset Finance division issued claims against Flood and former director Mike Riddell in the High Court last September in a bid to reclaim £35m worth of personal guarantees on loans which were secured against the assets of Modus’s Trinity Walk scheme in Wakefield and the Houndshill Shopping Centre in Blackpool. Flood launched a counterclaim in January, alleging breach of contract and misrepresentation. The counterclaim for £251m in damages includes £35m to cover the guarantees if they are left in place; £19.4m in losses relating to Houndshill; £18.8m of losses on Trinity Walk; £28m relating to Grand Arcade in Wigan, also in administration; and £150m relating to the subsequent failure of Modus Ventures. The companies owning the Blackpool, Wakefield and Wigan schemes went into administration last year. The Trinity Walk scheme has since been taken over by Sovereign Land, Shepherd and US fund Area Property Partners, with £82m of new funding from Lloyds Banking Group. The Blackpool scheme is being man- American Golf Discount Centre has brought in Philip Cushing as its new non-executive chairman. Cushing holds chairmanship roles in a number of private equity-backed businesses including Paragon Print and Packaging, Wrapfilm Systems and DCI Packaging. However, he is best known as a former chief executive of motor retail giant Inchcape — a role he held for more than nine years. American Golf Discount Centre is majority-owned by private equity firm LDC. Earlier this year, the firm announced a debt-for-equity refinancing which saw its bankers, Nat West, take a 29.5 per cent in parent company AGDC Holdings. The cost of the Miscanthus grass grows 12ft high in Illinois GREENING THE REGION BY CRAIN’S STAFF REPORTER P SEE WHAT’S NEWS, PAGE 2 lans for greening the North West include planting more than 150,000 acres of a type of grass which can grow up to 12ft tall. Miscanthus, which is more usually found in subtropical and tropical regions of Africa and Asia, is considered ideal for use as a biofuel because it grows rapidly and has a low mineral content. The idea is put forward in the Atlantic Gateway strategy document, launched by the Northwest Regional Development Agency last week, which aims to creating a sustainable economic zone in the River Mersey and Manchester Ship Canal corridor. The section on low carbon energy says: “There is potential in the area for over 62,700ha (155,000 acres) of high-yield miscanthus.” It says this means there is “a significant potential for high energy crops in the area” but admits that the importance of maintaining food production would “negatively impact” on take-up. The proposals are part of plans to create a green industrial corridor along the Mersey and the ship canal with biomass power stations producing clean energy. Miscanthus, which is burned by pyrolysis to drive turbines, has already been trialled in parts of Europe. In SEE GRASS, PAGE 18 SEE FLOOD, PAGE 18 Leading Page 3 TELECOMS ENTREPRENEUR TO LAUNCH SECURE PAYMENT VENTURE http://CrainsManchesterBusiness.co.uk

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crain's Manchester Business - 22-26 March, 2010

Crain's Manchester Business - 22-26 March, 2010