Crain's Manchester Business - 5-9 April, 2010 - (Page 1)

CRAIN’S LIST Residential Estate Agencies and Largest Retail Lettings Pages 13 and 14 STARTS ON PAGE 11 Law Will claims referral sector hit the skids? CRAIN’S MANCHESTER BUSINESS VOL. 3, ISSUE 14, APRIL 5 - 9, 2010 CrainsManchesterBusiness.co.uk £2 What’s News ■ Irlam-based crane hire firm Winterlift has toppled over. The firm, co-founded by Andrew Winter and Peter Winterburn in 1999, appointed Bill Dawson and Ian Brown from the reorganisation services arm of accountancy firm Deloitte as joint administrators on March 11. The administrators said that the main assets of the business were its fleet of portable cranes, which range between 30 and 250 tonnes. Agents are being appointed to market the cranes — some of which are still under finance agreements. “The company has ceased to trade due to the difficult conditions experienced by the construction industry over the past year,” said Dawson. “We are liaising with our agents to realise the assets of the company.” ■ The newly formed Co-operative Group/Somerfield retail giant has seen sales decline 8.3 per cent to £1.6bn in the 12 weeks to March 21, according to new data from analysts Kantar Worldpanel. The sales drop is largely as a result of the Co-op having to dispose of 126 stores following an Office of Fair Trading ruling. The Cooperative/Somerfield’s market share declined 0.9 per cent to 7.5 per cent in the 12 weeks, compared to the same period in 2009. Somerfield’s sales declined 46.9 per cent, while the Co-op’s sales increased 16 per cent. Fraser McKevitt, retail analyst at Kantar Worldpanel, said it would be difficult to assess Coop/Somerfield’s like for like sales until 12 months after the disposal process was completed. ■ The finance director of Radcliffebased flooring firm James Halstead has taken advantage of the firm’s buoyant share price to make a quick profit on his share options. The group announced that Gordon Oliver had exercised options over 18,300 shares at 354.25p and re-sold them at 585p, making a gain of £42,227.25. Meanwhile, its subsidiary Polyflor has settled a dispute with members of the GMB union, who began an overtime ban in January in support of a pay claim. GMB official Eddie Gaudie said they had accepted an improved offer worth almost 2.5 per cent in the year to this July and the same in the following 12 months. The company’s initial offer for the current year was 1 per cent plus a £150 lump sum. James Halstead did not respond to calls for comment. ■ Waste Exchange, part of the Irlam-based waste management firm White Group, is to open a “multi-million pound” secondary fuels plant in Manchester in June. The plant will convert residue waste heading for landfill into biomass fuel. The firm said that the plant Hotelier fights £280,000 bank charge Britannia owner Alex Langsam gets withdrawal pains as Bank of Scotland raises fee 1,100 per cent BY SIMON BINNS Britannia Hotels has started a legal battle with Bank of Scotland after it was charged a £280,000 fee to withdraw its own money. Owner Alex Langsam told Crain’s he invested “a considerable sum — in the millions” with the bank’s Jersey branch and agreed a £250 fee if the group wanted to withdraw the money before a certain date. But when he decided to move the money elsewhere prior to the bank’s rescue merger with Lloyds TSB and the subsequent government bailout in October 2008, Langsam found that the fee had been put up to £280,000 — an increase of 1,100 per cent. “I was shocked,” he said. “I was surprised to be asked to pay a fee in the first place as the amount we deposited was in the millions, but the deal was we could withdraw the money at any time for £250. “There came a point when we thought the Bank of Scotland was looking a bit dodgy, so we decided it was a good time to get the money out. We struggled to get hold of them at first and when we did, we were told the fee had been bumped up to £280,000. I couldn’t believe it.” Langsam, whose group owns 35 properties including the Britannia in Manchester and Liverpool’s Adelphi Hotel, said the fee was deducted before the cash was transferred. Britannia has now hired an advocate in Jersey — the equivalent of a barrister in the UK — and Langsam said he was “hopeful” of getting the fee back. “We have to go over there and try and negotiate the Jersey courts, which is very different to the mainland,” he said. “But we’re beginning to make some progress and we’re hopeful the bank will give us our money back. “But we were surprised as we are a long-standing customer and you wonder if there are other firms that have been affected by this. Some may have deposited hundreds of Cartwright Group directors John, left, and Steven Cartwright SEE BRITANNIA, PAGE 18 Urban Splash to sell off key commercial asset BY SIMON BINNS Manchester property developer Urban Splash has put one of its main commercial assets up for sale. The group wants to dispose of the freehold to the retail element of Smithfield Buildings on Oldham Street in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, and has appointed Londonbased surveying firm Franc Warwick to find a buyer. All but one of the 21 units are occupied and the asking price for the 37,000 sq ft of space is £6.9m. The rent roll is worth £546,000 a year and according to the sales brochure, the sole currently empty unit is under offer. The asking price would represent an initial yield of 7.5 per cent. The move to sell off such prime commercial stock has surprised some observers, as Urban Splash has often described its commercial rent roll, currently worth £9.1m per year, as the bedrock of the business. The company, founded in 1993, has never previously sold off any of its major commercial schemes. The last two years and the crash in the property market has been tough on Urban Splash, which shed nearly half of its workforce and scaled down its Build North construction arm in a drive to cut cut costs. Sales of apartments have slowed to a trickle because of the financial crisis, forcing its residential business to switch to a rental model. In February, chairman Tom Bloxham said 2009 had been the most difficult year of his business life and had left the company “fighting for its very survival”. The commercial rent HERE WE COME BY JAMES CHAPELARD EUROPE T SEE WHAT’S NEWS, PAGE 2 railer manufacturer Cartwright Group hopes that a drive to export fuel efficient vehicles to Europe will enable it to grow turnover by a third within three years. The family-owned company hopes a new design, which it claims will reduce fuel costs by 19 per cent compared with conventional vehicles, will underpin the growth. The 4 metre high Cheetah Fastback, a lightweight model with a sloping, aerodynamic roof, has been designed in conjunction with Manchester Metropolitan University using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) which avoids the high cost of using wind tunnels. The knowledge-sharing initiative with the university came after Cartwright won a three-year, £80,000 Knowledge Transfer Partnerships grant. Dutch-owned TNT has ordered two of the trailers to carry post between Holland and Germany and will carry out fuel efficiency tests before deciding whether to order more. Cartwright has been designing aerodynamic trailers for a number of years but this is the first to feature a sloping roof at the back and the first SEE TRAILERS, PAGE 18 SEE SPLASH, PAGE 18 Leading Page 3 BANK SIGNALS RENEWED APPETITE FOR LENDING ON PROPERTY DEALS http://CrainsManchesterBusiness.co.uk

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crain's Manchester Business - 5-9 April, 2010

Crain's Manchester Business - 5-9 April, 2010