Crain's Manchester Business - 7-11 June, 2010 - (Page 1)

CRAIN’S LIST Manufacturing Firms Page 14 FOCUS Page 11 Hospitality & Travel No return to Living Room CRAIN’S MANCHESTER BUSINESS VOL. 3, ISSUE 23, JUNE 7 - 11, 2010 CrainsManchesterBusiness.co.uk £2 What’s News ■ The University of Salford said it does not yet know whether jobs will go under plans to scrap its four faculties as part of an efficiency drive. The proposal is the favoured option out of three put forward by the Lauwerys Review — a study of the university’s professional and support services carried out by John Lauwerys, a former registrar at the University of Southampton. His report, released last week, proposes replacing the faculties with three colleges. Lauwerys said he found “significant levels of cost and inefficiency” and “examples of poor people management”. He added: “Customer service is poor and there is generally no ‘can do’ culture. He also identified a “culture of crisis management and of fire fighting, with the urgent pushing out the important”. A university spokesman said the changes were not about cost cutting but added: “In the current climate it is clear that we cannot continue as we are. The university has a historic structure which is not the best it could be to deliver against our new goals. By reforming the structure, Salford will be able to maximise the abilities of its dedicated staff.” The staff most likely to be affected are those involved in support services such as timetabling and administration. The spokesman said: “The university is determined to maximise job security, but no guarantees can be given until the consultation has concluded.” ■ The BBC has appointed Stockport-based APS Group to manage its print requirements. APS, owned by the Snelson family, won the contract, which is worth more than £2m per year, after a competitive pitch. It includes fastturnaround digital items and major print jobs such as the BBC staff newspaper Ariel and the annual BBC Proms Guide. APS managing director Nick Snelson said: “We will now begin a process of identifying the suppliers which will service the contract and highlight the range of services available to each BBC office.” APS won a similar contract with the Scottish Government in March. APS did not say how much the contract was worth but said it would cut costs and reduce emissions by sourcing print from locations closer to their final destination. ■ Manchester-based web hosting company UKFast grew sales by 44 per cent to £9.1m in 2009, while pre-tax profits leapt to £1.8m from £1.1m, according to accounts which have just been filed at Companies House. A dividend of £472,853 was paid in the year compared to £920,222 previously. The firm, based in City Tower, Piccadilly, and owned by founder Lawrence Jones Peel ponders exhibition centre plan for Museum of Museums BY JAMES CHAPELARD Peel Group is in the early stages of assessing whether to turn a former Argos warehouse in Trafford Park into a major exhibition centre to rival Manchester Central and Birmingham’s NEC. Although the building on Barton Dock Road has reopened in recent weeks as the Museum of Museums — a showcase for the region’s heritage attractions — the long term future of the 300,000 sq ft building 300,000 sq ft former Argos warehouse could become powerful rival to Manchester Central could be very different. Peel Group is denying that it plans a conferencing facility, but people within the company have told Crain’s that the idea was “being talked about”. The warehouse building, 300 yards away from the Trafford Centre, covers 300,000 sq ft, making it almost three times the size of the 109,000 sq ft Central Hall in Manchester Central, which has a total of 240,000 sq ft of exhibition space. Argos pulled out and left it empty in 2009 with the loss of 240 jobs when Home Retail Group Plc consolidated Northern operations at its distribution centre in Castleford, West Yorkshire. The building’s owner, Peel Group, was granted change of use from a distribution warehouse to a museum in February 2009. If it wanted to use the building to host conferences and trade shows, further change of use planning consents would have to be secured, but many other requirements, such as licensing and fire regulations, have already been satisfied. Peel would have to apply for planning to Trafford Metropolitan SEE MUSEUM, PAGE 18 Philip Hulme with a Henry (right) and the Qualtex replica Chemicals producer to open new factory BY JAMES CHAPELARD Waterproofing chemicals producer Stirling Lloyd Group is planning to open a new factory in Greater Manchester. The Knutsford-based company has bought Cabot Corporation’s former site in Tameside, but has not said publicly what it intends to do with it. However, Stirling Lloyd is currently advertising for a graduate research and development chemist to be based at “its new manufacturing facility in Dukinfield”. Stirling Lloyd did not return calls for comment, but a person familiar with the situation said the new site was due to open later this year. There is no reference to a plant in Dukinfield on Stirling Lloyd’s website. Stirling Lloyd Group’s headquarters are at King Street, Knutsford, and it has offices in Connecticut and Hong Kong to serve its overseas markets. Last October its manufacturing and technical centre in Station Road, Birch Vale, near Hayfield, was completely gutted by an explosion and fire. Nearby residents had to be evacuated from their homes but nobody was injured. Earlier this year, the company applied to High Peak Council for planning permission to re-build a smaller factory on the site. The Dukinfield site bought by Stirling Lloyd is occupied by a mixture of buildings ranging from offices, laboratories and warehouses covering a total of 147,630 sq ft on nine acres at the VACUUM DUST-UP BY MICHAEL FAHY PHOTO: MARTIN O’NEILL/STUDIOFIVEFOUR.COM SEE WHAT’S NEWS, PAGE 2 hite goods firm Qualtex is disputing a £1.5m legal bill after a court found that a model of vacuum cleaner it was planning to launch was too similar to a competitor’s product. The Denton-based company, which distributes domestic appliances and spare parts, was taken to court by Somerset-based competitor Numatic Ltd after it wrote to the firm last year announcing its intention to launch a similar product to Numatic’s best-selling Henry model. The product would have been based around the technology used in a 1997 Henry model for which intellectual property rights had lapsed. It W exhibited a prototype at a trade show in February 2009 and Numatic issued proceedings three months later, arguing that the shape and colours of the replica were so similar that customers could mistake it for a Henry. Qualtex argued that no orders were ever taken for the product and when it filed its defence a month later it pledged not sell the version Numatic objected to, but to work up a different version which looked less like the Henry. Numatic persisted with the case and won a judgement in its favour last month, but now a SEE CLEANER, PAGE 18 SEE STIRLING, PAGE 18 Leading Page 3 ENTREPRENEUR’S £30M DEBT MANAGEMENT BUYOUT SHELVED http://CrainsManchesterBusiness.co.uk

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crain's Manchester Business - 7-11 June, 2010

Crain's Manchester Business - 7-11 June, 2010