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THAMES VALLEY MARCH 2009 #165 £2.50 AN ELCOT PUBLICATIONS TITLE

Climbing out of the holeCorporate recovery & turnaround

Free with this issue: • Law South East

News 4 Opinion – Who would be a banker?4 Steve McQueen’s Desert Racer bike launched in UK5 Firm celebrates first shared service centre for legal sector6 Shareleague6 A windfall for the long-term sick?7 Deloitte fuels dynamic business practice8 Exhibition – a real draw for local artists9 Golf Ambassadors Programme launched9 Surviving the slowdown10 Area Sq appointed for design of new HQ11 Basingstoke for business12 Passionate about improving performance13 Hadley to fill a void in Oxfordshire life

AIM Barometer 14 AIM company valuations continue widespread slide

Surrey News 16 Coutts relocates Guildford office

Advice for Entrepreneurs 17 Reviewing employee benefit schemes

Deals Update 18 Latest deals data from across the region

Law 30 Reducing your exposure to stress in the workplace

Finance 31 Home workers should claim tax relief32 SEEDA commissions work to speed property recovery33 M&A – they’re still on the agenda33 Assessing the services of professional advisers

Technology 34 Consolidation is the key to cutting costs

Business Travel/Hospitality 36 Tylney tradition is a treat

Serviced Offices 37 Move in, move out – but don’t get lumbered

Property 38 Market of opportunity39 Professional advice pays off40 Mandelson performs groundbreaking ceremony42 FRAs – a legal obligation

International Trade 43 Go east and sell 44 Present survival and future prosperity

People 45 Movers and risers

Diary 46 Dates for your diary

THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – MARCH 2009

contentswww.businessmag.co.uk 3

special features

In the April issue of The Business Magazine

•Propertyspecial •Legalfocus •Teambuilding For more details call: 0118-9745308 email: [email protected]

Corporate Recovery & Turnaround 19 Acts for rescuing businesses 20 Administration – a modern day overview 21 Using the downturn to your advantage 23 Dedicated insolvency practice launched 24 Pre-packs can be a ‘valid tool’ 25 How effective is a ‘pre-pack’ administration? 26 Coping with the recession: some key business lessons 27 Trading whilst insolvent? 28 Cashflow management – best defence in uncertain times 29 It’s not all bad news

Telecoms 35 Guru sets up an appealing STORM for Ross Kemp

Services Offices 37 Move in, move out – but don’t get lumbered

regular features

The best law firm to work for in the Thames Valley

The best law firm to work for in the Thames Valley

p42

p44

p10 p36

Chartered Surveyors

p8

news www.businessmag.co.uk


4

For all your legal needs, whether business or personal

Who would be a banker?

In 2009, in Britain, a banker might as well wear a mask and carry a gun, as many people see him as enemy number one, robbing the taxpayer and causing misery among the nation’s businesses and households.

How has the reputation of the banker fallen so low? Why has our trust gone in the man (or woman) once seen as the guardian of our finances?

We all know that banks have done their best to use that gun to shoot themselves in the foot. Poor judgement by banks over lending practices globally have threatened busi-nesses locally.

Having seen the value of banks decimated, bankers have got more flak for tighten-ing the available credit at a time when businesses desperately need all the help they can get. The fact that much of the new capital raised by the banks has come from the taxpayer has added to the frustration of businessmen and women across the country.

And then there’s the ques-tion of bonuses. Rightly or wrongly, the public has seen this as an issue about reward-ing failure.

So where does that leave our relationship with bankers?

The plain fact is that banks are a vitally important element in our economy and busi-nesses need to have a close, trusting and open relationship with their bank. They need to know that advice from their bank is sound and that the finance they receive from their bank is certain and unlikely to suddenly disappear.

Similarly, bankers need to know they can be trusted and that business people respect their judgement.

And that means that banks need to actively promote the positives, and show the business community what they are doing (to counter all the national focus about what they’re not doing).

Banks need to be closer to their business community than ever before. It’s time to rebuild bridges, and forge closer relationships. It’s time to climb out of the bunker...

David MurrayPublisher

OPINIONOPINION

An Oxfordshire motorcycle manu-facturer is making a name for itself with its Hollywood connection.

Carswell-based Métisse Motorcycles is currently hand building a limited replica edition of the off-road motorcycle originally designed by the Rickman brothers and built by Hollywood legend Steve McQueen.

The Métisse Desert Racer is on sale in the UK for distribution worldwide, with a full endorsement from the McQueen estate.

Only 300 of the motorcycles will be built at the Carswell site, with every detail of the original

McQueen bike that he custom-ised with close friend Bud Ekins painstakingly recreated. The frames are chrome-moly nickel plated and the motorcycles have a fully reconditioned period Triumph TR6 engine complete with a single Amal carburettor. They also include styled footrests made to McQueen’s preferred design. Each bike features McQueen’s signature on the tank badge and a certificate of authenticity.

Twenty nine years after his death, Steve McQueen remains an iconic figure, epitomising the essence of cool. His passion for

Steve McQueen’s Desert Racer bike launched in UK

motorcycles was well known and inspired the owner of Métisse Motorcycles, Gerry Lisi to recreate his favourite bike.

“One thing that I do have in common with Steve McQueen is a real love of motorcycles which be-gan when I worked as a mechanic in the 1960s. The Desert Racer is such an iconic motorcycle that when I took over Métisse via the Rickman brothers, I was deter-mined to bring it back into produc-tion and use traditional methods to ensure that it is as close to the original bike as possible.”

After three years in develop-ment, the Métisse Desert Racer was unveiled at Motorcycle World at Beaulieu last year. The bikes, which retail for around £13,000, have already found homes with buyers from across Europe and America – with Chad McQueen as the company’s very first customer.

“Having an endorsement from the McQueen estate is very important to us,” said Lisi. “This has been a real labour of love – we were determined that our limited edition motorcycles would match the McQueen version in every way – hand built in exactly the same way as they were back then.”

Details: www.metisse-motorcycles.com

Oxfordshire company Microbial Solutions has completed the suc-cessful trial of a commercial scale toxin-eating bio-reactor with BAE Systems.

Following the success of the Microbial Solutions bio-reactor in east Yorkshire, BAE Systems is now negotiating for a 25-tonne treatment plant capable of processing around half a million litres of waste metalworking fluid per year.

The bio-reactor process involves Microcycle Technology, an ecologically friendly bacterial

treatment developed by Microbial Solutions, which renders toxic metalworking fluids used in the engineering industry less harmful before disposal.

Bacteria in the bio-reactor con-sume toxins and chemicals within the metalworking fluids, reducing their pollution by up to 98%, and leaving behind grey water that is safe to dispose of in the sewerage system. Toxic components are converted to harmless gas and there is no residual oily waste.

Professor Will Pope, CEO of Microbial Solutions, said: “We’re

very pleased that the trial with BAE Systems has proved the po-tential of Microcycle Technology. Reducing the need for landfill, and avoiding other more energy-intensive processes, Microcycle Technology is environmentally sound and can cut costs.”

Recently recognised by the presentation of a BAE Systems Chairman’s Award for innova-tion, Microbial Solutions is working towards a commercial launch of the industry-leading Microcycle Technology later this year.

Toxin-eating success for Microbial Solutions

news 5


www.businessmag.co.uk

Apprenticeship training provides your employees with theexpertise that’s directly relevant to your business. Trainedapprentices will:

• Be more productive• Work to a high quality standard• Be more inclined to stay with your business

Over 36,000 organisations in the South East are alreadyenjoying the benefits of Apprenticeships.

One such company is Phoebes Garden Centre Ltd, basedin Catford. Mike Jordan, Managing Director of Phoebessays: “A large proportion of employees of our companyfrom the General Manager down have been throughApprenticeships and a variety of other programmes. I feel I have gained a professional, well presented, capableworkforce with a positive attitude to the work they do.”

Advertise your Apprenticeship vacancies free ofcharge on the national Apprenticeships website.

Mike Jordan, centre, Managing Director of Phoebes Garden Centre with his apprentices.

Your recruits are the future lifeblood of your business

If you would like to know more call

08000 150 600or visit apprenticeships.org.uk

Osborne Clarke has announced a £50 million deal with Integreon to create the UK legal sector’s first onshore shared services centre.

The seven-year deal answers client demand for greater efficiency and will see around 75 of Osborne Clarke’s business services employ-ees transferred to Integreon.

The shared services centre in Bristol will provide a full suite of business support services to law firms. The majority of Osborne Clarke’s business services ranging from IT to business intelligence will be handled by Integreon.

Over the past 12 months, Osborne Clarke has put its working practices under the microscope, while looking at the way law firms buy and use support services.

Osborne Clarke believes the legal industry will move to focus on core legal services. Support services will be provided by a new generation of businesses focused on high-end multiple service provi-sion to the professional services community.

Osborne Clarke has worked with Integreon, the global leader in integrated knowledge and legal process outsourcing, to develop this business model.

Simon Beswick, managing part-ner of Osborne Clarke, explained: “Having access to a full suite of specialised business support serv-ices designed for the legal industry is a critical part of Osborne Clarke’s vision of the modern law firm. The aim is to ensure the delivery

of a competitive, high quality and flexible service. Our clients exist in a tough commercial environment and expect their lawyers to be as focused and cost efficient.”

Sourcing non-legal expertise from one expert supplier will enable Osborne Clarke to focus clearly on its legal activities, while maintaining flexible business service support and cost stability.

Beswick added: “It is testament to the expertise and experience of Osborne Clarke’s business service professionals that they will now be involved in the growth of Inte-greon’s UK and European offering. Both businesses have a clear focus on innovation and providing quality service – this is a good fit for our people.”

Firm celebrates first shared service centre for legal sector PricewaterhouseCoopers is

recruiting nationwide for around 1,000 full-time and intern positions starting in April, June and Septem-ber 2009, and has already seen a 50% increase in applications.

The Association of Graduate Recruiters, based on its bi-annual survey of the graduate jobs mar-ket, expects the number of UK graduate vacancies to drop this year for the first time since 2003.

Ian Smith, senior partner at PwC Thames Valley, said: “For us it’s business as usual in terms of graduate recruitment. Our requirements haven’t changed and we are looking for drive, energy and commitment so that we can confidently invest in our people’s skills to last a lifetime. We believe graduate recruitment is a long-term investment in the future of our business.”

PwC recruiting 1,000 graduates



6

Large (over £1 billion)

Medium (£250 million to £1 billion)

Small (£50 million to £250 million)

Sub – £50 million

Closing price Closing price Change in 31/12/08 31/1/09 share price

RECKITT BENCKISER GROUP 2578 2675 4% BRITISH SKY BCAST.GROUP 480 497 4% CABLE & WIRELESS 156.5 156.9 0% SHIRE 1012 1011 -0% BG GROUP 957 950.5 -1% GLAXOSMITHKLINE 1284.5 1219.5 -5% ICTL.HTLS.GP. 562 525 -7% VODAFONE GROUP 139 129.7 -7% BRITISH AIRWAYS 179.7 120.1 -33% WOLSELEY 384 172.7 -55%


DSG INTERNATIONAL 17.5 22 26% GAME GROUP 127 143.5 13% MICRO FOCUS INTL. 282.5 303 7% YELL GROUP 42.5 44.25 4% DE LA RUE 906 937 3% ELECTROCOMP. 141.25 131.75 -7% HALMA 202.5 183 -10% SPECTRIS 535 481.75 -10% MORGAN CRUCIBLE 111.5 96 -14% SEGRO 247 159.75 -35%


ELEMENTIS 37.25 46.25 24% FIDESSA GROUP 493 610 24% SDL 229 270 18% COSTAIN GROUP 19.75 23 16% GALLIFORD TRY 31.75 35 10% SHANKS GROUP 109 97.75 -10% INTERSERVE 227.25 199.25 -12% MCKAY SECURITIES 145 123 -15% VITEC GROUP 235.5 188 -20% BIG YELLOW GROUP 238.75 169.75 -29%


UNIQ 4.15 11.25 171% EGDON RESOURCES 3.25 7.25 123% INNOVISION RESH.& TECH. 8.75 15.5 77% ZINCOX RESOURCES 30.25 40 32% SOPHEON 7.5 9 20% AVIS EUROPE 3.93 3.17 -19% SINCLAIR PHARMA 18 14.5 -19% FULCRUM PHARMA 3 2.38 -21% FOUNTAINS 54 42 -22% LOK’N STORE GROUP 49 37.5 -23%

Oxford Catalysts Group, the innovator of specialty catalysts for the generation of clean fuels, will look back at 2008 as a transformational year in its short history. Despite the increas-ingly difficult condi-tions in the capital markets, November 2008 saw Oxford Catalysts complete the acquisition of Ve-locys Inc from US-based Batelle Memorial Institute, the world’s leading independent science and technology organisation, raising £10.3 million via an institutional placing in the process.

Velocys is the recognised world leader in the design and development of microchan-nel process technology for the production of synthetic

ShareleagueThames Valley

Presented by

in association with

fuels and Oxford Catalysts’ chief ex-ecutive officer Roy Lipski believes the acquisition marks the beginning of a new phase in the development of the Milton Park based company, the winner of the Innovation category at this year’s Oxfordshire Business Awards. Lipski commented:

“The enlarged group has the core technology and criti-cal mass required to become a leader in the fast emerging small scale synthetic fuels market – a potentially significant new industry that could unlock sufficient supplies to produce hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of transportation fuels each year.”

As well as the Shareleague for listed companies below, this month we take a look at AIM-listed Oxford Catalysts

Roy Lipski

The ECJ’s decisionThe ECJ has ruled that workers on long term sick leave are en-titled to accrue statutory mini-mum holiday and pay if absent for all/part of the holiday year. Workers are also entitled to take accrued holiday at another time – including the possibility of carrying forward holiday to a subsequent holiday year.

What ‘holiday’ is applicable?This decision refers to the statu-tory minimum holiday entitle-ment (including public holidays, this increases to 28 days’ from April 2009). It does not apply to any additional contractual entitlements.

Do employees have to ask to take holiday?The ECJ’s judgement states employers cannot place pre-conditions on employees on sick leave taking holiday, such as requiring them to formally ask to take holiday. Therefore the right to take or be paid for holiday will accrue automati-cally.

Will holiday/pay expire or keep rolling over?The judgement does not ex-clude the possibility that holiday can be rolled forward year to year. However, the ECJ has left it open to national legislators to consider imposing reason-able time limits on when holiday should be taken. This may include allowing holiday to be taken during sick leave.

What will they be paid?Holiday pay is calculated at the worker’s normal rate of pay, as if they had been at work.

What if the worker is on permanent health insurance?When employee’s are in receipt of PHI payment which pays a proportion of an employee’s wages, it currently appears that

People in focusEMPLOYMENT LAW UPDATES FROM BOYES TURNER

A windfall for the long-term sick?

In this month’s column, we look at the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) decision in Stringer and Others -v- Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) concerning holiday and holiday pay whilst on sick leave

employers will have to top up to 100% for holiday on an an-nual basis.

What can employers do now?Employers will have to wait and see how the House of Lords interprets the ECJ’s decision, particularly the mechanics of how accrued holiday is paid/taken or carried forward. Now is the time for employers to check to see who is off sick, why and for how long. Manag-ing sickness and absence is never an easy task, but there is guidance available on dismiss-ing workers due to long term incapability and if anything recent case law has actu-ally made this slightly easier. Employers should also look at their policies and contracts and consider reviewing holiday and sickness entitlements to ac-count for any increased costs in the future.

Details:

David Blomfield [email protected]

Emma O’[email protected]

David Blomfield

news 7



Sponsorship of the Deloitte Dynamic Business Award is this year being led by Ian Barton, who is in charge of Deloitte’s Corporate Finance Advisory business in the Thames Valley. Barton said: “Over the past two years we have met a large number of businesses from all sectors; in both 2007 and 2008 we had an excellent shortlist of finalists and have chosen ex-emplary winners in both years. The quality of the entrants and their dynamic approach to the challenges they have faced has impressed us and the independ-ent judges we have used.

“As in previous years, we are looking at many factors when selecting our finalists. In volatile markets it is the dynamic business that will capitalise on new opportunities and be well positioned for growth and suc-cess when conditions ease. At Deloitte we endeavour to inject dynamism when working with

Deloitte is delighted to once again be supporting the Thames Valley Business Magazine and its Awards programme. ‘This gives us yet another opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to Thames Valley companies, particularly in the current climate,’ writes Ian Barton

Deloitte fuels dynamic business practice

Ian Barton

our clients and it has always been refreshing to see just how many businesses in the Thames Valley share that aim.

“We continue to look for real energy and enthusiasm as

well as a passion to grow and develop; companies who are a credit to the Thames Valley. The Business Magazine itself continues to report stories of optimism and success. Whilst economic challenges make business conditions tough, there remains plenty of opportunity for good businesses and we look forward to meeting companies this year who are tackling these challenges and continuing to be successful.

“We are looking for innova-tive strategies: all downturns generate opportunities as well as challenges – this year in particular, we will be looking for finalists who are taking advan-tage of the growth opportunities presented by this environment so that they emerge ahead of the competition. Well-capital-ised businesses who invest in their M&A capability can pick up some relative bargains. Clearly access to finance is critical and

smart companies are now tak-ing another look at the market and positioning themselves to move quickly – opportunities to buy assets from stressed or distressed owners can, in the current environment, appear at a moment’s notice. Banks and private equity remain keen to invest in strong management teams who are working in at-tractive markets.

“We are also seeking those who are managing and looking after their people; giving them the opportunity to contribute where they can and trying to maintain a sense of fun and enjoyment – harnessing and developing the talents of their people remains vital to their business.

“If you fit the bill we look forward to meeting you in the coming months.”

Details:Ian [email protected]



8

United Therapeutics specialises in the devel-opment and commercialisation of products to address the unmet medical needs of patients with chronic and life-threatening cardiovascular and infectious diseases and cancer.

The company currently occupies three offices in Guildford and the objective of the reloca-tion is to consolidate its business operations in one location that will also accommodate future expansion plans.

Area Sq has worked closely with the United Therapeutics’ project team members located in the UK and US to achieve a design that is both functional and contemporary, incorporating the latest technology and quirky features. United Therapeutics acquired the freehold on the build-ing, which meant design opportunities could be explored in full without liability obligations on re-instatement. As a result, Area Sq was able to make structural alterations to the building to create a design that is truly fit for purpose and meets United Therapeutics’ requirements.

United Therapeutics’ objective was to put people at the forefront of the project and the company worked with Area Sq to organise con-sultations amongst employees throughout the

design process. This ensured the project was communicated internally and the design team received regular feedback.

The new building had to reflect United Therapeutics’ brand image and be built with flexibility in mind, while also being inspirational to work in. The spacious, double high and light reception area boasts green glass feature walls and James-Bond style seating. A large client and staff friendly breakout area is located in close proximity to the boardroom and lecture theatre areas. The conference room includes folding doors and modular furniture to enable multi-purpose use.

All furniture was provided by Sketch Studios, Area Sq’s sister company specialising in office furniture procurement. Sketch designed flexible furniture throughout the building including be-spoke desks to allow easy reconfiguration.

The open plan office area is light, spacious and comprises a central library area featuring an aquarium centrally positioned to be seen from all angles. Other facilities include a videoconferenc-ing suite, a gym and shower rooms.

United Therapeutics was able to minimise the environmental impact of the fit-out by using a

combination of carbon-neutral carpet and reus-ing some of the existing floor covering.

Gary Chandler, Area Sq’s managing director, commented: “In the current market it is refresh-ing to work with a fast-growing company which puts it employees first and is open to design suggestions. By working in partnership with United Therapeutics and its staff we will achieve a fabulous design.”

Robert Grover, European medical director, added: “We are all very excited about the move, particularly as everybody feels they have con-tributed to the look and feel of our new office.”

Area Sq and Sketch studios are part of the Fourfront Group: fourfrontgroup.co.uk

Details:

Area Sq: Gary [email protected]

Sketch: Justin [email protected]

Area Sq appointed for design of new HQOffice design and fit-out specialist Area Sq has been appointed to manage the design and build of the new 25,000 sq ft European headquarters for United Therapeutics Europe in Chertsey

RECESSION PROOF YOUR BUSINESS Businesses, large and small, need to respond appropriately to current economic challenges to ensure survival. The TVU FutureSkills team can bring new expertise and resources to support you through the economic downturn.

Support includes a wide range of bespoke programmes, training and consultancy that can be delivered at your own business premises, TVU campuses in West London, Slough and Reading, or at our outreach and enterprise centres in Acton, Southall, Park Royal, Heathrow or Slough.

With cutting edge programmes, a friendly team and a fully equipped training facilities we are ready to help you develop your business in difficult times.

For further details please contact the FutureSkills team.

TEL: 0300 123 2244

[email protected] www.tvu.ac.uk/futureskills

011351A2_TVU_FutureSkills_Retail1 1 19/2/09 16:03:40

RECESSION PROOF YOUR BUSINESS Businesses, large and small, need to respond appropriately to current economic challenges to ensure survival. The TVU FutureSkills team can bring new expertise and resources to support you through the economic downturn.

Support includes a wide range of bespoke programmes, training and consultancy that can be delivered at your own business premises, TVU campuses in West London, Slough and Reading, or at our outreach and enterprise centres in Acton, Southall, Park Royal, Heathrow or Slough.

With cutting edge programmes, a friendly team and a fully equipped training facilities we are ready to help you develop your business in difficult times.

For further details please contact the FutureSkills team.

TEL: 0300 123 2244

[email protected] www.tvu.ac.uk/futureskills

011351A2_TVU_FutureSkills_Retail1 1 19/2/09 16:03:40

news 9



Golf Ambassadors Programme launched

The Berks Bucks and Oxon

(BB&O) Golf Part-nership has teamed

up with Buckinghamshire New University to launch a unique Golf Ambassadors Programme.

The aims of the pro-gramme are to provide students with real hands-on experience in the golf indus-try and to provide the BB&O Golf Partnership with high quality sports management volunteers.

Four second-year BA (Hons) Sports Management & Golf Studies students from Bucks have been selected to work alongside the BB&O Golf Partnership in the new programme, which has been developed by Francisco Baeza (principal lecturer at Bucks New University), Justine Lawrence (develop-ment officer at the BB&O Golf Partnership), and Phil Beard (volunteer manager at the England Golf Partnership).

Lawrence commented: “The calibre of students interviewed was very high which made the selection process difficult, but we’re delighted with the four selected and look forward to working with them. We are sure that their contribution and youthful approach will prove most beneficial to the partnership.”

Baeza added: “This is an excellent programme that will be very beneficial to Bucks New University, golf students and the BB&O Golf Partnership. On behalf of the University and the students, I would like to say that it is great to be working with such prestigious organisations from the golf industry.”

Beard from the England Golf Partnership confirmed that if successful within the Berks, Bucks and Oxon area, he is hoping to launch the scheme nationally with other county golf partnerships.

The selected Bucks stu-dents are Lauren Drake, Luke Jennings, James McGilvray, and Rajiv Patel, and they will be mentored by Lawrence and Baeza on two separate projects. The first project will be working alongside the county development officer

in expanding the number of clubs being awarded GolfMark, which is a national accreditation scheme that identifies and recognises junior and beginner-friendly golf facilities.

Sport England recognises and values the commit-ment made by sports clubs in developing high quality standards and welcoming environments for young people, and therefore it is a key priority within the BB&O Golf Partnership. At present there are 120 affiliated clubs and less than half of them are signed up to GolfMark, creat-ing a huge opportunity for the students to significantly develop this area.

The second project will be working with a number of schools within Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Ox-fordshire that provide some form of golfing activities to their pupils. The students will be working with the county development officer and the Golf Foundation in estab-lishing the school links and providing a variety of initia-tives to introduce children to golf. They will be involved in providing thorough train-ing to relevant organisers, a leading coaching programme to junior golfers, and the de-velopment of junior specific equipment and games to make the sport enjoyable for all ages.

Details: [email protected]

A long period of growth and prosperity in the UK has given way to a looming recession. As a result more SMEs are facing serious dif-ficulties. Unfortunately for some, the combination of tight cashflow, growing bad debts and decreased sales are forcing formal insolvency proceedings.

Businesses and their owners can, however, take positive action to survive tough times.

Assess your risksReview the key areas of risk in your business. Consider what you would do if your bank were to withdraw its support. Are you aware of alternative forms of financing and how to go about obtaining these?

New fundingMany businesses rely on overdraft and loan finance which is often limited by the security you have available. Growing businesses increasingly find that factoring, which allows you to raise finance on the value of outstanding invoices, is a more appealing op-tion. Asset finance is particularly useful for capital investment. For businesses looking to fund expan-sion, equity finance, provided by venture capitalists or business angels, may be suitable.

Manage cashflowKnowing your cash position is critical. This can easily be achieved by regularly preparing and reviewing forecasts. Look at ways in which you can improve cash generation or sensibly defer outgoings. Ensure you have ef-ficient invoicing practices. In the event of late payment, chase quickly and assertively. Consider using a collection agency if debt recovery becomes an ongoing problem. Maintain a good relation-ship and communication with your bank – especially if you anticipate difficulties. If you are experienc-ing a cashflow problem, consider working with a recovery specialist. These experts can help you nego-tiate with your suppliers, advise on debt repayment schemes and other steps you can take to keep your business operating.

OverheadsLook carefully at your expenses. Cut back where possible. Rene-gotiate more favourable contracts from suppliers such as utility and communication providers. Be sure to take a longer-term view

Surviving the slowdownAll the talk of a recession has left many businesses feeling anxious about the months ahead. Keith Stevens, partner in Wilkins Kennedy’s corporate recovery and insolvency team, looks at what businesses can do to survive and where to go to for help

when cutting costs, particularly in the case of price reductions or changes to your workforce.

Proactive tax planningThere are many ways in which a business can improve the efficien-cy of their tax affairs by managing tax payments. Establish whether you are eligible for schemes such as the VAT cash accounting scheme or research and develop-ment tax credits. If you find you are currently unable to meet your tax payments, work with your ad-viser or contact a recovery expert to assist in negotiating with HM Revenue & Customs before you incur penalties.

Independent business reviewsIf you think your business may be in trouble seek external advice early. External advisers can bring a fresh perspective and offer alter-native solutions. Your advisers can also help you prepare forecasts which provide a more objective picture of the state of your busi-ness and can be useful in funding applications. Many directors of small businesses have secured their loans against their homes. By working with specialists early on you may well be able to sell your business and avoid being placed into administration or losing your home and personal assets.

Details: Keith Stevens01784-435561keith.stevens@wilkinskennedy.comwww.wilkinskennedy.com

Keith Stevens



10

Local artists from across the region have been given the op-portunity to showcase their work in the latest community art initia-tive by law firm B P Collins. The Gerrards Cross-based practice is a strong supporter of art projects and has now teamed up with Art Works for Business (AWB), a Creative Bucks project which champions artists and business-es across the county.

Some 29 pieces of original art from 23 artists have been given pride of place in The Chalfont Suite, the law firm’s state-of-the-art suite of meeting rooms, with a range of mediums including watercolours, pastels, acrylics and even computer pieces.

Karl Wingfield, chief operating officer, said: “Supporting local

Exhibition – a real draw for local artists

artists and the creative com-munity is important to us and the exhibition is a great example of the benefits of local businesses and art working together. We hope that not only will visitors to our offices enjoy the artworks,

which showcase the wealth of local talent, but that the artists will feel proud to see their work on display.”

Laura Boswell, AWB Co-ordi-nator, said: “I am delighted that Art Works for Business has been

able to help B P Collins with their innovative exhibition space, which has allowed many local artists to display their work to a varied audience for an extended period. It is a real bonus for our artists to have work on show in an business environment and to be able to provide a source of enjoyment for the staff and visi-tors to B P Collins.”

The exhibition runs until May and visitors to The Chalfont Suite, which regularly hosts seminars and events throughout the year, will be able to purchase the paintings. Since opening in January 2008, previous exhibi-tions have highlighted work by German artist Helmut Otto and photography students from Am-ersham and Wycombe College.

From a painting by Brenda Hurley Artist: Isabel Fallow

Alan Hadley may be entering its 76th year in the demolition and waste removal business but it’s not short of ground-breaking plans for the future.

The Reading-based company aims to open two new opera-tions in May – a waste transfer station at Colthrop Business Park in Thatcham, near New-bury and a fresh landfill site at Ufton Nervet near Theale.

It is also very happy to be at “a major crossroads” in its business. Hadley is literally working at the reconstruction of the M4 Junction 11 intersection, fulfilling a £1 million contract for recycled foundation materials.

Much like the long-awaited M4 infrastructure project, Hadley is reconfiguring itself to improve its operation, in prepa-ration for an expected increase in usage.

“We have now completed our planned ‘root and branch’ review of our business. This has clarified our aims and re-focused our operations on our customer needs and our core business strengths and values. What we are all about now is putting the customer first, and providing economic solutions,

while driving environmental awareness and sustainability,” said general manager Martin Elford.

“We believe we are now ready and prepared for many exciting opportunities in the future,” he added. Not that Hadley is waiting for things to happen. It is very much creating it’s own future.

Hadley strategic investment in a new aggregate washing facility at Moores Farm, Pinge-wood (near M4 Junction 11) has now been operating success-fully since summer 2008. Nearly a quarter of a million tonnes per year of “muckaway” from construction sites can be proc-essed on-site into five different high specification aggregate products.

Hadley is also preparing to operate one of the UK’s largest inert landfill sites at Shipton-on-Cherwell, Oxfordshire. It provides a step-change op-portunity for Hadley – limestone extraction will begin over the next two years.

Details: 0118-9301991www.hadleys.co.uk

Ground-breaking future plans for Thatcham and Theale

news 11



STRUTT & PARKER Property Consultants

13 Hill Street, London W1J 5LG. Tel +44 (0)20 7629 7282 Fax +44 (0)20 7318 5162 [email protected] www.struttandparker.com

10 years2 million sq ft22% regional market share

Specialists in acquisition & disposal of offices in the Thames Valley.

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Basingstoke is “the business” for local businesses, according to a special question-time event staged in the town.

Nearly 90% of more than 100 business delegates attending, including leading figures from Barclays Asset Finance, LG Mo-tion, Clydesdale Bank, HSBC and Tenon, agreed that Basingstoke was an excellent or good place to “do business”.

The event, organised by Desti-nation Basingstoke in partnership with Basingstoke and Deane Bor-ough Council, was also seeking local businesses’ views on what support they needed.

Top priorities for the future economic success of the borough were the redevelopment of Bas-ing View business park, improving

transport and the M3 Junction 6, closely followed by redevelop-ment of other commercial areas and business parks.

Transport links and proxim-ity to customers were the most important factors when choosing a location for their business, said delegates.

Nearly half the businesses (46%) said they already had measures in place to reduce CO2 emissions, and a further 20% said they were planning to do some-thing in the next five years.

Other topics discussed included commercial property, regenerating business areas, manufacturing, skills, inward investment, traffic and transport links, and council support in the economic downturn.

Leader of the council Cllr An-drew Finney said: “Our business community is key to our future prosperity and whilst the event shows we’re getting most things right, we clearly have challenges to face. I hope this is the first in a series of events which enable us to identify and meet the needs of businesses in Basingstoke and Deane.”

Information gained and views expressed at the event will be fed into consultation processes for the council’s Economic Develop-ment Strategy action plan and Local Development Framework.

Details:01256-845692business@basingstoke.gov.ukwww.destinationbasingstoke.co.uk

Basingstoke for business

Boyes Turner won the national accolade of the “Best branding campaign in 2008” at The Lawyer magazine’s HR awards, held at the Grosvenor Hotel, London.

The industry award was gained for the Free Range Lawyers recruitment campaign, which was developed in-house jointly by

the Thames Valley firm’s HR and marketing teams. It has run over the past nine months and features many of the firm’s people.

The judges felt that the cam-paign made the firm “clear win-ners” and “head and shoulders” above the other two firms short-listed – Lovells and Linklaters.

‘Best Branding’ award for law firm Judges based their decision on aspects including the reach of the campaign, communi-cation of brand values, and creativity to ensure maximum effectiveness.

Chief executive Andrew Chalk-ley said: “This is fantastic news. To stand out against magic circle and national heavyweight firms such as Linklaters and Lovells is a great achievement.”

STRUTT & PARKER Property Consultants

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12

Want to know more?

Call 0845 751 [email protected] www.traintogain.gov.uk*Subsidised publicly funded training programmes are subject to eligibility and availability.

South East based company Kate’sCakes Ltd, currently has a fifth oftheir workforce being trained in awide range of qualifications linkedto the food and drink industryunder Train to Gain. The companybelieves that their commitment totraining has brought greatdividends to the overallperformance of their employees and the business.

Train to Gain gives you:• Training tailored to your

business requirements

• FREE and impartial skillsand training advice

• Training providerssourced just for you

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Skills shortages threaten productivity, competitivenessand demotivate staff. Everyone values training but howcan you choose the right training – and at the right price?

Train to Gain is designed to make sure your business gets the training itneeds and your employees the right skills to do the best job.

Are you keeping your staff upto speed with their training?

The group who founded Kalei-doscope in 2007 have a wealth of practical experience from their time spent in blue-chip companies and consultancy including developing pan-Euro-pean contact centres, imple-menting CRM solutions and designing account management processes

A kaleidoscope is defined as a complex pattern of frequently changing shapes and colours. To survive in business, par-ticularly during a recession, organisations need to continu-ously innovate and evolve and unless managed well, these frequent changes can create new and sometimes challenging issues. The Kaleidoscope team of Kieran Maloney, Paul Stan-ford and Chris Allbut works with organisations to address the root cause of these issues and develop high impact solutions that are simple to implement and deliver positive results.

Passionate about improving performance

Kaleidoscope’s three partners (from left): Chris Allbut, Kieran Maloney and Paul Stanford

Kaleidoscope partner Maloney commented: “Each customer is unique and will be confronted with unique issues.

Kaleidoscope has a passion for helping organisations to improve their performance: through people, process, systems and information, both today and, perhaps more importantly, for tomorrow, writes Kieran Maloney, one of the company’s three founders and senior managers

We offer bespoke solutions to custom-ers; we base our solutions on a care-

ful analysis of an organisation, its business and its objectives. We may need to address issues relating to people, to informa-tion or to systems, using our experience at a senior level to bring real understanding and practical solutions to our customers.

Each customer is unique and will be confronted with unique issues

“Improving performance is our customers’ key objective. We derive enormous satisfaction from seeing our customers grow and develop after taking on board the solutions we have developed with them.”

Details:Kieran [email protected]

news 13



Despite the economic downturn, retail specialist Auto Miles UK has worked successfully with kitchen manufacturer Omega to maxim-ise sales and encourage brand switching.

A tailored incentive scheme based on choice and flexibility of rewards has been the key to the companies’ success.

According to a survey by Sub Lime Europe, on behalf of Omega, 80% felt that the retailer incentive had a positive effect in increas-ing sales of Omega brands. This feedback was reflected by increased sales that Omega experienced amongst participat-ing retailers in the last quarter of 2008.

Instead of offering a headline gift, Auto Miles provided an online catalogue of products and experi-

ences that retailers could select and redeem at their leisure with Omega branded points-vouchers.

Gifts included a Formula One experience, a one-day residential cookery course at Le Manoir, a VIP personalised shopping con-sultation and even a tank-driving experience.

Chris Blackham, Omega’s marketing manager, commented: “The flexibility of the Auto Miles solution suited our needs per-fectly and the results surpassed all expectations, with many retail-ers beating targets and switching sales from competitors’ brands. The incentive produced high levels of incremental sales in what is a difficult and challenging mar-ketplace and we are already look-ing at new and exciting incentive programmes for the future.”

Incentives that beat the gloom

Six adventurous volunteers from Gerrards Cross law firm B P Col-lins swopped the comfort of their offices recently for a gruelling charity challenge to raise funds for the Chilterns MS Centre.

More than £1,100 was collected by the two teams, who took part in a 10km off-road run, a 25km mountain bike ride and a 1.5km

kayaking course during The Helly Hansen Adventure Challenge Series, held in Pirbright, Surrey.

The Chilterns MS Centre pro-vided T-shirts for team members and money raised will be donated towards a £500,000 target which the charity aims to raise to help equip its new purpose-built centre.

Legal team tackles charity challenge

Talaris launched its new corporate headquarters at Chineham Park in Basingstoke with a champagne reception last month.

The event was attended by the 80 head office employees of Talaris, the leading cash-handling solutions provider, and guest of honour Mike Loftus, chairman of Destination Basingstoke, who

welcomed the team to their new Talaris House home.

Tracey Graham, chief executive officer of Talaris, said: “It is a great privilege and pleasure to base our corporate headquarters in Basing-stoke where we join a thriving busi-ness community at Chineham Park, amongst other successful and well respected companies.”

Talaris opens new headquarters

It will also begin a long-term project that will transform a 400-acre wasteland, which includes a derelict cement works and ancient quarry, into a modern environmentally-conscious inert waste management site, which on completion will provide a mix of employment generating after-uses, wildlife conservation areas and public access as a leisure amenity.

The challenge is huge, the po-tential immense. The quarried site has an inert landfill capacity – or “void reserve”, as it is known – in excess of 2.7 million tonnes.

In addition, massive manufac-turing silos and factory structures will need to be demolished, the ruins of the cement works that operated from 1929 to1986. This includes a 60-metre high chimney, a local landmark at the site just north of Kidlington.

During the first few years, Hadley will be able to offer its customers virgin aggregate, pre-dominantly limestone. Approxi-mately one million tonnes of vi-

Hadley to fill a void in Oxfordshire lifeThis spring recycling and waste management company Hadley, founded in Reading as a family business in 1933, is set to become the operator of one of the UK’s largest inert landfill sites at Shipton-on-Cherwell, Oxfordshire, writes John Burbedge of The Business Magazine

The Shipton-on-Cherwell site which is of special interest for its wildlife

able extraction will be undertaken while other areas are infilled.

A new railhead will also be built to help import inert waste.

The Shipton site is of spe-cial interest for its geology and wildlife, so operations will need to be carried out sensitively. Two wildlife areas are planned, with public nature trails, and over the project lifetime Hadley’s envi-ronmental investment is likely to exceed £2m.

The scale of the project may be daunting, but in becoming expert in recycling and waste manage-

ment Hadley has also become a master of environmental “change management”.

It has successfully undertaken other large waste/environmental management projects at Chan-dlers Farm Quarry in Eversley, Hampshire, and in Berkshire at Poors Allotment, Ufton Nervet, and Moores Farm, Pingewood, which involved special care to avoid disturbing the nesting habi-tat of rare Little Ringed Plovers.

While Hadley operates the Shipton site commercially, it will also be monitoring the wellbeing

of local wildlife. A full-time ecolo-gist will be employed to assist in this process.

Hadley was announced last August as the preferred opera-tor for the site with an exclusive agreement with its owners, the Kilbride Group. Planning matters are currently being finalised with the Oxfordshire authorities.

Although Hadley has grown steadily, basing its progress on traditional values of customer sat-isfaction aligned with a commit-ment to the environment, it is not unwilling to invest in its future.

Hadley’s managing director Pete Cannon said: “The Shipton site will use the latest technolo-gies and techniques to maximise sustainability, but overall repre-sents a further significant step in achieving our growth strategy, by opening up new geographical markets and business streams for the company.”

Details: Pete Cannon, managing director Martin Elford, general manager 0118-9323444

aim barometer14



Among the companies based in the south east region, a number of AIM firms are still strug-gling to hold on to their market valuation. Although the major-ity of businesses have lost at least 70% of their market value, there are a good number of companies that have managed to achieve positive movements over the last 12 months, in spite of the worsening economic conditions. Notable among this group of high performers are Forum Energy, TV Commerce, Clinical Computing and ECO Animal Health Group.

Forum Energy is an oil and gas company with projects in the Philippines. It performed extremely well during the third quarter of the year on account of the high oil prices but has since lost most of that gain. TV Commerce (now Gemstones of Africa Group) operates TV channels and generates most of its revenue through interac-tive audience participation. It has recently changed its name to reflect its interests in acquisi-tions in Africa. It should however be noted that the percentage of free float shares (percentage of shares available for trading) for both companies is among the lowest in the group and so their

AIM has played a key role in helping southern firms fulfil their expansion and fundraising plans. To highlight its importance to the regional economy and showcase its top performing companies, the University of Surrey and accountants BDO Stoy Hayward have launched the Southern AIM Barometer

AIM company valuations continue widespread slide in the region

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share price can be significantly affected by non-trading. In the case of TV Commerce, there were no changes in the share price between February 2008 and September 2008.

Clinical Computing, an IT company that specialises in computer software for the

healthcare market, has shown positive signs of recovery in the last quarter. Its share price increased from 1.63p in Septem-ber to 3.25p by the end of 2008. The share price increase is in response to the release of the company’s Clinicalvision V soft-ware. ECO Animal Health Group,

manufacturer and supplier of animal feed and animal health products, has also gained 30% in the last quarter, reducing the year-to-date loss in value to 6%.

Simon Watson, partner at BDO Stoy Hayward, said: “In this period of market turmoil, there is not much consistency in the pricing of individual companies and much of the recent falls in share price has little to do with the performance or prospects of many AIM firms in the region. Companies will find it frustrating to announce good results in spite of market conditions only to see either no movement in value or even negative reaction driven by un-duly optimistic expectations.

“Many companies have suf-fered share price declines in line with general sector movement but encouragingly, there are a few examples of AIM firms in the region that have successfully traded throughout 2008, but the weakening of share prices as shown in the barometer disguise this.”

The southern regionThe Southern AIM Barometer has continued to fall since May 2008. In line with AIM stocks nationally, the southern region Index has fallen by over 60% from its initial value in December

aim barometer 15



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2007. The loss in value has oc-curred largely during the second half of the year, as market uncertainties following the credit crunch increased.

Dr Sam Agyei-Ampomah, senior lecturer at the Univer-sity of Surrey, said: “Many of the companies in the southern region are struggling to hold on to their value. At the beginning of 2008, 53% of the companies had market capitalisation in excess of £10 million but by the end of the year this figure fell to only 31%. It is anticipated that should this trend continue, many more companies are likely to leave the market than have already done so.”

However, AIM companies in the southern region performed marginally better in the last quarter than AIM stocks nation-ally. This is largely due to the relatively better performance of the oil and gas and technology sectors. Indeed, the impact of the general economic decline on the various industrial sec-tors in the region is varied. The financial sector companies, which contribute over 33% of the southern Barometer value, lost over 62% of their value off the back of growing concerns over rising bad debts and write-offs. Companies in the basic resources (mining and min-eral resources) and consumer goods sectors (down 85% and 91% respectively) have suffered most including Oakdene Homes which lost 94% and has now requested a suspension of trad-ing in its shares.

About the Southern AIM Barometer:The Southern AIM Barometer is an index that tracks the stock market performance of London Stock Exchange Al-ternative Investment Market (AIM) listed companies in the Surrey/Hampshire and south east area of England. The current reporting is based on 87 AIM-listed companies. The number of constituent companies, however, may change from time to time due to additions of new compa-nies or deletions resulting from delisting of a constitu-ent company. The index val-ue is calculated as the sum of the free-float and liquidity adjusted market capitalisa-tion of the constituent stocks rebased at 100 at the base date of December 2007. Where necessary, adjust-ments are made to the index value to correct for changes in market capitalisation due to changes in a company’s number of shares.

Other sectors such as oil and gas, technology and indus-trial goods and services have, however, managed fairly well. But, by the end of the year, the oil and gas sector had lost most of the value accumulated during the oil price boom.

Industrial composition

Industrial and technology com-panies make up about 45% of the sample in terms of numbers, but they only contribute 21% of the index value. On the other hand, oil and gas and financials companies contribute over 45% of the index value. As a result, the performance of the index is likely to be dominated by the performance of the financials and the oil and gas sectors.

Comparatively, companies listed on the main London Stock Exchange have not suf-

fered as much decline in value as the AIM listed companies. The FTSE All Share Index has dropped only 33% in value over the year to December 2008. This is consistent with the view that investor sentiments are shifting from riskier small-cap stocks towards relatively safer

large-cap stocks. Generally, small-cap companies are more volatile and hence more vulner-able during periods of market uncertainty than their larger counterparts. If investor confi-dence in small-cap companies continues to wane, market performance of AIM-listed com-panies, as a whole, will suffer.

DetailsSimon Watson0118-9254400www.bdo.co.uk

surrey news www.businessmag.co.uk


16

Private bank Coutts’ Guild-ford office is relocating within Guildford, in order to accommo-date the growing team, provide bigger client meeting rooms and better client entertainment facilities.

The private bank looks after some of the UK’s top entrepre-neurs, executives and sports and entertainment stars.

The firm’s former Guildford office, at 4 Jenner Road, opened for business in August 1997.

Its new premises, at 2 Cathe-dral Hill, now house the team, which has grown from four to 16 members over the past 10 years. It now includes six private bankers, two specialists, seven

support staff and regional chair-man Mark Richardson.

Alastair Graham, client partner for Coutts in Guildford, said: “The current economic climate has driven many wealthy individuals to seek out banks they can trust, but also that have a proven and strong track record of looking af-ter their money. With a 300-year history, having survived many downturns, Coutts is an obvious natural fit.

“The success of the Guildford office has been a reflection of the hard work put in by the team, because although we’ve been in Guildford for over 10 years, all too often we still hear that people just don’t know that we

have an office in the local area. That’s why we’re keen to spread the word that we are here, we are expanding and we are very much open for business.”

Andy Rymer, managing partner for Coutts in the south east, added: “Coutts remains in a strong position and focused on growth. We firmly believe that our long-term investing ethos of broadly diversified portfolios means that our clients are well-placed to weather the current storms and to participate in the subsequent recovery.

“Based on our outlook for 2009, clients should be prepared for markets to remain volatile in the short term, but we think

that valuations in equity and corporate bond markets suggest that investors with longer time horizons should soon start to see some significant opportunities.”

Shirley Coe, private banker for Coutts in Guildford, said: “Coutts aims to be accessible and geographically close to our clients, in order to understand the local community and industry issues that may affect our cli-ents. Where competitors are only now beginning to move back into regional private banking, many having exited in 2002/3, Coutts is reaping the rewards of its long-term commitment, which has now become the fastest growing area of the business.”

Coutts relocates Guildford office to accommodate its growing team

Kate Lester, managing director of Diamond Logistics, has been named as a finalist for two Surrey business awards, Guildford Life with Style’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award and Surrey Business Award’s Surrey Business Person of the Year.

Lester founded Diamond Logistics in 1992 and, over the years, has built up an impressive list of over 1,000 Surrey-based clients, including the top five legal firms in Guildford.

Her award successes recog-nise Lester’s leadership skills as head of one of Surrey’s leading courier companies and the role she has played in driving the courier industry forward.

They also acknowledge the contribution she has made to the

Diamond Logistics MD named as finalist for two Surrey business awards

Kate Lester

Penningtons Solicitors LLP has advised Jon Grant, director and sole shareholder of Thirstpoint, in connection with the sale of Thirst-point to Personnel Hygiene Serv-ices (PHS), one of the UK’s leading workplace service providers.

Thirstpoint is based in Farn-ham, Surrey, but operates through-out the UK and specialises in the supply, installation and mainte-nance of drinking water systems at commercial premises. The sale of the company to PHS allows Jon Grant to benefit from a successful business which has been estab-lished for over 15 years.

PHS, which has more than 200,000 customers in the UK and 48 regional service branches,

provides services that create a better working environment – from washroom services and interior landscaping to plant rental and drinking water dispensers. The group’s acquisition of Thirstpoint is part of an ongoing expansion programme by PHS throughout the country.

Penningtons advised Jon Grant on all legal aspects of the transaction, including corporate, tax, property and employment law. Sarah Scarlett, corporate partner in Penningtons’ Business Services Division, led the legal team advising Thirstpoint. Scarlett commented: “We are delighted to have contributed to a deal which will ensure the future development

of Thirstpoint under the direction of one of the leading companies in its field.”

Steve South, partner at Wise and Co chartered accountants and business advisers in Farnham, advised Jon Grant on the financial aspects of the sale. Morgan Cole’s Swansea office and Pricewater-houseCoopers advised PHS.

Details:

Sarah [email protected]

Caroline Ainsworth [email protected]

Sale of Thirstpoint to Personnel Hygiene Services (PHS)

Employment law specialists at Martin Searle Solicitors have opened a new office in Croydon to provide special-ist employment law advice to local businesses and employees.

Since the firm’s launch in 2004, it has built a strong reputation for service and value with clients ranging from individual workplace discrimination problems, to businesses and local authori-ties employing thousands.

Martin Searle Solicitors works alongside a team of Human Resources consult-ants to offer a service where businesses require both legal and practical HR expertise, for instance on restructures, disciplinary procedure and help with recruiting staff.

Based at Bedford Park in east Croydon, the office will be run by Martin Searle So-licitors’ director Fiona Martin and local employment law solicitor Marsha Thompson.

Martin said: “We have many clients from Croydon, including large employers, and there is huge demand in this area for our specialist employment law services.”

She added: “To help em-ployers safely navigate their way through these difficult times we will be offering our full range of employment law services. In addition, we offer a new fixed-fee redundancy law advice package where clients can get the profes-sional help they need as cost effectively as possible.”

Employment law office for Croydon

local business community. Over the last year, Lester quadrupled Diamond Logistics’ donations to charity, dedicating all funds to local causes.

The Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Phylliss Tuckwell Hospice and the New Victoria Theatre in Wok-ing have particularly benefited from Lester’s support.

Diamond Logistics also pledged support to reception-ists by establishing the Surrey Office Star Award to highlight the valuable role of office sup-port staff.

Lester said: “Those who know me are aware that I am passion-ate about business – about de-livering the best service possible to clients and having a motivated and professional workforce.”

advice for entrepreneurswww.businessmag.co.uk 17


Alan Frei, director, Tenon Employee Benefit Consultancy

With the clouds of recession casting shadows over UK plc, most SMEs are not likely to be considering reviewing their employee benefits schemes . . . but they should be, says Alan Frei.

“Where companies have not reviewed their employee risk benefit costs for three or four years, we generally find that reductions of up to 50% can now be achieved,” said Frei, a director of Tenon’s Employee Benefit Consultancy.

“Insurance and invest-ment sectors have changed dramatically in recent years and improved mortality rates have been reflected in lower costs. Times change and so do facts, terms and products, but providers often rely on ‘inertia marketing’ to maintain their premiums – if the customer doesn’t ask, they won’t get told.”

Faced with recessionary problems, many entrepreneurs will look first at the obvious costs – daily operational over-heads, cashflow, the head-count, plant and premises. Nothing wrong with that, says Frei, but before taking drastic actions, entrepreneurs should also review their employee benefit arrangements with a skilled adviser.

Employee benefit structures need to be tailored to the ac-tual requirements of business-es facing today’s commercial challenges, not compiled in the dusty past then filed for years as another corporate tick-box.

“What was right for you and your employees then, may not be providing your business with value for money today.”

Savings are very likely from any review, says Frei. A profes-sional adviser will also know the most competitive provid-ers, the latest products and all the available tax benefits. Im-provements that will help retain “poachable” employees can be made and re-budgeting could actually help save the jobs of some valued employees.

“Offering the most relevant, cost-effective employee benefits package within the constraints of your budget is a challenge in today’s environ-ment, but you can save costs by looking at the way your benefits scheme is set up and

Tenon, one of the Top 10 UK accounting firms, specialises in providing advice to 21st century entrepreneurs. Now it is sharing its knowledge and experience in a series of articles written by John Burbedge for The Business Magazine: ‘Advice for Entrepreneurs’

Reviewing employee benefit schemes for everybody’s benefit, says Tenon

what benefits you offer, while still offering your employees an appropriate and competitive package.”

“Often, when we undertake a review we get employees, even management, saying that they didn’t know that the company provided all these benefits,” said Frei. “Which means that for many years the company has probably not needed to be paying out for providing them.”

Frei highlights the major review areas as pensions, life assurance cover (typi-cally four times salary in the UK), long-term sickness and disability cover (which can be 75% of salary, potentially until retirement), and private medical insurance (usually for employees, spouse/partner and children).

Seeking alternative provid-ers or varying the length or range of cover can dramatically reduce costs, he says, without necessarily disadvantaging employees.

“Should comprehensive medical cover extend beyond the employee to all of his family, for example, or should lesser cover be provided? This benefit may be more important in America, but we do still have the NHS in the UK.”

Pensions are seen as a greater employee benefit in the UK than the US, says Frei, but he advises against providing non-contributory pension schemes. “Any benefit provided must be valued by the employee. If they have to put their hands in their own pock-ets to some extent, it gives them more ownership of the benefit, and a better percep-tion of the company’s commit-ment. The other side of that coin is that the employer does not needlessly pay monies into a pension plan for an employee that clearly does not value it.”

Then there is the area of bonuses and incentives – hackle-raising words for the financial sector at present, but a powerful employee benefit if used correctly.

Nowadays, when targets are hit, employees tend to be rewarded with a mixture of cash and/or share options. Frei believes many SMEs are miss-ing out by not using Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI)

schemes – tax-advantaged em-ployee share arrangements.

Open to SMEs with gross assets below £30m and under 250 employees, an EMI al-lows employees to buy or be awarded shares within a “tax wrapper” – Capital Gains Tax rather than Income Tax – which means the first £9,600 of gain will be tax free, with a 56% re-duction in tax on the balance.

According to the Office for National Statistics Inter De-partmental Business Register there were an estimated 4.7 million SMEs in the UK at the start of 2007. Only 8,020 SMEs were operating EMI schemes.

Frei believes this extremely low uptake is due to lack of awareness of EMIs and their relatively complex nature. “UK entrepreneurs tend to like to buy a simple employee benefits product ‘off the shelf’ and look after its day-to-day operation themselves. EMIs are not that straightforward and most SMEs would need the help of professional advisers to set them up. In my view, that’s a step worth taking.

“A good EMI scheme can be a massive performance driver for your business. Again it encourages ‘ownership’ of the benefit, but it also gives em-ployees the freedom to decide their own future, for their own good and that of the company for which they work.”

But how will employees view this tinkering with “terms of employment”?

“Restructuring is a fea-ture of the business world at present. People realise that changes will have to be made if businesses are to beat this recession. Not only are reviews accepted, they are now ex-pected. Even the most valuable employees realise that they can’t make excessive demands at a time when all companies are trying to reduce costs,” says Frei.

Good, clear upfront com-munication that explains the needs and the solutions is key, says Frei. He advises using impartial professionals to help devise and present any fresh proposals, and to answer em-ployee queries as they arise.

SMEs without any pension scheme for employees, should consider introducing one, says Alan Frei. It could provide a win-win situation for all concerned, if employees already make contributions to personal pen-sion plans.

“If an employee is already paying into a personal plan, then the SME should consider paying that for them and reduc-ing the employee’s salary.

If the employer makes the pension contribution instead of the salaried employee, the contribution escapes NIC. That NIC saving could then be used to boost the employee’s existing pension contribution, or shared, helping both the employee and the SME’s bottomline. Either way, the arrangement is neutral for the employee in income tax terms, while providing a benefit to the employee, and possibly the SME.”

CREATE A WIN-WIN PENSION BENEFIT

Details: Tenon OfficesWindsor: 01753-754400Basingstoke: 01256-370370Reading: 0118-9530350Southampton: 023-8064-6464

deals update18



latest deals data from across the region ... latest deals data from across the region ... latest deals data from across the region ... latest deals data from acr

Next Deadline

The next Deals Update will appear in our April 2009 issue – deadline for submissions is Wednesday March 11

Submissions are free. If you would like to submit deal information or advertise on this page contact Tanya Liddiard 0118-9745308 – [email protected] Publications is not responsible for the accuracy of information in the deals update section which is supplied by individual firms

Williams Lester

Completion Date: 16/01/2009

Target: Willliams Lester (architectural practice)

Acquirer: Brennan Group

Deal Value: Undisclosed

Details: Long-established Ringwood architec-ture, planning and conservation practice Williams Lester was sold to American-owned Brennan Group LLC.Williams Lester was founded in 1987 and Walter Williams and David Lester will continue to be involved in the busi-ness together with all members of the current team

Corporate Finance Advisers:

BTG McInnes Corporate Finance

Legal Advisers: Clarke Willmott

Folio Hotels

Completion Date: 01/2009

Target: Folio Hotels

Acquirer: Mulbourn


Details: This deal involved the cream of the Folio properties being bought out of adminstration and was completed in a very short time despite the number of stakeholders involved. Rescuing jobs and ensuring a sustainable future for the Folio brand was a priority for everyone involved and some 1200 jobs were saved

Funding: Management team, landlords and private equity


BTG McInnes Corporate Finance

Legal Advisers: Fladgate

Administrator: MCR

The Foresight Group


Target: @Futsal

Acquirer: Foresight Ventures


Details: A company that plans to spread Futsal, a fast-growing form of five-a-side football, throughout the UK, has raised £3.25m in funding from Foresight Ventures, a provate-equity investor. @Futsal will use the funds to build a chain of 30 indoor centres across the UK. The first has already been opened in Swindon. Shoosmiths corporate partner, Emma Gibson advised @Futsal in relation to the injection of equity capital from Foresight. @Futsal director Jim Sanger described Emma as “Proactive, extremely good at clearing points up before they arose”

Funding: Foresight Ventures

Legal Advisers: Shoosmiths’ corporate partner Emma Gibson and solicitor Rachel Reeves

Project Jupiter


Target: The In House Catering Company

Acquirer: Catermasters Contract Catering


Details: Grant Thornton’s southern corporate finance team advised contract catering provider, Catermasters, on the acquisition of London-based fine dining and hospitality firm, In House

Funding: The Royal Bank of Scotland Group


Grant Thornton

Legal Advisers: Manches

Financial Due Dilligence:

HW Corporate Finance

Forth Photonics


Deal Value: £6.1m

Details: Forth Photonics has completed its second round of fundraising, with new investment of €7.6m (£6.1m). The newly-raised fundsare expected to take Forth Photonics’ first product through to fullcommercialisation. Forth Photonics is a medical device company thatdesigns, develops, manufactures and markets imaging systems for thenon-invasive, in-vivo detection of can-cerous and pre-cancerous lesions.Focusing initially on cervical cancer, its proprietary Dynamic SpectralImaging System platform (DySIS™) is the only medical device to use dynamicspectral imaging to assist in the detec-tion and mapping of cervical cancerand, in clinical trials, has been shown to significantly increase thesensitivity of pre-cancerous lesion detection. Used by gynaecologists,DySIS™ assists in identifying the early stages of cervical cancer bymapping changes in cervical tissue, providing high resolution images of thecervix and enhancing or magnifying areas of diagnostic importance. Thetechnology also has the potential to be developed into applications fordetection of other epithelial cancers. Forth Photonics was established in2002 by the DySIS™ inventor, Professor Costas Balas, who is now thecompany’s chief technology officer.

Funding: NBGI Ventures, Albion Ventures, Scottish Venture Fund


Horwath Clark Whitehill LLP, contact Geert Struyven

Virgin Vie


Target: Virgin Vie At Home

Acquirer: MBO


Details: Since its launch in 1996, Virgin Vie At Home has established itself as the leading party plan company in the UK, with over 10,000 consultants. The Virgin Group selected the Virgin Vie At Home management team, led by Ros Simmons and Ratan Daryani, as the preferred bid-der after a competitive process, on the strength of its robust and comprehen-sive business plan

Legal Advisers: Bond Pearce LLP

Project Hot Desk


Target: Teal Furniture Holdings

Acquirer: Senator International


Details: Teal Furniture, the UK’s leading specialist manufacturer of quality wooden chairs for the healthcare, care homes and study bedroom markets was acquired by the Blackburn-based office furniture company Senator International.A long standing client of the firm, Grant Thornton acted for the shareholders on a restructuring and the subsequent disposal.

Funding: Barclays Bank


Grant Thornton Corporate Finance Advisory (Duncan Lamb/Paul Short)

Legal Advisers: Pitmans (Adam Dowdney/Rishi Sharma)


Egan Roberts

Commercial Due Dilligence:

Senator International (In-house)

Sale of Insensys Wind Energy


Target: Insensys

Acquirer: Moog Holding GmbH & Co.KG

Deal Value: £16 million

Details: Founded in 2002 and based in Hamble, Insensys is the World’s premier wind energy rotor and blade load measure-ment company. Shoosmiths advised the vendors in the sale to German-based Moog Holding GmbH & Co.KG. Shoos-miths partner John Jackson said, “The transaction was particularly interesting because of the technology involved in the business and the purchaser was a German company, being a subsidiary of an American public company”

Legal Advisers: Shoosmiths Corporate Partner John Jackson and Associate Adam Hewitson

Beech


Target: Beech Care and Nursing

Acquirer: August Equity


Details: Enara Group, a portfolio company of UK lower mid-market firm August Equity, acquired Beech Care and Nursing Agency, a privately-owned domiciliary care agency. Enara was acquired by August Equity in a £20m buy-and-build with the simultaneous acquisition of First Call Care Services in November 2008

Legal Advisers: Shoosmiths corporate partner Emma Gibson

corporate recovery & turnaroundwww.businessmag.co.uk 19


More than 40,000 UK businesses will be declared insolvent in 2009, forecasts the Credit Management Research Centre at the Univer-sity of Leeds Business School. Whether working for banks, ac-countancy firms, lawyers or corpo-rate finance boutiques, business recovery specialists are rushed off their feet. Their goal is to help rescue businesses and they will be working to a greater or lesser degree in a way circumscribed by the Insolvency Act as amended by the Enterprise Act 2002.

The joint objective of the two pieces of legislation was to encourage the survival of enter-prises rather than their failure. And together they rang a death knell for the use of the administrative receiver who had in the past been appointed by bank lenders and who therefore worked primarily for their paymasters’ best interest. Under the current laws, adminis-trators have a duty to all creditors of an insolvent business.

The Insolvency Act allowed for the distressed business to come to a Company Voluntary Arrange-ment with its creditors. The debtor company would form a contract

with its unsecured creditors, which would be approved by 75% of creditors by value as well as 50% of shareholders. An insolvency practitioner would supervise the work-out. Following amendment of the Act in 2000 and the Enter-prise Act which came into force in September 2003, the protec-tions for the debtor company were strengthened and Crown preference which gave the govern-ment first call on the resources left in the insolvent businesses was removed. It also encouraged banks and other creditors to make greater effort to help businesses recover.

Under current administration procedures the administrator has three duties. The first is to rescue the business if possible. The sec-ond is to obtain a better realisation of the assets of the business than could be obtained in a liquidation. The third duty is to realise as much from the business’ assets as pos-sible for the benefit of the secured and preferential creditors.

Business recovery profession-als seem in general to welcome the new administration process as being to the greater good of the

Acts for rescuing businessesThe current downturn will test whether the Insolvency Act and the Enterprise Act really do achieve what they were designed for, writes Richard Willsher of The Business Magazine

business that is facing difficulties. In particular where it can be sold as a going concern and jobs can be saved as well. Some however take the view that the legislation now disadvantages unsecured creditors such as trade suppliers in certain circumstances, such as in so-called “pre-pack” deals.

Under a pre-pack deal a com-pany goes into a formal insolvency process having already agreed to sell its assets to a third party. Effectively it’s a done deal. The advantage of a pre-pack is that the sale takes place in a private way that preserves the value of the assets. Otherwise the business might find itself in a fire sale sce-nario and key staff might become unsettled and leave. Disadvan-tages can be that the administra-tor has the deal thrust upon him and has little influence over the outcome. At the same time trade and other unsecured creditors without any priority rights over the assets may lose out. Bob Young of Begbies Taylor, the corporate rescue and recovery specialist argues: “Pre-packed deals often happen when the nature of the company means the administrator must move fast or risk there being nothing left to sell as customers switch in droves. But they are controversial because frequently it is the previous owner who makes the purchase, and for very much

less than the business was once worth, leaving creditors feeling aggrieved.”

But these are difficult times. David Matthews of Grant Thornton in Reading says: “My focus is always to save a business where possible but the opportunities to do so are becoming more and more challenging. The banks are getting unfair bad press in my opinion, suggesting that if they just started lending again every-thing would be alright but it’s not as easy as that... They are under huge pressure but how can they justify lending to risky proposi-tions?”

So with the lack of funding to support companies in administra-tion the choices for survival may be limited. Some criticise the current UK legislation saying that US-style Chapter 11 administra-tion does a better job because it allows protection from creditors, gives “super-priority” to lenders which reduces their risk and may compel suppliers to continue trad-ing with the insolvent business. Others, such as Baker Tilly’s Bruce Mackay, say that the US system seems overly legalistic and lacks flexibility. He adds that after the current deluge of insolvencies in the UK, the legislation will be tested to the full. It may be that this will result in further changes as those in the insolvency profes-sion learn from experience about the effectiveness of what is still a comparatively recent set of measures.

The number of companies being placed into administration in England and Wales has surged to 2,018 in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to statistics released on last Friday by the Government’s insolvency service. This figure should however be adjusted downwards to reflect a single appointment involving 729 managed-service companies in September 2008. The adjusted figure of 1,289 is still 124% higher than in the fourth quarter of 2007, when 575 new administrations were recorded and 28% higher than the 1,007 administrations announced in the third quarter of 2008.

The single appointment over 729 managed-service companies was second only to Grant Thorn-ton UK LLP’s record appointment as administrators of 844 compa-nies managed by tax solutions provider Asciom Solutions and Safe Solutions in Q4 2006.

Company insolvencies in Eng-land and Wales jumped by 51.6% to a total of 4,607 in the final quar-ter of 2008 compared to the same

Company administrations more than doubled from last year and set to rocket

period the previous year, when 3,039 liquidations were recorded. This represented an increase of 11.9% on the third quarter of 2008, which saw 4,118 liquidations.

“These numbers are not good and unfortunately they are going to get progressively worse as busi-ness and consumer confidence continues to fall,” said Trevor O’Sullivan, director for Grant Thornton, recovery and reorgani-sation.

“Companies across all sectors will struggle when they need to refinance their debt as lenders rein back on corporate lending,” said O’Sullivan, adding: “On top of this, the arteries of business are being clogged up as credit insurers cut back on the provision of cover for suppliers and contractors.

“More retail businesses will run into difficulties as British consum-ers maintain a negative outlook In the face of rising unemployment, which is predicted to reach three million, as well as a decline in spending power following signifi-cant rises in essential household expenditure,” O’Sullivan specified.

“It is vital that companies facing liquidity problems or difficulties refinancing their debt seek profes-sional advice immediately.”

These figures are available at:www.insolvency.gov.uk/other information/statistics/200902/ index.htm

Details: Trevor O’Sullivan023-8038-1100 trevor.o’[email protected]

Trevor O’Sullivan

Did you know that “pres-enteeism”, where employ-ees are present but due to health issues have reduced performance and are less productive, costs up to seven times more than absenteeism?

A government-backed report has shown that workforces that are well, work well.

By introducing workplace wellness programmes com-panies can increase revenue and reduce costs – and achieve a cost-benefit ratio of up to 85:1.

Wellness programmes re-duce the costs of sickness absence, staff turnover, and accidents and injuries. The by-product is increased productivity.

Reading company NSG Services provides wellness programmes and is offering free workplace evaluations during March.

Details: 0118-9660274www.wiseaboutstress.com

Present, but not performing well

corporate recovery & turnaround20



Helping before it is too lateThe importance of seeking advice early on cannot be stressed too highly. If there is one key message, it is that the sooner a business gets advice, the more options it will have to resolve its problems. This will ensure that the best outcome possible is obtained in the circumstances. It is essential that busi-nesses (or individuals), when things begin to get tough, do not “stick their head in the sand”. Many businesses believe they are able to tough it out and that things will improve based on previous experience but the clear message today is that the scale of the current economic climate is quite different from the problems that we have faced in recent years. Whether selling goods to companies that may be themselves getting into difficulties or running a business where there may be problems ahead, there are certain steps that can be taken and there are ways businesses can protect their position.

In the area of insolvency and business recovery, the firm is currently assisting a number of charities who have lost money as a result of the collapse of one of the Icelandic banks by trying to help them recover their money. The firm is also helping companies who have supplied goods to some of the large retail store chains that have gone into administration recently and which have featured in the national news. If companies’ terms of business are right, we can often recover their goods for them when they have not been paid. The firm is also acting for companies or individuals whose businesses are in difficulties. For example, when things go wrong and administrators are appointed, it is often the case that the business and cer-tain assets can be bought from the company in administration which, among other things, can help preserve jobs and lead to the crea-tion of new jobs.

Administration uncoveredAdministration is one of a number of formal insolvency procedures. It is the one that gives the best hope for either saving a company in its entirety or at least parts of the business and, importantly, often saves jobs if a buyer can be found. Administration is the procedure that people hear most of at the moment in the current economic climate.

In the UK, administrators are licensed insolvency practitioners and are, invariably, accountants. As lawyers, our role is to assist them with the legal questions that inevitably

Administration – a modern day overviewAs the economy reaches the part of its cycle where business becomes more difficult and problems start to emerge, law firms are ready to help their clients with advice to assist them in surviving the recession. Blake Lapthorn’s insolvency and business recovery team is one of the largest in the country, writes Paul Rippon, head of insolvency Thames Valley and consultant (solicitor) at Blake Lapthorn. It provides specialist advice and assistance to all those affected by insolvency issues, reacting quickly to the needs of its clients – from individuals or companies who are in financial difficulty to administrators of a wide range of companies

follow from a company going into administra-tion, which covers everything from employ-ment to property to contractual advice. There are a number of problems that a company can face during the process of administra-tion, which makes it even more time-critical for both the business and the administrators. Quite often, we are faced with situations that are complex, with lots of different strands and inter-related aspects. In the majority of cases, speed is of the essence. The goodwill of businesses has a finite “shelf life” in these circumstances and more often than not we have to complete a sale under very strict time constraints.

Then and nowIt is useful to look at how the current reces-sion compares with other recent difficult pe-riods that the UK economy has experienced, including how the law has evolved.

Many people will remember the recession in the late 80s and early 90s and will probably recall the term “administrative receivership” rather than the term “administration” that we hear so often today. Administrative receiver-ship takes place when a secured creditor (often but not always a bank) holding a float-ing charge over the assets of the company appoints administrative receivers. The pri-mary duty of the receivers was to recover the money lent by the secured creditors.

At the end of the last recession, there was a perception that companies had gone into re-ceivership “too easily” at the expense of busi-nesses and unsecured creditors. Consequent-ly, the Government looked at our insolvency laws and amended the Insolvency Act 1986 by the Enterprise Act 2002. One of the amend-ments brought the process of administration more to the fore. Indeed, the circumstances in which secured creditors can appoint admin-istrative receivers have now been very much restricted. There are various differences be-tween administration and receivership but the most important is the duty of administrators to perform their functions in the interests of the creditors as a whole.

Pre-packaged administrationThis is currently a hot topic in the profes-sion and the business news. A “pre-pack” administration is the situation where the sale of all or part of a company’s business and assets is negotiated with a purchaser before the administrators are appointed and, imme-diately following the administrators’ appoint-ment, the sale to the purchaser takes place. It is an area where there has been some adverse publicity, not least by suppliers and other unsecured creditors of the company in administration. However, it is important to appreciate that when used in appropriate circumstances it is the best, and often the only, way for certain parts of the business to survive.

Creditors are sometimes concerned because they are informed after the event, especially when it is a case that the buyer has been “associated” with the company that went into administration. The regulatory bod-ies of the insolvency profession have worked together to produce guidance in the form of a new statement of insolvency practice, which came into effect on January 1, 2009. Among other things, it “reminds” administrators of the matters to be considered before deciding whether a “pre-pack” sale should take place and it also sets out the information to be given to creditors as soon as possible after administration to explain and justify why a “pre-pack” sale took place. One of the main purposes of the statement is to ensure more transparency than may have been the case on occasions in the past.

ConclusionIn the context of the present situation, these are unprecedented times for businesses. However, it is by no means all doom and gloom. We will, no doubt, emerge from the current troubled economic climate at some point, even if no one knows when, and making sure we prepare ourselves for the eventual upturn is important. All companies and businesses must have the confidence to continue doing business where they can as this is in the short term and, hopefully, the long term interests of all. These are difficult times but if businesses take the right steps now and seek advice (when and where ap-propriate) the recovery will be quicker and the rewards going forward that much greater.

Details:Paul [email protected]

Paul Rippon



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Two types of businesses fail during economic downturns. The first are businesses that are not strong enough to withstand changing market conditions, the second are essentially sound businesses whose ability to survive is undermined by poor management.

While individual businesses cannot control the course of eco-nomic events, it is possible for management to adopt a strategy that goes some way towards controlling their own destiny.

Behind the inevitable head-lines of rapidly falling confidence, the views of UK CEOs in the recent PricewaterhouseCoopers CEO survey, provide an insight into some of the challenges and opportunities ahead. The results of the survey also highlighted what CEOs believe will matter in 2009 as they look to revitalise their own and the UK economy’s fortunes. This year will test CEOs’ belief that the ability to adapt to change is one of the most important sources of com-petitive advantage in sustaining long term growth. Winning com-panies stay light on their feet, de-ploying all their resources in the areas of the business most likely to do well in trying economic conditions, while directing their operational energy towards the opportunities that arise.

... it is possible for management to adopt a strategy that goes some way towards controlling their own destiny

Using this time of uncertainty to take a fresh look at your organi-sation’s strategy and carrying out a detailed and up-to-date analy-sis of your business practices can give you a better under-standing of where your business stands. This understanding can be a critical element in anticipat-ing market change and applying effective means of addressing change. Key “self-help” tech-niques – focusing on cash, stake-

holder management and effective scenario planning – can make all the difference in surviving the storm and can help the business to emerge from the downturn in the best possible shape.

Managing cash during a recession should be an every day priority with emphasis placed on tight control and clear, accurate, short-term forecasts

Ian Smith, senior partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Thames Valley, provides some recession survival tips for busi-nesses:

1. Cash is king:Many companies will face finan-cial pressure during the eco-nomic downturn, yet now more than ever, cash is king and good cashflow is vital. Managing cash during a recession should be an everyday priority with emphasis placed on tight control and clear, accurate, short-term forecasts. In the PwC CEO survey, over three-quarters of UK chief execu-tives said they expected to fund future growth from internal cash resources, with only a quarter expecting to fund growth through debt. In the absence of external financing, businesses must as-sess and minimise cash risks as soon as possible. Businesses that don’t manage cash as a priority ultimately may not be able to pay their liabilities and consequently risk being forced into some part of an insolvency process.

2. Your new bankerIt may seem as if his own problems have turned your once business hungry banker into a ra-tioner of credit. In fact, a number of the leading banks can show statistics that their new lending to SMEs has increased rather than reduced. However,

Continued overleaf ...

Using the downturn to your advantageIan Smith, senior partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in the Thames Valley, discusses what businesses can do to survive the economic slowdown in 2009, and looks at the measures that can be taken to help companies come out stronger than their competitors




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... continued from page 21

you need to remember that the risks they are assessing at this time are greater and, under-standably in the current environ-ment, profitability and liquidity forecasts are down and security is by definition poorer. Any help available will come at a price. Treat your bank with caution and respect and ensure your credit applications are as robust as possible because however long and cordial your relationship, your interests may not be entirely aligned.

Without insurance cover, the key to managing the risk of loss through the failure of major trading partners has to be tight control

3. Your new taxman:For many small businesses, tax is an area where some welcome slack from cashflow challenges may be available. Your taxman is under instructions to be more understanding – and in prac-tice, HMRC is saying yes to well thought out requests for deferral of tax payments. In many cases, a few simple tweaks to the busi-ness’ administrative arrange-ments can also defer the tax bill significantly.

4. Watch the supply chain:However skilful and careful a climber, his fate is linked to who-ever else is on the rope. Without insurance cover, the key to man-aging the risk of loss through the failure of major trading partners has to be tight control, commu-nication and prompt action when problems arise. You need to take a hard look at who you are linking your fate to. If you are not comfortable, address the issue before there is a problem.

For many small businesses, tax is an area where some welcome slack from cashflow challenges may be available

5. Value your people:However robust the business, this is a worrying time for your employees. You cannot change that, but you can help. Never has communication been more important. Rest assured that the rumour mill is in full operation, filling in any gaps you leave –

usually negatively. Your messag-es need to be honest, clear and realistic. Show your commitment to the business, but do not make promises you cannot keep. If you have bad news share it promptly.

The length and severity of any downturn is uncertain, which makes business planning difficult. Deciding whether an unexpected slump in sales is a new trend or merely a blip that will quickly be reversed is very difficult, and calls for a differ-ent response depending on the outcome.

Endless scenario planning can be of limited value, but with a focused approach, a business can establish the extent of its operating headroom. A company should have three scenarios; a best guess outcome, one modelling 10-20% downside and a “bank payout” situation. This kind of planning can help improve a company’s agility. As market conditions change, if the analysis has been done ahead of time, a company can imple-ment its strategy more quickly and gain a competitive edge rela-tive to its peers – an important consideration for the eventual upturn.

That recovery, however, is unlikely to be swift. The extent of both corporate and personal in-debtedness will require a lengthy deleveraging process. Liquidity will remain tight, while consumer and corporate confidence will be slow to return. Companies face a hard grind, not just this year, but stretching into 2010. Faced with this tough outlook, it is vital that companies take action now to control their own destiny.

Details:Ian [email protected]



As the credit crunch starts to bite, the importance of having a sound business plan and using it as a tool to guide your strategy has become evident.

To put it simply, companies who have a good idea of where they’re going and plan and budget to achieve those objectives will have a much better chance of surviv-ing the current recession. Having articulated a plan also means that they are able to identify when business performance is diverging from that strategy and take early steps to avoid disaster. In con-trast, companies who “fly by their pants” and haven’t planned ahead are more likely to flounder.

Despite this, it is still surprising how many businesses have no formal business or management information. It’s a good idea, therefore, to go back to basics and review the essential elements of a business plan.

Rather than starting with the detail of numbers, planning should begin with a broader view. Directors and shareholders should discuss and assess what it is that they really want to do and achieve and over what period of time (as individuals as well as corporately). After all, if you do not know where you are trying to get to then how can you expect to

James Cowper Insolvency Serv-ices brings together a 10-strong team of highly experienced insolvency, restructuring and business turnaround specialists, combining almost 100-years’ top flight experience, and the abil-ity to draw upon the extensive resources of one of the region’s largest accounting firms.

James Cowper Insolvency Services is led by James Cowper partner Sue Staunton, a licensed insolvency practi-tioner who spent some 10 years working in insolvency for Grant Thornton.

She is joined by Peter Hall and Sandra Mundy, both former colleagues at Grant Thornton, and Peter Whalley, formerly of PricewaterhouseCoopers. They will be supported by a dedicated team of professionals.

Time for finance directors to rule the worldEffective business planning is the best way to turnaround a struggling business, says Sue Staunton, partner and head of James Cowper Insolvency Services

get there in the most direct way? A business plan can take many

forms, but should include the following:

An analysis of where the busi-•ness is now, what the strengths and weakness are and what are the opportunities and threats for the future.Where do you want to go – •what do the directors want the business to achieve over the next five years?Why do you want to do it – •does everyone want to achieve the same objectives? Often we find that two directors/shareholders have very different objectives and this can pull the company in different directions. How are you going to get there •– what should the business do to achieve its objectives? The financial implications – •what will happen if the business achieves its objectives, what will happen if it does not, what working capital and investment are required to achieve the objectives?

Once the overall strategy has been set, the directors can then focus on the coming year. Firstly, an annual budget needs to be agreed which includes a detailed review of overheads to identify and eliminate discretionary/comfort

spending. Directors should also analyse recent experience and establish which product or service lines generate a proper contribu-tion and which are more marginal or loss making. In addition, the customer list should be reviewed to ensure that credit ratings are still correct.

Most importantly, there then needs to be effective monitor-ing of results against this plan. In recessions more than at any other time, budgets should be flexible and regularly revised to reflect changed circumstances and ac-tions taken by management as the year progresses. To be useful, this monitoring needs to take place on a timely basis and, in difficult times, we would always suggest that a client prepares a rolling three month cashflow statement.

By undertaking this process rigorously, businesses will give themselves the best chance of surviving the recession. However, in some cases, through no fault of their own, the fundamentals of the markets, products and services that the business is involved in will mean that the outlook is grim. In such cases, there are a few rules and reminders that are also important.

Firstly it is important not to trade insolvently. This is particu-larly relevant for finance directors as regulators are often more robust in their treatment of finance directors as they take the view that they should have

known better. If you are in any doubt about the solvency of your business, you should seek profes-sional advice for peace of mind.

Secondly, businesses may be a curate’s egg – i.e. good in parts. Whilst taking care not to break the insolvency rules relating to trans-actions at an undervalue it may be possible to plan to sell the good parts off or close the bad parts down and retrench.

Thirdly, boldness is the key to survival in difficult circumstances. Already, we are beginning to see that businesses that took bold and decisive action to contain their costs, through redundancy or other measures, have now placed themselves in a much better place to survive.

On a more positive note, many businesses can thrive in a recession. Those with cash, for example, can look for acquisition opportunities or invest in capital within the business in a more af-fordable way. Recessions can also be a good time to make strategic recruitment decisions as the pool of candidates widens.

Whatever the circumstances your business finds itself in at the moment, I wish you well and hope that your planning and monitoring processes protect you and help you to prosper.

Details: Sue Staunton [email protected]

Dedicated insolvency practice launchedThames Valley accountants and business advisers, James Cowper LLP, has expanded its practice with the launch of James Cowper Insolvency Services LLP

Commenting on the launch, Sue Staunton said: “The current economic climate has seen an enormous increase in demand for business restructuring and insolvency services. James Cowper Insolvency Services is a natural progression to the advice and support we offer our clients.

“Our dedicated team offers a full range of business turna-round and restructuring support across a variety of industry sec-tors. Our focus is to assist in the recovery or rescue of struggling businesses, but we recognise that is not always possible.

“When a business has failed, James Cowper Insolvency Services can assist in choosing the right insolvency procedures to minimise losses to creditors and exposure on the part of directors.”

Details: Sue Staunton [email protected]

Sue Staunton, Sandra Mundy, and Peter Hall (front row: third, fourth and fifth from left respectively). Peter Whalley (back row second from left) and the James Cowper Insolvency Services team




David Clements

Tougher lending criteria are push-ing small businesses into insol-vency, warns Wilkins Kennedy.

As the credit crunch tightens its grip, the latest figures published by The Insolvency Service reveal that the number of individual insol-vencies in England and Wales has risen by 18.5% in the past year to reach 29,444 in Q4 of 2008.

Wilkins Kennedy, the Top 25 accountancy firm, says that rather than victims of the recession the personal insolvencies we are see-ing now are more likely to be those who built up unsustainable levels of debt prior to the credit crunch.

Corporate insolvencies have soared by 51.6% in the past year to reach 4,607 in the last quarter.

Keith Stevens, insolvency part-ner at Top 25 accountants Wilkins Kennedy, commented: “Small businesses are being driven to the wall by higher borrowing margins. There is a tendency to link more

corporate loans to Libor rather than the interest rate set by the Bank of England.

“That is hitting businesses with turnovers of less than £5 million hardest. For companies without assets to borrow on, the situation is tougher still.

“Lenders are shying away from even secured lending to small businesses and raising interest rates as the downturn makes these kinds of loans look increas-ingly risky. Banks are requiring even those with strong business plans to provide a high level of security against loans. At the same time it is becoming increasingly difficult for company directors to borrow against assets that are continuing to fall in value.

“Despite calls from the Govern-ment there is no sign that the freeze on lending to businesses is beginning to thaw. In the current climate businesses need to be

looking to secure new credit lines now, well before their existing loan facilities expire, as this will improve their chances of guaranteeing their funding.

“On the other hand weaker businesses that have survived by taking on high levels of debt are now finding that the rug has been pulled out from under them as lenders refuse to continue funding them at sensible interest rates.

“Construction and property businesses have been hit the hardest but we are now seeing increasing numbers of pubs, bars and clubs going to the wall as they struggle against the downturn in consumer spending.”

Another surge in personal insolvencies is expected as the downturn continues.

“Whilst the impact of the credit crunch is now sending increas-ing numbers of businesses to the wall we are only now beginning to

see large scale job cuts and this will see the figures for personal insolvencies rise much higher in the months ahead.

“The severity of the UK’s debt binge was already in evidence before the credit crunch, with indi-vidual insolvencies rising sharply in the past few years.

“Things are going to get even tougher for those struggling to pay back unsecured loans. Unemploy-ment has almost reached the two million mark so if you have outstanding debts and have been unable to build up adequate sav-ings then there will be nothing to cushion the blow.

“The reality is that even as the economy recovers we are unlikely to see a fall in the number of individual insolvencies for a long time.”

Details: Keith Stevens01784-435561

Small businesses being ‘driven to wall by bank loan rates’

Pre-packs are not new but they have increased in volume follow-ing the Enterprise Act of 2002. The process is viewed with some sus-picion as creditors are informed of the pre-pack after the process is completed.

A pre-pack is a deal for the sale of an insolvent company’s busi-ness (and/or assets) which is put in place before the company goes into administration. The deal for the sale of the business will usu-ally have been worked out before the insolvency practitioner (IP) is formally appointed, and is then rapidly executed once appointed.

The business is usually sold with little or no open marketing. Unsecured creditors are usu-ally not informed of the pre-pack until after it has been completed. Secured creditors will usually be aware of the transaction as they will generally be required to release their security.

Opponents of pre-packs are concerned that creditors are rendered powerless by the proc-ess. Creditors will not be able to recover money owed from the new proprietor even if, as in many cases, the business effectively remains in the same hands. Others have suggested that suppliers are also left in the dark and out of pocket, as supply contracts are effectively rendered null and void without any notice.

Faced with the decision between selling the business to

a connected party or winding the company up, the best decision for the creditors is to sell the business on rather than allowing the busi-ness to fail as the returns would be considerably less.

Some people are against pre-packs, and it is understandable that creditors after the fact would be suspicious of the procedure. Critics also believe some use pre-packs to get out of debts and obligations so creditors lose out as a result.

Critics also think that it is wrong that a business is sold back to the owner of the company although the sale of a business back to connected parties is not exclu-sively a feature of pre-packs.

In 52% of all standard business sales the business was sold back to connected parties. This figure is 59% in pre-pack administra-tions. This differs from a “phoenix” where the sale always involves the owner or connected parties.

There are benefits to the prepack. They include the fact that pre-packs preserve more jobs than business sales. In 92% of pre-pack cases, all of the employ-ees were transferred to the new company which compares with 65% for a business sale.

For secured creditors, they provide a satisfactory return. The reality of a business going through insolvency is that the creditors very rarely receive all of the money owed to them. The average return

Pre-packs can be a ‘valid tool’Opposite, a lawyer looks at pre-packs from a legal perspective. Here, David Clements, business recovery partner of Reading-based accountants and business advisers Chantrey Vellacott DFK, considers some of the concerns about the pre-pack process, and concludes that they are a valid tool to use

for secured creditors in a pre-pack is an average of 42% compared with 28% in a business sale.

In addition, the value of the business is retained. When the business’ principal assets are the employees, forward contracts or intellectual property, prepacks can be successfully deployed. Once word of a company’s financial difficulty gets out, it becomes much harder for IPs to retain the vital assets necessary to keep the company viable. Suppliers and customers may take their business elsewhere, leaving the company with few assets and, effectively, no business. Therefore, pre-packs are a tool to bring about the sale of a business which may have otherwise simply shut down.

There has been a lot of misun-derstanding about how pre-packs operate; there have been moves to improve the transparency of pre-packs. SIP (Statement of Insol-vency Practice) 16 was introduced on January 1, 2009 to require IPs to disclose to creditors why the decision to pre-pack was taken, the large amounts of associated information concerning that deci-sion and the connections between the purchasing company and the company in administration. These are going to be proactively policed to see that all parties have behaved in the right way. IP’s who are judged to have broken the new rules could be disciplined.

The number of pre-packs will continue to rise this year as busi-nesses struggle to get credit from banks. Risk advisers estimate as many as four in five UK suppli-ers will be affected by pre-pack administrations.

Independent research shows evidence that pre-packs (due to their speed) perform better than business sales taking place after an appointment in preserving employment.

Pre-packs are a valid way of dealing with businesses and the SIP will ensure that the interest of all creditors has been con-sidered and that the process is transparent.

Details: David [email protected]



Recent independent research undertaken on behalf of R3, the Association of Business Recovery Professionals, indicates that the positive aspects of pre-packs are not reported and there are clear benefits to the process in this current downturn. Pre-packs can be an invaluable tool for an insolvency practitioner, keeping a business trading and saving jobs. In 92% of pre-pack cases, R3 found that 100% of jobs were saved. Pre-packs also provided a better return for secured credi-tors when compared with their prospects, should the company be simply liquidated.

What is a pre-pack?A pre-pack is a deal for the sale of an insolvent company’s busi-ness (and/or assets) which is put in place before the company goes into a formal insolvency process, usually administration. The deal for the sale of the business will usually have been worked out before the insolvency practitioner is formally appointed, and is then rapidly executed once the ap-pointment is made.

The business is usually sold with little or no open market-ing. Unsecured creditors are not usually informed of the pre-pack until after it has been completed. Secured creditors will usually be aware of the transaction as they will generally be required to release their security.

What are the benefits of a pre-pack?

More jobs are preserved•

R3 found that pre-packs pre-serve more jobs than business sales (i.e. a going concern sale of the business negotiated and arranged after the com-mencement of the insolvency procedure). In 92% of pre-pack cases, all of the employees were transferred to the new company which compares with 65% for a business sale.

They provide a satisfactory return •for secured creditors

The reality of a business going through insolvency is that the creditors very rarely receive all

of the money owed to them. It is therefore more accurate (and helpful) to consider what credi-tors might reasonably expect in a distressed situation rather than the total amount owed. R3 found that the average re-turn for secured creditors in a pre-pack is an average of 42% as compared with 28% in a business sale. The average re-turns to unsecured creditors in insolvency cases are very low; pre-packs provide just 1% of return, whilst in business sales the average return is 3%.

The value of the business is •retained

Pre-packs are deployed successfully when the busi-ness’ principal assets are the employees, forward contracts or intellectual property, as in all service businesses. Once word of a company’s financial difficulty gets out, it becomes much harder for insolvency practitioners to retain the staff, suppliers and customers nec-essary to keep the company viable. Suppliers and custom-ers will attempt to take their business elsewhere, leaving the company with few assets and, effectively, no business. Therefore, pre-packs are a tool to bring about the sale of a business which may have otherwise simply shut down.

What are the negative claims made against pre-packs?

Pre-packs are a ‘stitch-up’ •It is understandable that creditors who are informed of a pre-pack deal after the fact would be suspicious of the procedure. Critics also believe some business people use pre-packs to get out of debts and obligations, or acquire assets cheaply so creditors lose out as a result. There have been recent moves to improve the transparency of pre-packs. SIP (Statement of Insolvency Practice) 16 was introduced on January 1, 2009, that require insolvency practitioners to disclose to creditors why the decision to pre-pack was

taken, plus large amounts of associated information concerning that decision and the connections between the purchasing company and the company in administration, i.e. the directors and sharehold-ers.

It isn’t right that a business is sold •back to the owner of the company

The sale of a business back to connected parties is not exclusively a feature of pre-packs. R3 found that in 52% of all standard business sales, the business was sold back to connected parties. This figure is 59% in pre-pack admin-istrations. This differs from a “phoenix”, where the sale always involves the owner or connected parties. Faced with the decision between selling the business to a connected party or winding the company up, the best decision for the creditors is to sell the business on, rather than allowing the business to fail as the returns would be considerably less.

ConclusionsThe independent research •undertaken by R3 shows clear evidence that pre-packs (due to their speed) perform better than business sales taking place after an appointment in preserving employment.Many types of businesses have •been pre-packed, predomi-nantly those in the service and construction sectors. Trad-ing on a service business is virtually impossible where the employees as the main assets of the business can walk out of the door to alternative employ-ment. Pre-packs are a valid way of •dealing with businesses and the SIP will ensure that the interests of all creditors have been considered. The process is transparent by ensuring creditors are provided as early as possible with a detailed explanation and justification of why a pre-pack sale was undertaken.The SIP reminds insolvency •practitioners of the duties and

Saving businesses and jobs? How effective is a ‘pre-pack’ administration?The range of techniques available to insolvency and restructuring professionals to help businesses and management deal with the effects of financial or operational distress is constantly evolving and improving, writes Pitmans’ insolvency and restructuring partner, Ian Searle. Whilst pre-packs are not new, they have increased in volume following the Enterprise Act 2002. The process is viewed with some suspicion as most creditors are informed of the pre-pack after the process is completed

Ian Searle, partner

obligations which are owed to creditors in the pre-appoint-ment period. They should be mindful of the potential liability which may attach to any per-son who is a party to a deci-sion that causes a company to incur credit, and who knows that there is no good reason to believe it will be repaid. Such liability is not restricted to the directors.The earlier a business or its •directors seek professional advice, the greater the options which are likely to be avail-able. Leaving matters to the last moment in the hope that “something will turn up”, until a cashflow crisis or creditor pressure forces them to seek advice, is one of the major (and avoidable) challenges facing many insolvency and restruc-turing professionals seeking to preserve and maximise value.

In the current downturn, with fewer buyers around, a pre-pack can be a good option for many distressed businesses. However, the underlying operational as well as financial issues, which caused the initial problems must be identified and addressed as part of the restructuring process, to give the new business and its employees the best chance of success going forward.

Details: Ian [email protected]




Most businesses are faced with the harsh realities of the current business world and trading conditions. Like most busi-nesses, KPC has no safety net against the recession and is as exposed as anyone in the man-agement consultancy sector. In a perverse way, however, we are positive about it. As long as we apply our survival rules and stick to what we believe we are good at, our competition will reduce and our potential cus-tomer base increase. We have an opportunity to demonstrate our ability to thrive in adverse conditions and we relish the challenge.

The BBC in conjunction with David Attenborough, is cur-rently running a series about Charles Darwin who, 150 years ago wrote “The Origin of the Species”, from which came the work and ideas on natural selec-tion and evolution. The current situation has brought into sharp

focus our own experiences of the need to adapt, evolve or innovate. Similar to Darwinism it is concerned with survival and natural selection. Survival is about adapting to the conditions in which we find ourselves in the present. Those that can’t will become extinct which in turn creates new opportunities for others. So beware large dino-saurs, it might well be time for the quick-witted nimble mammal to rule.

KPC six rules for surviving the recession:

Go right back to basics and •define precisely what your core business proposition is.Strip out everything that is •not directly contributing to this core proposition to make you as cost-effective as pos-sible.Really, really get close to your •customers to understand as best as possible what you

Surviving in the recession and beyondWhether we like it or not, recession is here and we all have to deal with the challenges it creates. At Kaleidoscope Partnership Consultancy (KPC) we can talk from experience, having been through the last recession; what we learned then will stand us and our clients in good stead during this one

can do to help them remain being customers.Identify all possible markets •and routes to market. Revisit traditional areas but also look at where the market potential is during this period based on your core proposition. Analyse your competition, •reset your benchmarks to beat them, if not in all, then in some key areas, that will give you an opportunity to exploit and win over new customers.Galvanise your people •and use all your resources towards one clear purpose to give it your best shot at every opportunity that comes along.

Do these six things and you will have a better chance of surviving what looks like the worst set of trading conditions since the 1930s.

Never was it more important to avoid the pitfalls of going off track and losing sight of what’s important as now during a downturn. Sometimes the best-laid plans get skewed and twist-ed to become something quite different to that intended. We call this the Zone of Distortion. It is when elements within the organisation unknowingly act as distorting factors upon the original intention and, therefore, change the desired outcome. Tough though it is, keeping a perspective of the long-term vision is important or your short-term adaptability could lead to distortions from which recovery becomes costly, time consuming and competitively damaging.

Thinking in Darwinian terms again, were you setting out to develop a horse, only to design a camel? It is said the camel was a horse designed by committee, wherein the classic distortion must have happened.

Details:Kieran [email protected]

Hopes were high at the start of 2008 that the effects of the credit crunch would be contained within the global financial system; in fact for the first six months, we won-dered what all the fuss was about. People assumed that non-financial businesses would simply carry on regardless – beliefs fuelled by the news of expanding sales and record profits.

The shock turn of events in September changed everybody’s outlook almost overnight, as if suddenly businesses had fallen off a cliff that no-one could see. The speed of the ensuing downturn caught everyone by surprise, and now, six months later, nobody is expecting business as usual for the year ahead.

For many businesses, the top priority will simply be survival, while

for others, a tougher economic en-vironment will provide unexpected opportunities. In uncertain times, cash is king, and those (mostly mature) companies that have strong balance sheets, fat margins and good cashflow, will have a definite edge over those in the critical phase of their investment cycle – especially start-ups that are spending, rather than producing, cash.

Opportunities will arise for com-panies with cash to acquire weaker rivals and, through the synergy savings of a combined business, to increase profit margins, thereby repaying the initial costs of the acquisition.

To sustain your business in a recession, it is essential that you reinvent your business model and develop a clear road map. We

recommend three simple steps:Success starts by defining the •business opportunity: to satisfy the needs of a real customer, who needs a job to be doneConstruct a plan setting out •how your business will fulfil the above need, at a profitCompare your new plan to your •existing model, and review the extent to which you would need to change it, in order to capture the opportunity.

By completing the above steps, you will identify whether you can use your existing business model and structure to meet the new need, or whether you need to sepa-rate out a new business unit, to execute a new model. Successful companies are those that profitably fulfil a real customer need with an effective business model.

Coping with the recession: some key business lessonsIn this article Neil Relph, location director of Beaconsfield’s Vantis, the accounting, tax and business recovery and advisory group, looks at some key lessons that can be learnt in a recession, and offers advice on how business owners can steer their companies to grow and prosper, by taking the right steps

Neil Relph

Of course, there are many more factors to consider when steering your business through a recession, and the above represents merely an introduction to these. Vantis invites you to explore the subject in greater detail at its upcoming free seminar entitled “The Recession ... Can you see light at the end of the tunnel?”. This will be held on March 17, at 9.30am in Marlow.

Details: www.vantisplc.com/events



Is the company insolvent?There is no statutory defini-tion of “insolvent”. However, the Insolvency Act 1986 refers to a company being unable to pay its debts as and when they fall due and to the value of a company’s assets being less than its liabilities. In either of these circumstances it is likely that a Court will find that the company is insolvent. But what does this mean in practical terms?

Some key questions:is the company able to pay •its invoices within the pay-ment terms i.e. within 30 days?do the directors have to •regularly ask creditors to wait for payment?are direct debits and •cheques being returned unpaid on an increasingly frequent basis?are the directors deferring •payment of PAYE, NIC and VAT? Is the company using sums set aside to pay HM Revenue and Customs for other purposes?are creditors insisting on •cash on delivery?is the company using depos-•its from customers to pay for raw materials for other customers’ orders?is the company only able to •pay off interest on loans and overdrafts?is the overdraft increasing?•is the landlord chasing for •rent or insurance?are the values of assets •diminishing or have little or no equity?

If the answer to most of these questions is “yes”, the com-pany could well be deemed to be insolvent, and it is impera-tive that professional advice should be sought.

The consequencesIf a company is insolvent, the director is duty bound to con-sider putting the company into a formal insolvency process. The primary purpose of this duty is to protect creditors.

Trading whilst insolvent?In the current economic climate, it is important that directors of companies regularly consider whether their respective companies could be trading whilst insolvent. This article by Kathryn Tait, a solicitor at Boyes Turner, aims to help directors identify whether the company is insolvent, the possible consequences, and what they can do to help the companies, the creditors and themselves

Failure to do so may result in any of the following:

proceedings against the di-•rectors for fraudulent tradingproceedings against the di-•rectors for wrongful tradingproceedings against the •directors for misfeasance.

If any of the above are estab-lished, the directors could be held personally responsible for the debts of the company. It may also lead to disqualifica-tion proceedings, and if the directors cannot satisfy any monetary liability, personal bankruptcy. Both disqualifica-tion proceedings and bankrupt-cy will affect a director’s ability to trade or gain employment.

... the directors could be held personally responsible for the debts of the company

Under the provisions of the Insolvency Act 1986 relating to wrongful trading, it is not neces-sarily a defence for a director to say that they didn’t know or have the skills to appreciate that the company was insolvent. A director’s conduct will be judged against (1) the general knowl-edge, skill and experience that may be reasonably expected of a person carrying out the same functions as are carried out by that director in relation to the company and (2) the general knowledge, skill and experience that the particular director has. It is therefore against both an objective and subjective test to which a director’s conduct and decision making is reviewed.

What can be done?The directors must be realistic and honest about the state of the company’s affairs and the prospects going forward. This will include reviewing the posi-tion of customers and clients to check if they are financially sound. As soon as the direc-tors suspect that the company may be insolvent, the emphasis of their duties shifts from those

owed to the company to those owed to the creditors. From this point, the directors must be seen to be taking every step to minimise any potential loss to the company’s creditors.

Professional advice should be sought as early as possible. In a wrongful trading situation, the courts will look favourably on a director who has sought and followed professional advice. Regular communication with the bank will assist and by involving the company’s ac-countant, up-to-date informa-tion should be available.

Frequent board meetings should be held with all direc-tors present. Non-executive directors are frequently under an illusion that the same rules do not apply to them. This is incorrect – a non-executive director can be held liable as with any other director. Further, those individuals with whose instructions the directors are accustomed to act, in other words “shadow directors”, and those holding themselves out to be directors may also be liable. It is therefore impera-tive that anyone involved in the promotion, formation and man-agement of a company attends all meetings to which they are invited and requests all such information that they think nec-essary to apprise themselves of the company’s situation and make any decision necessary.

At such meetings, up-to-date management accounts should be prepared and laid before the attendees. Detailed notes and minutes of all decisions should be made and kept – whether made at a board meeting or not. The directors should also

consider inviting professional advisers to a full board meet-ing to speak to the board as a whole and answer any ques-tions that the board may have.

The crucial element is communication, whether amongst the board members, with the bank or with credi-tors. Creditors, no matter how big or small, become suspi-cious when they are ignored or avoided. Being upfront and honest at an early stage will help creditors to understand the situation and may assist in the parties finding a solution, for example creditors may agree to smaller but regular payments. If you do not com-municate with creditors it is more likely that the company will face a statutory demand, shortly followed by a winding up petition.

Often the problem is cash-flow and equally as often a review of the debtor books reveals the problem. A round of chaser letters to debtors may raise additional funds. Fur-ther, it may be that customers can be persuaded to agree to change payment terms so that rather than 60 days they pay within 30 days.

In a wrongful trading situation, the courts will look favourably on a director who has sought and followed professional advice

Finally, if a decision to trade on is made, directors should carefully consider and take the appro-priate advice on putting client deposits and pre-payments in a separate account until the goods or services are delivered. In the event that the company goes into an insolvency process, the client deposits and prepayments are protected.

It is a hazardous time for companies and directors alike, but one that with the right approach and advice can be safely navigated.

Details:Kathryn [email protected]

Kathryn Tait




As we all know only too well many businesses are facing difficulties in the current economic climate. A reduction in the supply of readily available funding means that many companies of all sizes are strug-gling to secure finance.

Banks have become more rigorous in applying their lending criteria as they return to risk rather than market-led pricing. This also means that short-term borrowing is no longer available to finance long-term strategies and commit-ments or in some cases, trading losses.

As cash generation supersedes both sales and profits as the key business driver, sound financial controls are becoming increasingly important. Many businesses are adopting a more inward looking approach.

There are several ways that business can improve their cash-flow:

Improved debt recoveryDespite best efforts, sometime a business will find that some customers end up paying late. If this happens, the business should contact the customer as soon as possible to try to resolve the issue. The business should then review its procedures and tighten up its credit control processes to reduce the possibility of this happening again in future.

One useful technique is to call customers shortly before the due date to obtain confirmation that there is no query over the debt and that it will be paid on time. Businesses may also wish to consider taking other measures to protect themselves against customer failure and ensuring that they do not become the custom-er’s banker by default. A review of the terms of trade and in particular retention of title clauses may also assist in future debt recovery.

Under the late payment legislation, a business may be able to charge interest and debt recovery costs, both at its own discretion.

Look at financing Businesses should try to renegoti-ate their credit limits and adjust payment dates with main sup-pliers to better suit the needs of the business. Companies should also consider alternative financing arrangements that will improve cashflow in the short term and help provide a window to imple-ment a profit improvement plan. These could include factoring or invoice discounting as well as sale and leaseback arrangements. Other options may include sup-plier finance, sometimes called “reverse factoring”, an option if the business is a regular supplier to a large organisation that has an appropriate arrangement in place. Project bank accounts (which ensure that a contractor and their supply chain receive payments promptly through certified interim payments) and asset-based lend-ing may also help.

Grants and government fundingThere are an increasing number of grants and government guaran-teed financial schemes available to help viable businesses with temporary cashflow problems. They can assist with business de-velopment and are available from a variety of sources including the government, european union, regional development agencies, Business Link, local authorities and some charitable organisa-tions. These grants may be linked to business activity or a specific industry sector and some grants are linked to specific geographi-cal areas, e.g. those in need of economic regeneration.

Talk to your bankBusinesses may wish to discuss with their bank whether additional funding is available. The medium and long-term plan should form part of any dialogue so as not to cause undue concern, which may make matters worse. However, communication with the bank is important as bank managers and financiers who are unaware of problems until the last minute are unlikely to be sympathetic and will be less able to form part of a solution.

Other advisers such as solici-tors and accountants can be use-ful sounding boards and might be able to help. The earlier the busi-ness speaks to them, the more options there are likely to be.

Bring new equity into the businessOwner-managers could sup-port the business from their own resources; the cheapest form of finance. Business angels might provide a source of manage-ment expertise as well as finance. Refinancing will often buy you additional time but will not, in iso-lation, ensure survival, if you fail to address the underlying problems facing the business.

Sell assetsRaise cash by selling under-uti-lised assets and then leasing them back. However, the business must ensure it is selling the assets at market value if it is to connected parties.

Reduce costsCost cutting is often the most ob-vious strategy but it is not simply a question of downsizing. Where it is appropriate, downsizing needs to be managed properly. A knee-jerk reaction to trading difficulties can endanger the business you are trying to save.

Cashflow management – best defence in uncertain timesMartha Thompson, business restructuring partner at BDO Stoy Hayward LLP, explores the options

Martha Thompson

To summarise, the most important feature of all is facing up to the facts at the earliest possible opportunity. The longer the business waits to address the issues, the more difficult it will be to resist a downturn and return to profitability. Taking action to address areas of inefficiency or under-performance will also leave the business in a stronger position to capitalise on any available op-portunities in the market.

Turnaround specialists will identify and assess the prob-lems facing a business and drive through appropriate solutions. Our own newly-launched microsite, dedicated to helping businesses survive 2009, is just one of the ways companies can gain useful information to help them navigate the downturn: www.bdo.co.uk/surviving2009guide

Details:Martha [email protected]

Reading is better placed to withstand the recession than most towns and cities, accord-ing to recent reports.

Experian’s Policy Insight of Winter 2008 shows Reading as the number one location in terms of annual average GVA growth between 2010 and 2026. Centre for Cities (C4C)

Reading is clearly well placed, but is it a recession-beater?

For those who believe community involvement is vital during chal-lenging times, the next Connect Reading conference will be on March 19, 9.30am-4pm at The Waterfront, Oracle Corporation, Thames Valley Park.

Speakers include: Steve Downing, associate professor of strategy (CSR), Henley Business

Connect Reading – creating profit through community involvement

School; Jenny Dawkins, head of corporate responsibility research, Ipsos MORI Reputa-tion Centre; Paul Briggs, chief executive, Thames Valley Cham-ber of Commerce; Michael Coughlin, chief executive, Read-ing Borough Council.

Details: www.connectreading.co.uk

reports in its “Cities Outlook 2009” that Reading is one of five “cities” ranked among the top 10 in all three indices of economic prosperity, built envi-ronment and social deprivation.

C4C defines Reading along similar lines to its functional economic area, i.e. Reading, Wokingham and Bracknell.

29



Anyone thinking about the recruitment sector, especially where it involves filling jobs in finance and accountancy, might imagine it was an area of busi-ness that is on its knees. But Greg Thorpe, managing director and founder of Farnham-based Howett Thorpe Recruitment Consultants, has a different story to tell.

The company opened for business in 1988. It has sales of over £2 million annually, a staff of 10 and recruits per-manent and temporary staff for accountancy and finance functions of businesses of all sizes, as well as for the ac-countancy profession. Its field of operations covers Berkshire, Hampshire and Surrey.

‘We are full of praise for Barclays, as they’ve been extremely supportive from the start’

Thorpe doesn’t deny times are tough but has taken steps to make sure that the firm is well placed to weather the condi-tions. “The penny dropped in about September of last year. We noticed companies with-drawing offers from candidates and putting on hold jobs that they were recruiting for. These are classic signs .... But we are better prepared now than we were in 1991, which was really bad for us. We’ve been in busi-ness a long time so we’ve got a big client base. At the same time a decision we made about three years ago to target some of the larger companies has paid off.”

Howett Thorpe bid hard to get on to the preferred supplier lists of companies like Lastminute.com, BMW, Sanofi and Hotels For You. In fact it has 38 clients like these. It means providing exceptional client service to stay on the list but Howett Thorpe is one of the few that clients will turn to when recruiting. The company also recruits for many smaller, SME clients. “Having both types of clients,” says Thorpe, “is a real godsend.”

They have had to take some cost cuts including reducing staff. Thorpe says that he had to sit down with his accountants and decide where to tighten the belt. He has also added more stringent credit controls and

There may be a recession on but bad news does not tell the whole story. In a new series of monthly articles Barclays Commercial Bank highlights business success in the region. Richard Willsher of The Business Magazine reports

It’s not all bad news

Greg Thorpe: ‘... there are a lot of candidates out there at the moment but we still interview all of them’

business success

makes sure that he works close-ly with his internal accounts col-league to carefully monitor cash in and out of the business.

“But the key I think is the team that we have. You have to keep your key staff because when you come out of a reces-sion – and part of our planning is for when we come out the other end – there is no point in cutting cost and not having much left. I spoke to my key people, made them aware of the situation we were facing and we are all working as a team and pulling together. And if you come out of the recession in this sort of shape then you’re in an incredibly strong position.

“The thing about the econo-my now is that there is so much negative news in the press that it can have an effect on every-

body. The fact is that there is business out there and you just have to be more streetwise. Our market share is very small so we are focused on increasing that market share by more effective marketing. That’s something else I learned from 1991; don’t cut back on your marketing and advertising. You’ve got to keep your name out there and your brand going.”

Another advantage that the business has is that it is not weighed down with debt. Thorpe is full of praise for Barclays Commercial Bank, which stuck with them in 1991 and is being supportive now but all it has is an overdraft facility and that is undrawn. Moreover it uses leased premises and is not burdened with the cost of commercial property. Thorpe

says that he is glad he didn’t go ahead with buying a property a couple of years ago.

So what about the market at the moment? “We are seeing this year that people are cutting back on hiring at the senior end but at the junior end there is a lot of activity; a surprising amount actually. A lot of the companies that we are recruit-ing for are going through huge growth. Companies are sorting out their credit control, and their sales and purchase ledg-ers so there’s activity there. At the same time there are a lot of candidates out there at the moment but we still interview all of them. If they have registered with us we will get them in and talk to them. Because when the right job does come along you’ve got to be able to talk about your candidate. When you know your candidate, re-cruitment is easy.”

... despite the doom and gloom many of his clients are doing really well

Finally, Thorpe says that you’ve got to have a strategy. “You can’t have an attitude of ‘let’s just see how it goes from month to month’. You’ve got to have a plan, especially for your staff. They’ve got to have the confidence in you mov-ing forward.” And he remains upbeat because despite the doom and gloom many of his clients are doing really well. “I was talking to one this morning who told me his competitors had gone under and he’s picked up the business from that. He’s now hiring a financial director to help him run the business. There are definitely success stories out there and we are seeing this every day;” ... and by the sounds of it Howett Thorpe is one of them.

Details:

Greg ThorpeHowett [email protected]

Andy SimpsonHead of Thames ValleyBarclays Commercial Bank07775-552125andy.simpson@barclays.comwww.barclayscommercial.com

in association withBarclays Commercial Bank

law30



Tel.0118 951 6800 www.blandy.co.ukCommercial Commercial Property Corporate Disputes EnvironmentEmployment Financial Services Licensing Planning Private Client

One Friar Street Reading RG1 1DA

1733 -2009

28087 strip ad Bus Magazine:Layout 1 23/1/09 09:16 Page 1

In the current economic climate, employees are likely to feel even greater pressure to work hard in order to try and secure their employment and bolster their position in the event of being put at risk of redundancy. While some stress is acknowledged as positive for us, severe stress can impact negatively on both the individual and the business. As the economy looks set to worsen before it improves, how can companies reduce their exposure to potential claims in this area?

All employers have a duty to safeguard their employees’ health. As such, they can be li-able for stress-induced personal injury if they breach this duty and are held responsible for caus-ing the employee’s stress. For liability to arise, the employer must have been able to “rea-sonably foresee” such injury occurring in the first place. Until recently, it was thought that this claim posed a number of dif-ficult hurdles for an employee to overcome; the onus was on the employee to prove that the employer’s behaviour was fairly extreme and the test of reason-able foreseeability was a strin-gent one. However, in October last year, the Court of Appeal decision in Dickens v 02 plc ap-peared to weaken that test and has potentially paved the way for an increased number of stress claims. While the Court reiterated that employers must “reason-ably foresee” the employee’s injury, it was sufficient here that the employee had previously complained of stress in her job. It also may now not be adequate for an employer to simply have in place a counselling service for employees – some level of “managerial intervention” is likely

Reducing your exposure to stress in the workplaceWith recent statistics indicating that stress is the biggest cause of work-related illness, employers and advisers must be aware of the need to be alert to complaints of ‘stress’ from employees and the risk of the various claims that can be brought against them. Laura Binnie, a solicitor in Blandy & Blandy’s employment law team considers the issue of ‘stress management’ in the employment relationship

to be required which will involve the company actively considering a resolution to the problem. Fac-tors such as the employer’s size and resources will be relevant.

It is therefore important to keep a regular “check” on staff and act on any issues relat-ing to stress that the employee raises, for example in appraisals. Make sure that workloads are distributed fairly and that junior employees in particular are sup-ported. Consider extra training if necessary and it is always wise to have an up-to-date stress poli-cy in place and available to all staff. Employers will only breach their duty of care if they ignore warning signs and fail to inves-tigate such signs, for example by seeking medical evidence or

Laura Binnie

referring employees to occupa-tional health where appropriate. Ultimately, what is expected is that a reasonable employer would notice that there might be a problem that needs attention and take steps to address it.

Finally, bear in mind that in cases of serious stress, the employee may develop a “dis-ability”, for example if their stress triggers a clinically-recognised condition such as depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder. Such impairments will amount to a “disability” if they are “long term” (have lasted, or are likely to last, for at least 12 months). This will of course lead to extra obligations on employers not to discriminate against the em-ployee and to make reasonable

adjustments to their role in order to avoid costly claims for unlaw-ful disability discrimination.

Details: Laura [email protected]

London and south east law firm Penningtons Solicitors LLP has advised AlphaLAW on its sale to Iris Software Group, the largest privately owned software and services business in the UK.

AlphaLAW was rated the “top legal software supplier” in six cat-egories in an independent survey carried out by the Law Society.

Penningtons was instructed by father and son John and Simon Meehan, the shareholders of AlphaLAW, the trading name for Management Support Systems.

They have specialised in the design, supply, and support of computer based legal manage-ment systems for over 30 years.

AlphaLAW is one of the few software solution providers rec-

ommended by the Law Society. It is also a founder member of the Legal Software Suppliers Asso-ciation (LSSA) and attained gold certified status in the Microsoft partner programme.

The sale of the issued share capital of the company to Com-puter Software Group, part of Iris Software Group, will ensure the continued development of AlphaLAW, said Simon Meehan.

“This will provide AlphaLAW customers with access to the resources and investment of a major software house that under-stands the changing needs of the legal sector.”

Iris Software Group has over 5,000 law firms, barristers’ cham-bers and coroners as clients and

is the leading provider of software and services to both the legal and accountancy professions.

Penningtons’ business serv-ices team, led by partner Charles Brooks, advised the shareholders of AlphaLAW on the corporate sale as well as on intellectual property, property, employment and tax matters.

Brooks said: “We were pleased to advise on a deal which achieved a very satisfactory out-come for two leaders in their field. Our own personal knowledge of the products they provide added an extra dimension to our involve-ment in the transaction.”

CMS Cameron McKenna LLP acted for Iris Software Group.

Local firm Penningtons advises on sale of leading legal software supplier to Iris

finance 31



The economic downturn will result in more business owners working from home, according to Target Chartered Account-ants, which has an office in Reading.

However, whether they are es-tablished businesses which are giving up their office space as part of a cost-cutting programme or people who have been made redundant and are setting up by themselves, they should ensure they are claiming tax relief if they are to enjoy the full benefit.

Andrew Wilson, head of cor-porate and business tax at Tar-get, explained: “Business owners who use their home for business purposes can claim a proportion of the costs – even if it is only for one room of the house for part of the time, as it usually is for most of them.

“HMRC has recently confirmed that businesses can claim for mortgage interest and for people who do have a large mortgage, the tax relief can be significant. Other eligible costs include rental, council tax, home insurance, repairs and energy bills.”

Wilson said that the relief could be claimed by businesses that operated as a sole trader, partnership or limited company. For a company to achieve maxi-mum benefit it should pay an annual rent for partial use of the premises. The company was able to claim corporation tax relief on the rental payments.

While the rental income received is subject to income tax and individuals will need to report it on their personal tax return, as it can be offset by expenses attributable to the

business use of the office, in practice there may be little or no tax to pay.

Business owners who do use this strategy should ensure the rent charged does not exceed a commercial rent – this can be checked by having an independ-ent rental valuation by a quali-fied professional or obtaining comparative charges from a local serviced office. The level of rent should be reviewed annually and invoiced to the company.

Wilson added: “People are sometimes concerned about claiming relief because they fear that, if they decide to sell their home in the future, part of the proceeds may be subject to capital gains tax.

“This is highly unlikely but, to be on the safe side, you can put in place a rental agreement

which specifies that the rooms concerned have an element of both business and personal use. In these circumstances HMRC have confirmed that full Principal Private Residence (PPR) relief should continue to apply, so no capital gains arise.

“Another concern that people raise is that they will become liable to pay business rates. Whether or not you claim tax relief would have no bearing on this – it would depend on an assessment by the Valuations Agency Office, which would take into account factors such as the extent and frequency of the busi-ness use and any modifications made to the property to accom-modate that. However we are not aware of any instances where a claim for tax relief has led to a business rates assessment.”

As the end of another tax year approaches, cashflow, busi-ness profitability and even just surviving until the next payday are hot topics. The tax year end on April 5 is a good time to consider your financial position and check whether you have taken full advantage of the tax reliefs and exemptions that are available.

Tenon, the adviser to en-trepreneurs, says that there is no time like the present to review your personal and busi-ness finances – to make sure they are on track to meet your financial goals while reducing your tax obligations as much as possible.

Peter O’Sullivan, national head of financial services, says there are a number of plan-ning opportunities people can consider, depending on their circumstances. “Effective finan-cial planning includes taking advantage of available allow-ances and exemptions such as deductions for pension contri-butions, ISA allowances and inheritance tax exemptions.”

“The message is act now to save money by making the most of the tax relief available, saving through tax efficient instruments and reducing the inheritance tax on your estate.” O’Sullivan adds.

Andrew Jupp, national head of tax, commented: “If you’re a business owner, consider the tax efficiency of your remunera-tion packages, minimise tax on the sale of your business and have a plan in place to extract profit tax efficiently from your company. Individuals and busi-ness owners are feeling the effects of the credit crunch so

Taking stock of the finances

Home workers should claim tax relief

Darbys Solicitors of Oxford has bucked the negatives trends of recession and taken on five new legal specialists.

New clients gained for Darbys corporate, technology and me-dia, and insolvency departments have prompted the recruitment. The firm already employs more than 150 people.

Solicitors Daniel Hopkins and Jonathan Williamson boost the corporate, technology and media team. Hopkins comes from Moorcrofts in Marlow, having previously worked for Slaughter and May with FTSE 100 firms including Marks and Spencer, Unilever and American Express. Williamson previously worked

with London-based firm Wedlake Bell.

Award-winning Reshma Sheikh will work in Darbys insolvency team along with Sonal Chudasmama. During her time working for Eversheds, Sheikh won the Best Female Employee at the 2008 British Asian Hafta awards and in 2007 was Society of Asian Lawyers Young Lawyer of the Year and Female of the Year for Eversheds.

Solicitor Rachel Stafford, former managing partner at Fen-dom Dawson in High Wycombe, will cover private client business specialising in probate, tax, wills, court of protection, LPAs and equity release.

Five specialist solicitors join Darbys

Darbys’ new recruits (from left): Rachel Stafford, Reshma Sheikh, Daniel Hopkins, Jonathan Williamson and Sonal Chudasmama

it’s important to look at all the avenues open to you.”

Here’s a summary of some of the areas which offer tax relief:

Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs)

Annual allowance of £7,200•Limit for a Cash ISA is £3,600•All gains currently free from •capital gains taxNo liability to income tax.•

PensionsLifetime allowance of •£1.65m and annual allow-ance of £235,000. Both limits will increase annuallyAny pension payment made •by April 5 up to £3,600 is allowed and 20% basic rate tax is deducted at source. This reduces the actual cost to only £2,880 for basic rate and non-taxpayers and £2,160 for higher rate taxpayers.

Inheritance tax (IHT) planningEach individual can make •IHT exempt gifts of up to £3,000 in a tax year. If the exemption was not used last year, it can be carried forward for one year only, so gifts of £6,000 could be made in 2008/09 tax year.

High-risk investmentsInvestments such as Venture •Capital Trusts and Enterprise Investment Schemes offer at-tractive tax relief (30% of the amount subscribed for VCTs and 20% for EISs). They are high-risk investments as they invest primarily in start-up companies and will therefore only be suitable for certain types of investor.

finance32



A major study is underway to review the impact of the credit crunch on development in the south east.

Commissioned by the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) from CBRE Richard Ellis, the study will make practical recommendations on how the public and private sec-tors can lend momentum to a recovery.

Industry experts will put forward recommendations for action that will be debated with regional and national stakehold-ers at a SEEDA conference, to be held in conjunction with CBRE, in London on March 25.

The project will explore four key themes over the short term (12 to 18 months), medium term (two to three years) and longer term (five to 10 years).

It will examine what the property market and its key stakeholders will look like; new financial and delivery models; what action should be taken by the public sector, now and in the future; and what this means for delivery skills in the region.

SEEDA’s chairman Jim Brathwaite said: “We want to understand the impact of the global credit crisis on the re-gion’s property market and what this means for our housing and commercial property sectors. Crucially, we want to map out ac-tions to ensure that development gets back on track as soon as possible. This study comes at a critical time and is not just a one-way process but a discussion to develop new ideas and provide practical solutions for meeting the challenges.”

“The current challenging cli-mate requires fresh approaches, actions and responses from both the development industry and the public sector, needing new skills and behaviours on the part of both. We need a better understanding of the ways in which the public and private sectors can work to deliver quality schemes and support recovery across the region. It should also deliver lessons and messages of wider significance for the recovery in the national development market.”

Sarah Whitney, managing director of the regeneration and development team at CBRE, said: “CBRE is proud to be lead-ing this work which will require significant consultation with many of the parties that have a vested interest in maintaining and strengthening the economy of the south east. There is a very real possibility that the downturn in the property market is more than just a short-term cyclical shock. It may well have signifi-cant structural effects that will cause profound change in the medium and longer terms and this study is aimed at addressing those structural changes.

“How will the downturn and recovery impact on the commer-cial and residential markets in different parts of the south east? What will the future capacity and composition of the house-build-ing sector look like and what does this mean for attitudes, re-lationships and ways of working between the public and private sectors? These are some of the key questions we are exploring as part of the research.”

SEEDA commissions work to speed property recovery Alcatel-Lucent company

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, based in Camber-ley, has acquired Conseros, a Canadian company specialising in customer service delivery.

The acquisition, for an undis-closed sum, is part of Alcatel-Lucent’s continued investment in applications software and Genesys’ build-out of its portfolio for customer service software, having inaugurated its Applica-tions Software Group in January.

“Genesys expects the use of service delivery software to be a driver of growth for our core products, and a key technol-ogy that expands our footprint beyond the contact centre,” said Nicolas De Kouchkovsky, presi-dent of Genesys.

Conseros has pioneered soft-ware of a key business applica-tion that enables enterprises to optimise resources and manage and distribute high volumes of work items virtually anywhere within the enterprise. The solution gives business users visibility and control of the tasks, priorities and people who are responsible for service delivery.

Conseros’ application is already in use by several joint customers.

Genesys buys Conseros

finance 33



In times of cutbacks, many owner-managed businesses find themselves having to review their professional advisers and the services that they offer

business lifecycle

Assessing the services of professional advisers

Rodney Style, partner, HW Chartered Accountants, looks at some of the key prerequisites for choosing an accountant

It is essential that, as an owner-manager, you keep your business in good order and your accountant will assist you to do this so that you can focus your energies on its growth and development. Here are five main areas you should be looking at:

Has your accountant worked •with owner-managed busi-ness clients before and dealt with companies in your sector? Do you feel that your ac-•countant is good value for money? Your accountant’s advice and assistance should either bring you savings or help you make more money by focusing on the important things that make a difference. Your accountant should also be on the look out for any op-portunities and ways in which to assist your business’ growth, improve its overall profitability and, if possible, reduce its tax burden. Is your accountant aware •of the day-to-day running of your business and your long-term goals? Use your accountant as a sounding board throughout the year as their knowledge will not only encompass technical issues but day-to-day and practical ideas. Your account-ant should also be ready to challenge any key strategic issues and decisions.Can your accountant grow •with your business? Do they offer specialist services? For example, you may decide to sell your business at some point in the future; your ac-countant should be able to prepare you for this and as-sist you to minimise any tax liabilities payable on the sale.

Perhaps, most importantly, •what is your relationship with your accountant? Are you sat-isfied that your finances are being handled by someone you trust and get on with?

At Haines Watts we offer a wide range of specialist services without losing the personal at-tention to detail at a local level: Our strapline “Local Matters. National Strength” encompasses the idea that our partners are geographically close and can draw on specialist advice from across the UK.

Haines Watts has endured economic ups and downs over the last eight decades. Our abil-ity to focus on our core values and improve our business has seen us become the 15th largest firm of Chartered Accountants in the UK, with over 50 offices and in excess of 1,000 people.

Nationally, our Group is made up of several complemen-tary divisions, HW Chartered Accountants, HW Corporate Finance, HW Financial Services, HW Asset Finance, HW Forensic Accounting, HW Expense Con-trol, HW Technology and so on, meaning that we can always find the right specialist for you.

Our founder Cyril Haines Watts combined sharp thinking with unrivalled customer service and we carry that mantra with us today. However, we appreciate it is more important now than ever not to become complacent. We intend to continue to strengthen our service offering and expand our business to become the premier adviser to the owner-managed business sector in the UK.

Details: www.hwca.com

Rodney Style

This was among the views expressed at the presentation of a report produced by business advisers Grant Thornton entitled, “Securing finance: financing and refinancing in today’s economic climate.” The research was car-ried out by Mergermarket, which sought the opinions of 150 CEOs and CFOs, originally in Septem-ber last year and they reverted to the respondents in late October to stress test their findings.

Mid-market UK corporates believe that there are “significant opportunities to grow through mergers and acquisitions in the current market and in the com-ing months,” the survey found. And even though financing is a significant issue the survey con-cluded that: “What seems to be emerging... is a perception that whilst financing is hard to find in the current market, it need not hold up M&A. This is likely to be due to an expectation that there will be more, smaller, bolt-on deals, at cheaper prices, and that these will be financed through a business’ own resources.”

Price remains the main deal breaker. Sellers of businesses may have expectations that their buyers find hard to swallow. Alternatively buyers may feel that they can cut a finer deal. There has in general been a downward shift in EBITDA multiples for UK mid-market businesses and this is a trend that has now been in train since late 2007, the report noted.

Funding is a significant barrier to doing deals. This was certainly a preoccupation among business people who attended the report’s presentation at a roundtable event at Reading’s Forbury Hotel on January 27.

On the one hand Steve Carle of private equity house Lloyds Development Capital and Andrew Clayton of RBS both endorsed the view that good businesses will always attract funding. And as if to prove this Wendy Hart of Grant Thornton was able to confirm that the firm had lately closed two deals which had entailed raising the necessary fi-nancing. This was clear evidence moreover that transactions are still being concluded.

At the same time pricing is likely to be significantly higher for those businesses that are looking to raise new funding

M&A – they’re still on the agenda

or to refinance. This came as no surprise to those attend-ing the event and indeed the survey found that over 80% of respondents expected to find it difficult or very difficult to secure financing for their business. What is more, 20% of respondents expected to refinance in the next 12 months and it is the view of some in the financial sector that there may not be an easing of available credit until the end of 2010. But as Grant Thornton’s corporate finance partner David Brooks says in the report: “As financing facilities are renegoti-ated in 2009 there is likely to be considerable banking and shareholder pressure to adopt a significantly more prudent gear-ing structure.”

Wendy Hart

Businesses in the region are working their way through the current recession and are looking to do deals, writes The Business Magazine’s Richard Willsher

Nonetheless, the views ex-pressed by business people during a lively discussion follow-ing the report’s presentation at the Forbury was that wallowing in doom and gloom was not the way forward. They also felt that the press could be somewhat to blame for making a bad situa-tion seem even worse than it is. Instead they said that they are looking to do deals and to take advantage of what op-portunities may arise during the current difficulties. Wendy Hart, Grant Thornton’s corporate finance partner who hosted the event, closed the proceedings by stressing the importance of taking good advice early and at looking at all of the available financing options. This was the best way both to survive and to do deals going forward.

technology34



Intercultural training organi-sation, Farnham Castle, has launched iCulture, a new live, web-based training and coach-ing service.

The service allows the compa-ny to deliver all of its intercultural training and assignment briefing programmes over the Internet to groups or individual users, at the same time.

The firm said that the online training system “is designed to meet the needs of today’s business world on a truly global scale by delivering modular based development training in an informative and challenging environment”.

“The issues associated with getting individuals and groups together all in the same place at the same time for training often results in the opportunity for important and valuable skills development to be missed,” said Jeff Toms, director of marketing and client services at Farnham Castle.

“However, remote delivery through the unique iCulture platform enables multi-location participants to join pre-arranged live video training sessions over an internet connection wherever there is access to a computer,

using a readily available headset and interact live with their tutor online in a virtual classroom.”

Apart from allowing businesses to train geographically dispersed employees, other benefits of iCulture include the elimination of the cost of travel, and associ-ated expenses. It also reduces the environmental impact relating to attending on-site training sessions. There is flexibility in terms of when users can take the sessions, including weekend tuition for the benefit of families requiring a country briefing before a move abroad, for example.

“Today we live and work in an era where workload, time, budget constraints and the increas-ing need to be environmentally sensitive are having an effect on the ability to ensure individuals receive the training and coaching they need,” said Toms.

“However, remote delivery through iCulture now provides a valuable alternative to face-to-face delivery and one we anticipate will prove particularly popular with organisations around the world.”

Details:www.intercultural-training.co.uk/ prod_remotedel_video.asp

Farnham Castle launches iCastle and takes cultural training online

More than ever, the need to lower costs at the same time as ensur-ing the highest possible levels of service is essential.

But if your datacentre is full to capacity and you need a solution fast, you also need to find an answer which makes sense to the money men who are watch-ing the pennies and pounds very closely.

The reality is that for most companies their current IT infra-structure is both under-utilised and over-provisioned, so trying to persuade a finance director to invest in yet more equipment is going to be a tricky business.

Whether an organisation’s growth has come through ac-quisition or organically, in most cases IT systems have grown up on a piecemeal basis. As new business functions such as ERP

or CRM have been introduced, the relevant piece of equipment has been added but with very lit-tle thought to overall integration.

The effect of this is a network of business unit “silos”, each effectively operating in isolation, making for a very inefficient and inflexible system that cannot grow and respond to changing business needs.

Consolidation provides a real solution which delivers both short-term improvements and long-term business benefits.

Newbury-based DTP Group, a Hewlett Packard gold partner, specialises in HP’s IT consolida-tion solutions.

Technical services manager, Andrew Bourne, said: “Consoli-dation is all about centralisation and streamlining – reducing the number of appliances, applica-

tions, databases and datacentres in order to increase asset utilisa-tion, contain costs and make IT easier to manage.

“Instead of simply adding more into the IT mix, it’s about looking at the priorities of a busi-ness, controlling IT costs, provid-ing a system which is flexible enough to offer increased capac-ity when it is needed and enable a quick response to changing market conditions.”

The pooling and virtualisation capabilities built in to HP’s Blad-eSystem enable the consolida-tion of existing under-utilised, special purpose servers, on to one highly versatile and com-pact system, saving space and significantly reducing long-term operational costs.

And, because it enables systems to work together much

Consolidation is the key to cutting costsEfficiency, effectiveness and value for money are among the most important elements driving today’s IT systems, writes Alison Dewar of The Business Magazine

more efficiently and improves storage, energy consumption and cooling capacity, it provides a much greener IT solution and helps companies reduce their carbon footprint.

Details: Karen Pearson [email protected]

DMH Stallard, a Top 100 law firm based in London and the south east, has won the “Greatest Busi-ness Impact” award at the Sorce Conference for the development of online property portfolio man-agement tool – DMH Direct.

The Sorce Awards highlight the importance of using intranet and extranet solutions to con-nect organisations, people and knowledge.

DMH Stallard was joined in the final by two other finalists, Croy-don College and West London Mental Health.

In delivering the award, the judges recognised the firm’s innovative use of technology in delivering business value to clients through improved business proc-esses and better communication.

DMH Direct enables clients to instruct DMH Stallard online and then subsequently track the progress of matters over the web.

The system offers clients and their agents a dedicated extranet to help streamline and make more transparent the legal process of acquiring, developing and manag-ing property assets.

Online system wins on Impact

Richard Pollins, head of real estate at DMH Stallard, accepts the Greatest Business Impact Award for the company’s online system

telecoms 35



The STORM was the telecom-munications platform used to host a donation line set up by Content Guru, following a Sky1 documen-tary, part of the BAFTA-winning series Ross Kemp On Gangs.

The STORM donation line provided an entirely automated system that made donating quick and easy. The Interactive Voice Response service allowed a large number of calls to be processed in

a short space of time, allowing as many people as possible to make donations.

A Sky1 statement about the ap-peal says: “The response to Ross Kemp Meets the Glue Kids has been nothing short of phenom-enal. Sky1 and Save the Children would like to thank the concerned viewers who have contributed to over £100,000 raised in the fight to combat this devastating epidemic.”

The innovative technology developed by Content Guru, which specialises in mass participation media solutions for the com-munications and entertainment industries, played a key role in helping young victims of Kenya’s post-election violence.

While filming the series, Ross Kemp and his team visited the scene of some of the worst fighting in Kenya in early 2008.

Guru sets up an appealing STORM for Ross Kemp and Save the ChildrenBracknell-based company Content Guru ensured that a television appeal by Ross Kemp went down a STORM and successfully raised £100,000 for the Save the Children charity

Enabling Business today, Aligning technology for the future

Karen Pearson - 07800-853227

They discovered a community of orphaned children, scratching a living on a rubbish dump. The young victims were living a life of constant danger and hunger, dulled only by solvent abuse.

Shocked by what they saw, the team returned determined to draw attention to the plight of the chil-dren, and launched the appeal.

Donations can be made to Save the Children projects in Kenya us-ing the details below.

Details: 0800-814-8148www.savethechildren.org.uk/sky

business travel/hospitality36



Chris Horridge has been ap-pointed by von Essen hotels as the new executive head chef at leading luxury hotel Cliveden.

His new role involves oversee-ing the smooth running and development of the hotel’s three restaurants, including its flagship restaurant Waldo’s.

Horridge said: “I’m thrilled to be joining the Cliveden team and hope to bring a unique style to the hotel, whilst providing guests with a truly memorable dining experience. I look forward to the challenges ahead, as well as maintaining and growing Cliveden’s reputation as one of the UK’s best luxury hotels.”

Most recently Horridge was head chef at the Michelin-starred Bath Priory and he is a previous winner of Caterer & Hotelkeep-er’s Acorn award, given to only a few individuals under 30 each year, for their achievements in the industry.

New executive head chef for luxury hotel Cliveden

The fact that head chef Stephen Hine, and general manager Rita Mooney, have both been in place for 25 years means there’s a great sense of conti-nuity about this luxury hotel in Hampshire.

Hine, in fact, has been head chef since Tylney opened its doors as a hotel in 1985. He previously worked as a sous chef at Oakley Court, Wind-sor, and received his training at the renowned Dorchester in London, so his pedigree is exemplary.

Just 20 minutes drive from Reading, Tylney Hall is on the edge of the picturesque village of Rotherwick, and is set in 66 acres of parkland that looked at its best in the recent snowfall.

Part of the Elite Hotels group, Tylney gets a four Red Star rat-ing from the AA, and two Red Rosettes for its restaurant, plus it’s a member of the Small Lux-ury Hotels of the World group. Despite all that, it contrives to be far less stuffy than you might imagine, although it is unafraid of tradition.

One of the most traditional things you can do in a country house hotel is have Sunday Lunch. At Tylney, they do it

Tylney tradition is a treatWhen restaurants and hotels hire and fire, and don’t know whether they will be here tomorrow as they cope with the recession, there is something wonderfully reassuring about Tylney Hall, writes David Murray of The Business Magazine

right, with a roast carved at the table, and you sit in the splendid Oak Room with views across the gardens and out to the giant redwoods.

The tables are a decent size, there’s plenty of crisp linen, and the waiters know the difference between attentiveness and stalking.

This is not a jeans and T-shirt place; men are required to wear a jacket or tie. The dress code adds to the sense of occasion when you take Sunday lunch at Tylney. Looking at the other diners, it seems that most are there to celebrate a memorable day, whether a birthday or an-niversary.

Business readers are more likely to use Tylney for a cli-ent lunch or dinner during the week and here the hotel won’t disappoint. Typical mains are pan-fried skate, rack of lamb, breast of chicken or a vegetar-ian dish – all very traditional, but with what chefs like to now refer to as “a modern twist”. For instance, the skate arrives with mango, avocado and chilli.

The wine list is French accent-ed, with some worthy names but there’s also a decent smattering of New World choices including one of the world’s finest reds, a 1996 Grange from the Penfolds stable at a cool £246 a bottle. At this hotel, you can’t go wrong with a decent Burgundy although you may have to pay at least £40 a bottle.

If you plan on using Tylney Hall for an event or meeting, the hotel has a special offer until April 30. Anyone booking a resi-dential conference or event can claim £50 credit per delegate, to be used against hotel services for the duration of the event. This can include treating guests to a champagne reception or gourmet dining, bedroom upgrades, after-dinner speakers or even accom-modation for their partners.

Details: 01256-764881www.tylneyhall.co.uk

Tylney Hall and long-standing head chef Stephen Hine

Chris Horridge

Already a familiar name on TV and radio, he is passionate about making sure foods retain their maximum nutritional value and has worked closely with scientists and nutritionists to perfect his cuisine.

Milton Park has launched a new conferencing facility to meet the increasing demand for meet-ing space in the Abingdon and Didcot region.

Housed in the purpose-built Milton Park Innovation Centre, the new facility, managed by Oxford Innovation, is designed to provide office accommoda-tion and conferencing facilities for start-up and fast-growing organisations. Meeting rooms of varying size enable the host-ing of business events for up to 100 people.

James Dipple, managing director of Milton Park, com-mented: “The flexibility of the conferencing facilities make them an ideal choice not only for people already at home on Milton Park, but also for visiting or nearby organisations looking for practical and usable ameni-ties in this important location.”

The facility’s main room can seat up to 100 people for large-

scale events, seminars and presentations. The conference room can seat up to 60 people in a theatre style for smaller corporate events.

A large meeting room pro-vides an open and spacious environment, seating up to 20 people in a roundtable format. There are two board-standard rooms catering for up to 15 peo-ple, and a small meeting room can seat up to five people for briefings, interviews and one-to-ones.

All rooms are fully acces-sible on ground floor level, and come with a data projector, free Wi-Fi access and dedicated free parking. Furniture layout, refreshments and catering can be arranged to suit individual requirements.

Details: Debbie Rushton [email protected]

New conferencing facilities at Milton Park Innovation Centre in Abingdon

serviced officeswww.businessmag.co.uk 37


“How many entrepreneurs do you know who started up their business using long-term com-mercial office space? Hardly any. Smart business owners understand the importance of keeping all overheads as low as possible for as long as possible – and keeping legal costs to a minimum. Flexible office space – where you can just move in and move out – delivers a powerful advantage for start-up business-es,” explains Parris.

Aside from its Serviced Office packages for smaller businesses and entrepreneurs (which include day offices and hot-desking), The Oriel on Slough’s Bath Road also provides what it calls Managed Office Suites. These are ideal for bigger companies needing to up-size or downsize, establish a new

team or perhaps find “swing” space before moving into a new building. Managed Office Suites are configured to suit each cli-ent’s precise needs. Costs are transparent – and reassuringly predictable.

Another way to reduce overheads is rethinking meet-ing room use. “Most companies need a certain amount of space to conduct meetings – gener-ally around 25% in corporate headquarters – but these can be left empty 70% of the time,” says Parris. “Yet they are still paying rent on this relatively redundant space, let alone the cost to heat and maintain it. In dedicated office business centres like The Oriel, businesses can have virtu-ally instant access to a range of meeting rooms and only pay

Move in, move out – but don’t get lumberedOffice space – the way companies use it, how they pay for it and how they manage the infrastructure within it – should be reviewed regularly regardless of the state of the economy, says James Parris, sales manager at leading Slough office business centre, The Oriel

for what they use. This pay-as-you-use mentality used to be more common in the US but is growing here now that busi-nesses are analysing their cost bases more closely.”

Reputation protectionParris also makes a good point

about protecting corporate repu-tations. “Getting the ‘fit’ right is so important for businesses using flexible space, especially bigger companies with established brand values. They don’t want to feel their reputation is being affected by the property owner’s brand. Equally why should they sacrifice quality or finish because they don’t own the whole building?

“The Oriel is part of a world-wide network of independent business centres that’s regularly audited and is defined by its abil-ity to be ‘discreet’. This means it’s our clients’ businesses – not ours – that take the limelight.”

Details: 01753-205100 www.the-oriel.co.uk

The office environment and workplace has been scrutinised a great deal in recent years and has now become a major topic for all businesses. Long gone are the days where the office was “just a place to work”.

The average employee spends the majority of their day in the office so it’s important they feel comfortable as their motiva-tion has a big part to play in increasing productivity. Modern companies now realise and understand their employees’ need for a workplace that allows comfort and flexibility in order to hit optimum creativity, passion, flair and work output.

With the workplace environ-ment being so key to success in business, Frasers Office Interiors, part of the Frasers Of-fice Supplies Group, has become more involved in office refurbish-ment since 2008.

By working together with es-tablished local partners, Frasers Office Interiors can look at issues such as current space utilisation, working practices, expansion plans and office fit-outs. Building alterations, partitioning, heat-ing, air-conditioning, decoration, lighting, flooring and window blinds are all part of this profes-sional service.

Comfortable working environments for greater productivity

With this streamlined service in place along with free consulta-tions, free delivery and even free installations, Frasers Office Inte-riors saw its furniture sales more than double in 2008 compared with 2007.

Nick Clark, sales and market-ing director at Frasers Office Supplies Group, explained: “Al-though we have been success-

fully supplying furniture to many customers throughout the years we identified it as a product area in which we could offer a better service. So, during 2007 we looked closely at how we could become a more effective partner to our customers.

“We assessed furniture sup-pliers for their quality, delivery, price, design and planning

service and then we selected the best to offer to our custom-ers. We now offer a full range of products to suit all working areas within the office environment, helping to achieve best work-ing practices with a choice in product design. What’s more we aim to do this at a price to suit the budget.

“You can be confident that our professional approach and attention to detail will ensure all projects are completed on time and within budget.”

Quality and communication starts at the initial project consul-tation and continues through all stages to completion and aftercare. Frasers believes it is important for customers to have trust and confidence in the peo-ple they work with, and support this by putting those customers firmly at the forefront of every-thing they do.

The Frasers philosophy is straightforward: Office furniture should be simple and easy to buy. Help, support and advice are always available.

Details:Nick Clark0118-9509222nick.clark@frasersoffice.co.ukwww.frasersoffice.co.uk

property38



Haslams is marketing Omega House, Thatcham, on a freehold basis. The property is a high quality, modern, single-storey office building with an excellent parking provision of 48 spaces, representing an impressive ratio of 1:208 sq ft. The building cur-rently has D1, Non-Residential Institution consent but Haslams has recently applied for a change of use to B1 (offices). Therefore the building is now suitable for D1 or B1.

The building is positioned on Pipers Way which has excellent access to the A4 which links directly to the nearby A34 (ap-proximately three miles) and M4 motorways which is some nine

Omega House offers best of both worldsOmega House is an attractive office building which could provide your business the ‘best of both worlds’ with its high levels of parking and close proximity to Thatcham train station. Getting to work has never been easier, writes Roger Reid

Omega House: excellent parking and close proximity to Thatcham train station

miles distant. Thatcham train sta-tion is conveniently situated at the other end of Pipers Way.

This is a rare opportunity for a company to own its own premises at a time when interest rates are now at the lowest level in history. Across the board, landlords’ aspirations have had to align with the reality of the current market conditions. The combination of low prices and in-terest rates, coupled with lack of new development and available freeholds mean that commercial property represents a prudent medium-term investment at the current time.

Details:Roger [email protected]

The most recent RICS •Commercial Market Survey revealed:

Occupier demand declining -Available floor space for -occupation increased at its fastest pace since the introduction of the question in 1999Demand is falling and avail- -ability increasing, sending rental expectations even lowerThe sharpest pick up -in available space was reported in the retail sector, which also witnessed the most dramatic fall off in enquiries during the final quarter of 2008.

Specifically in the Thames Val-•ley, Savills’ research reports:

Office development is un- -likely to start until 2012Rents are expected to drop -during 2009.

At the time of writing, the In-•vestment Property Data bank figures show that UK property values plunged by 14.4% in the last quarter of 2008.

OK that’s enough of that... I believe however that there are some positives.

Once in a lifetime We might be witnessing a property market that will never be seen again. This means there is real value to be had out there. Investors have the opportunity to buy at double digit yields which has to compare favourably to 1-2% interest from the bank. Oc-cupiers are able to drive a hard bargain with rents reducing and incentives increasing.

Investors have the opportunity to buy at double digit yields which has to compare favourably to 1-2% interest from the bank

Of course, in order for the inves-tors and occupiers to make the most of this market they need to be in a position of strength. Investors with cash are waiting for the right moment to pounce, and if you look closely enough, there are also occupiers doing relatively well; Asda, JD Sports, Abbey National, IG Group, Sky, to name but a few.

With finite supply, once inves-tors and occupiers begin to

Market of opportunityThe main commercial property sectors: industrial, retail and offices, are obviously not performing well at the current time. Here are a few statistics to confirm this, says Haslams’ Neil Seager, while warning that those of a nervous disposition should miss out this first section

capitalise on the current market conditions it will only be a matter of time before prices and rents start to rise.

Hotel operators and developers are now able to look at property at realistic and workable rates

Alternative usesThere is an opportu-nity for those occupiers that traditionally have not stood a chance when competing against the main property sectors. Hotel operators and developers are now able to look at property at realistic and workable rates. Leisure occupiers are now being taken more seriously by land-lords and are able to negotiate change of use. There remains a good demand for healthcare property such as nursing homes, doctors surgeries and hospitals. The Government is targeting a more modern private and public healthcare sector. Securing a site for such a use in the past, particularly in the south east, has been extremely difficult given

the prices residential and com-mercial developers were willing to pay. Now, similar to the hotel market, healthcare has a fighting chance.

Even in the current market there remains opportunity for some.

Haslams is currently advising investors on purchasing com-mercial property and develop-ment land. We are also advising a major leisure and healthcare operator on its expansion plans.

Details:Neil [email protected]

Neil Seager

property 39



Top performers of independent local property services com-pany Romans are off to South Africa.

The trip is a reward to recognise and celebrate the achievements throughout the past 12 months of more than 20 individuals from the firm’s sales, lettings, financial services, customer service and support departments.

Romans’ annual staff awards presentation at the Madejski Conference Centre in Read-ing was attended by over 200 people from within the property services divisions of the group. The event was hosted by Peter Knight, the industry expert, motivational speaker and author.

Peter Coles, residential division managing director, commented: “Whilst the last 12 months have been challenging for the property industry, the best companies with the best people providing the best serv-ice, have and will continue to thrive. Despite what the media may have us believe about a stagnant property market, last year Romans’ 14 sales of-fices sold over 2,000 properties with a combined value of over £0.5 billion.

Romans recognises its 2008 achievers

Romans Annual Award winners, with directors Peter Coles and Dale Norton, looking forward to their prize trip to South Africa

Fairweathers is one of the lead-ing chartered surveying practices in the south east, with offices in both London and Reading, and in the nine years since it began, it has consistently been one of the most successful firms of its kind in the country.

Senior director, Peter Mem-mott, believes this is due in no small part to the sought-after skills of his consultancy team and excellent service.

“Our approach is built on in-depth knowledge, skill, and unshakeable ethics,” he said. “Before the current ‘credit crunch’, old-fashioned profes-sionalism was looked down upon by some, but it has enabled us to provide our clients with immense stability and the sort of advice that most often saves them a very considerable sum.

“It is also why almost 100% of our work comes from referrals from other professionals, a group not given to recommending firms lightly.”

The practice specialises in a wide range of areas, including commercial valuations, com-mercial property management, acquisitions for owner-occupiers, rating, rent reviews, lease renew-als and probate work.

The current market means, says Memmott, that it’s even more important for clients – whether owner-occupiers or tenants – to seek professional advice.

Most recently, the practice was able to help one Slough company reappraise its property needs, negotiating terms for it to consolidate most of its opera-tions onto just one site.

Professional advice and good service prove a money saverRetaining the values of ‘old-fashioned professionalism’ is helping one organisation stay ahead of the field as the economy tightens

By understanding the cus-tomer’s requirements and objec-tives, Fairweathers was able to structure a deal that resulted in the company receiving incentives worth in excess of £2 million.

In a further example, the prac-tice also helped a national com-pany combine its operations and achieve significant savings after the acquisition of a competitor.

Fairweathers helped identify suitable new premises, negoti-ated terms for a new lease and assisted with the disposal of the old leases, enabling the company to relocate to a better quality, more modern building, which is cheaper to maintain, at a lower rent than the two offices previously occupied.

“Every individual circum-stance will be different, but these examples show that by talking to the experts, savings can be achieved,” added Memmott.

“Fairweathers will never be the cheapest firm to employ, but people continue to use us year after year because they know that we add an unrivalled amount of value to

their property transactions. This is certainly a challenging market, but clearly one in which there are considerable opportunities for companies and individuals.”

Details: Peter [email protected]

Peter Memmott

“Our lettings division let over 2,700 properties. We sold over 100 properties at our auctions and our chartered surveyors carried out over 2,700 property surveys, whilst our independent financial advisers at Flower IFA helped over 1,500 people ar-range their mortgage in 2008.”

Coles concluded: “As a company we are hugely proud of our team and their work across all the divisions. They have a common goal and that is to not only achieve dynamic results for our company but, in doing so, to provide our customers with an outstanding level of service.”

Commercial law firm Pitmans has acted on behalf of Banner Homes Group in the sale, for an undisclosed sum, of a ground rent portfolio company consist-ing of 18 separate properties.

Janice Wall, partner in Pitmans London corporate department, commented: “We were delighted to act in this sale for Banner, a valued client of Pitmans. Not only was it a rare property transaction in the current market but it also further demonstrated our firm’s ability to put together a team of multi-disciplinary lawyers who worked closely together across both Pitmans offices to speedily complete the transaction.”

The sale was completed on December 9 and involved cor-porate, property and tax lawyers spanning Pitmans London and Reading offices.

Banner, one of the country’s leading independent house builders, has over 30 years expe-rience in the industry and caters for homebuyers with budgets of up to £4 million. It has won many awards from What House, for its innovative design and excellent customer service.

Pitmans acts for Banner in ground rent portfolio sale

property40



Universal Consolidated Opportuni-ties has leased Abingdon’s largest office letting this year to Tessella, the scientific software solutions provider.

Tessella has taken 10,000 sq ft of commercial office accommoda-tion at The Quadrant, Abingdon Science Park and will move its UK group headquarters from Vineyard Chambers in Abingdon. Carter Jonas has handled the lease on behalf of UCO and is now market-ing Tessella’s former premises.

Stephen Wilkes, managing director of UCO, predicted that Tessella’s decision will attract more businesses to The Quad-rant: “Abingdon Science Park is

becoming a formidable hub for science and tech enterprises in the area. Tessella is a major inter-national firm whose presence will strengthen the Park’s community considerably and we’re delighted to have them.”

The Quadrant is situated at the entrance to Abingdon Sci-ence Park and comprises a wide range of business units within a landscaped setting, in walking distance of the town centre and leisure facilities.

There is still some availability on the Park, and UCO is planning a further 30,000 sq ft of business accommodation on an adjoining site.

Abingdon’s largest letting

The Quadrant at Abingdon

Peter Mandelson, secretary of state, took part in a ground-breaking ceremony at Segro’s IQ Farnborough, to mark the com-mencement of construction for Fluor’s new UK headquarters.

Fluor’s pre-let at IQ Farn-borough is reported to be the largest real estate deal outside of London since 2001, though

financial terms of the transac-tion were not disclosed.

However, Fluor said that it illustrates the firm’s ongoing and long-term commitment to invest in the region.

“This will be a world-class centre of excellence in Farn-borough,” said Mandelson, the secretary of state for busi-

Mandelson performs groundbreaking ceremony for Fluor’s new UK HQ

From left: Ian Thomas (Fluor UK managing director), Peter Mandelson and Ian Coull (SEGRO chief executive)

ness, enterprise and regulatory reform. “The jobs and skills that this sustains will help strengthen Britain’s capacity as a world leader in engineering. The sector is vital to the UK’s future suc-cess, and we welcome Fluor’s investment. I am gladdened that a well-regarded global business such as Fluor is placing the UK at the heart of its operations.”

Ian Coull, chief executive officer of Segro said: “Segro is very much looking forward to welcoming Fluor to IQ Farnbor-ough and constructing its new UK headquarters for them. Dur-ing construction of the Nicholas Hare scheme, 350 jobs will be generated, along with a further 1,500 ancillary roles at the site. This marks an exciting start to the next phase of development at IQ Farnborough.”

Ian Thomas, managing direc-tor of Fluor, added: “Today is a great day for Fluor and for our UK employees. For more than 50 years, Fluor has been active in many key UK markets such as energy and chemicals; power; renewable energy; manufactur-ing and life sciences; nuclear; transportation and telecommu-nications.

“In the UK, we have nearly 1,800 employees working for clients from around the globe helping them meet the needs of their customers in diverse end markets. Farnborough is the ideal place for Fluor to execute our work on behalf of these clients.”

The new UK headquarters will cover 210,000 sq ft and consist of a state-of-the art, four-build-ing complex. One of these will be acquired by Fluor with three other adjoining buildings being taken on long-term leases.

The first phase of construc-tion is expected to be com-pleted in early Q1 2010, with the remaining buildings complete during the course of Q1 and Q2 2010.

IQ Farnborough is a Segro-owned development located approximately 35 minutes south-west of London and adjacent to the Farnborough airport.

The construction marks another important stage in the advancement of the site, with a De Vere Hotel, scheduled to open this month and Segro cur-rently developing a master plan for the next phase of develop-ment.

Manufacturer Ray Hudson is re-locating from Henley-on-Thames and taking up a 10-year lease on Unit 43 at Suttons Business Park in Reading.

Commercial property consul-tancies Lambert Smith Hampton and Haslams, acting on behalf of landlord Standard Life Invest-ments, have arranged RHL’s lease of the 4,590 sq ft industrial space.

RHL is relocating from Henley following a fire at the company’s previous premises. Rosemary Hudson, director at RHL, explained: “Standard Life Investments offered a competitive

package that allows our com-pany time to evolve and expand into one unit, rather than several units as we had previously. Good access to the M4 and 24-hour security were other factors in the decision-making process for choosing Suttons Business Park.”

RHL provides low energy yet powerful fans for domestic and commercial use, as well as manufacturing controls, ventila-tion panels, grilles, ducting and bespoke ventilation systems.

Office and warehouse units are available on the park from 3,000 to 20,000 sq ft.

Manufacturer relocates to Suttons

Aitchison Raffety has expanded its property management divi-sion by setting up additional property management teams in its Milton Keynes and London offices to link with its existing High Wycombe operation.

“In using the three offices we can offer clients a more respon-sive service and the benefits associated with having local property managers. Our clients are also able to benefit from our other services including build-

ing surveying, valuations, rating appeals and commercial and residential agency,” said direc-tor Miles Awdry.

“In the current economic climate it is encouraging to be able to provide a cost-effective service to clients and one which enables our own company to develop,” he added.

Aitchison Raffety manages properties for investor and pri-vate clients throughout England and Wales.

Property management business expands

property42



What is an FRA?An FRA is the assessment of fire safety provisions in a building or workplace, and the management of fire safety. It involves a full evalu-ation of the premises in terms of fire safety hazards and provides a clear and concise report on how to minimise fire risks. It includes a re-view of the provision and position-ing of fire extinguishers, fire safety systems and an evaluation of the fire safety management systems and procedures.

Why do you need an FRA?The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, effective October 1, 2006, places a legal duty on building owners and occupiers (the responsible person) to ensure all buildings (except single family dwellings) have in place an FRA. Additionally, if more than five peo-ple are employed, the FRA must be in writing.

Who is responsible for an FRA?All premises must have an FRA with only a few exceptions. Em-

FRAs – a legal obligationAndrew Marsden, a director of Head Projects Building Control, explains why companies need a Fire Risk Assessment (FRA) and advises on how they should be commissioned

Andrew Marsden

ployers are solely responsible for fire safety within their workplaces and the identified responsible per-son within the company therefore takes full corporate liability. The employer must conduct a fire risk assessment regardless of the size of the risk.

What do those responsible for fire safety need to understand?The responsibility is now more than just protecting people from fire related harm. It means complying with all the regulations including ensuring the safety of property, the fire brigade and even passers-by. Additionally, the responsible person must ensure all members of staff have completed Fire Training and Fire Warden Training as appropri-ate.

My company has a fire certificate, is this enough?No, fire certificates no longer meet the legislative requirements and need to be replaced by an up to date FRA. All existing fire legisla-tion has been repealed and was

replaced by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order.

What happens if I do not have an FRA?Without a current assessment, the Fire Service may serve a notice to alter the building or restrict its use. Failure to comply with the notice could lead to prosecution and a fine. In extreme circumstances, manslaughter charges could be brought against the responsible party in the event of a death by fire.

How do I obtain an FRA?You need to contact a company that can provide you with a quali-fied, experienced and knowledge-able fire risk assessor. On comple-tion of the assessment, you should be provided with a report that will advise how to deal with outstand-ing issues in an order of priority.

Head Projects Build-ing Control is part of the Romans Group. Marsden has compre-hensive knowledge

of the building regulations and associated legislations, and a wealth of experience in education, health care, commercial and retail developments. He also has special-ist knowledge in fire safety, fire engineering and fire risk assess-ments, and is able to provide FRAs across the entire country.

Details: Andrew [email protected]

AdVantage, the newly-refur-bished office development on Castle Street in Reading, has achieved a BREEAM rating of “Excellent” – only the second building in the town ever to receive the accolade.

“Excellent” is the highest rat-ing under the BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Envi-ronmental Assessment Meth-od/2006) scoring system. Chris Reeve, director with Lambert

Smith Hampton’s Reading office, which is marketing the grade A scheme, commented: “It is rare for a such a high environmental rating to be awarded; Clearwater Court, Thames Water’s head-quarters, is believed to be the only other building in Reading with this BREEAM award.”

Property fund and asset man-agement company Valad put environmental credentials high on the AdVantage refurbish-

‘Excellent’ environmental AdVantageKits-Direct is the latest customer of Slough Trading Estate’s Enter-prise Quarter having taken a 585 sq ft (54 sq m) unit at 915 Yeovil Road.

Established in 2001 and previously based in Datchet, Kits-Direct specialises in supplying personalized sports and corpo-rate wear. It has built a solid cus-tomer base, including local sports clubs and has steadily grown its database of corporate clients.

Michael Stanley, managing director of Kits-Direct, explained: “Following our steady growth we decided to move to Slough Trading Estate. With over 400 businesses located on the estate, we believe the new location will assist us in gaining new business and retaining existing customers.

“Our intention now, is to focus on developing the company web-site with a view to maximizing our potential in the sports and corpo-rate sector. We believe the new unit on Yeovil Road will be key in helping to grow the business.”

The Enterprise Quarter is designed to provide flexible work space and business support to small and medium-sized compa-nies. It offers space ranging from 500 sq ft – 2,000 sq ft with easy-in and easy-out leases.

Kitted out and custom-madement agenda. “Green” features

include light-sensitive fluores-cent lighting, thermally efficient exterior double glazing and water saving devices.

The £2.5 million refurbish-ment has delivered a new 24,915 sq ft office to Reading town centre. Other features include new exterior cladding, high-spec air-conditioning, new internal finishes, raised floors and DDA-compliant toilets/showers.

Architects Barton Wilmore worked on the design of Ad-Vantage as well as Clearwater Court. Architect Greg Cunning-ham said: “The environmen-tal credentials of both these buildings are hugely impressive, and show that both new-build and refurbished buildings can achieve excellent environmental standards. In both cases we have utilised the most appropri-ate design solutions, incorpo-rating the latest technology, to reduce the carbon footprint of each building.”

Watkins Payne Partnership coordinated the BREEAM proc-ess and specified the mechani-cal and electrical systems. Scott Osborn was the main contractor. Jones Lang LaSalle acts as joint marketing agent.

international trade 43



Within the space of the last few months British goods have become more affordable for our Eurozone neighbours. But where to start? While there are 16 countries to choose from, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are on our doorstep and have been strong business partners of the UK for a long time.

Belgium is the UK’s sixth largest export market and the Netherlands is the fifth. Lux-embourg may be small but its economy is heavily dependent on international trade based mainly around banking, insur-ance, telecommunications and the steel industry.

“My advice for any UK com-pany considering exporting for the first time,” says David Bax, International Trade Adviser, UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), “is to consider Benelux coun-tries as a stage one project. Other European markets, where language considerations and regulatory conditions are more difficult, can be tackled at a later stage. There is a plethora

Go east and sellSterling is cheap and the Benelux markets are close and open for business; so what are you waiting for? writes Richard Willsher

of support organisations that can assist you with your export sales into Benelux and distance for a brief market visit is no obstacle.”

He lists UKTI as a first port of call in researching the market and finding out what incentives might be available to assist trade with Benelux. But he also highlights the Export Market Research Scheme, service provided by the British Cham-bers of Commerce that helps UK companies develop an entry strategy for new over-seas markets. The Netherlands British Chamber of Commerce has offices in both London and

Amsterdam and can be useful in locating clients and agents or distributors in Holland. Likewise the Belgian Luxembourg Cham-ber of Commerce is another useful networking organization while The Enterprise Europe Network assists UK companies in finding agents, distributors or suppliers in any of the 40+ countries within its reach.

So does the Benelux market welcome trade with UK com-panies? David Bax replies: “A resounding yes to this one; providing the goods are of high quality competitively priced and delivered on time… Dutch com-panies often approach UK com-panies with interesting products or services offering strong USP’s, in particular those they have heard of or have carried out market research to locate. UK companies should naturally respond to the interested Ben-elux company.

“However they should also bear in mind that there may

also be more suitable partner companies to do business with. Most UK companies do business in Benelux with distributors, agents and joint venture deals. Therefore the best recommendation is that… UK companies should carry out more in-depth research before choosing which companies to partner with.”

So wide is the range of UK produced goods and indeed UK services that are sold in these three markets that the key is to try and identify where yours might fit in. At times when the UK is already in the grip of recession and the rest of Europe is follow-ing hard on our heels, there is mutual advantage to be seized. There is a natural fit for UK com-panies needing to sell products and those in Benelux countries needing to buy cheaper, so there is every good reason to give it a go in the markets from which we are only separated by a short stretch of the North Sea.

Source: UK trade statistics / CIA World Factbook

Population(million)

GDP(billion)

UK exports (£ – billion)

UK imports (£ – billion)

Belgium 10.4 $399 (£282) 11.8 15

Luxembourg 0.48 $41 (£29) 0.27 0.7

Netherlands 16.6 $687 (£487) 15.0 23.0

Total 26.97 $1,127 (£798) 27.07 38.7

Benelux – the basics

A seminar organised by UK Trade & Investment South East last month aimed to show that any misgivings about trading with Russia were often the result of outdated perceptions and that this huge market presented op-portunities across the board.

Doing Business in Russia, at the Holiday Inn, Gatwick, featured advice from experts including Stephen Dalziel, execu-tive director of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce, and Mark McCrory, head of commer-cial section at UKTI Moscow; as well as up-to-date contributions from companies, highlighting the key business and cultural chal-lenges of trading in Russia.

Avis Europe, headquartered at Bracknell, is in the process of entering the Russian market. Ian Roberts, regional director – Scandinavia and Central/Eastern Europe, talked about the issues they were facing and the factors other businesses targeting this market needed to take into ac-count.

By contrast, Mott MacDon-ald’s Simon Harrison spoke from the point of view of a company that has been successfully trad-ing in Russia for a number of years.

The case for trading with the other high-growth markets that make up the BRICs (Brazil, Rus-sia, India, China) is already well made, particularly, for India and China, but the case for Russia is also compelling. It is now the 10th-largest economy in the world – GDP having grown by over two-thirds in seven years – with a quickly growing middle class.

By 2030, Russia is likely to be the largest market – and the larg-est economy – on the European landmass, presenting long-term trading possibilities. For south east companies, relevant sectors currently include: advanced en-gineering; financial services; ICT; power/energy; sports & leisure; infrastructure; retail products; and healthcare.

Russia is generally welcoming to British business and expertise. The UK is the largest source of foreign direct investment into Russia; and UK exports were up by 37% in 2007/8. But there is scope for greater activity, par-ticularly among SMEs, as it is not just the UK majors, like Shell and BP, doing well there.

In fact, rather than oil and gas, Russian growth is now driven by entrepreneurs setting up a wave

of new businesses, and by grow-ing consumerism in Moscow – shopping malls are springing up across the capital – and in the regions.

Tackling the Russian market does present challenges – mar-ket access issues, bureaucracy, and the time and patience it takes to develop the long-term relationships necessary to do business there. But these obsta-cles are often exaggerated, and they are offset by high profit mar-gins and the professionalism of the hard-working, well-educated Russian business class.

In the current economic downturn, Russia is not a market that British companies can afford to ignore.

As Lev Denker, Russia special-ist and International Trade Ad-viser with UKTI South East says: “The Guildford seminar was a great chance for companies interested in doing business in Russia to hear expert advice on the opportunities there for UK companies and unbiased opinions on the current political, business and cultural environ-ment.”

Delegates were also be able to sign up to a market visit to Russia later this year.

Seminar highlights the Russian marketIt’s commonly accepted that 2009 will confront many companies in the south east with business-threatening crises. Surrey crisis communications expert Stuart Hyslop believes many board-level managers will not cope well.

Hyslop, who is the managing director of Esher-based Surrey House Corporate Communica-tions, and a contributing editor to a new business advisory book on crisis communication, trains and conducts real-time exercises with senior people in multinational companies worldwide.

He says: “As we move into what everyone acknowledges is going to be a tough and challenging year, those sitting in the hot seats can expect things to warm up consider-ably, whether it be financial, supply chain or staffing or reputational issues that test their skills. Either way, their actions, or inaction, will come under close scrutiny.

“It can take years for a com-pany’s share price to recover fully after a crisis, especially if it’s believed it was handled badly. My advice would be to get some crisis management training ... and soon.”

Details: www.surreyhouseuk.comwww.koganpage.com

Will you be able to take the heat?

international trade44



Yet these are not necessarily mutually exclusive propositions. International trade is a positive option that can help companies not just weather the downturn but position themselves to reap greater rewards when recovery begins – to survive and thrive.

But precisely how do compa-nies go about making themselves leaner, more efficient, better able to withstand the pressures of the downturn , and at the same time look for new business abroad, without weakening their ability to bounce back and take advantage of the opportunities that will be there when economic growth returns?

Through a series of free Sur-vive & Thrive Business Breakfast Briefings in the south east during March, UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), plans to provide some of the answers and help companies meet the challenges ahead.

With key partners HSBC, Busi-ness Link, MAS South East (a manufacturing advisory service funded by the Department for Business), and Finance South East, UKTI will present a pack-age of practical advice focusing on the central issue of finance and incorporating 30 top tips for winning business in difficult times.

Themes to be considered in-clude: sourcing finance; business assistance; managing financial risk through exporting and cost control; and how to access up-to-date information suitable for your industry sector.

UKTI business breakfasts provide recipe for present survival and future prosperityBusiness confidence has sustained a number of huge body blows in recent months. Uncertain how long the economic downturn will last, or how deep it will be, companies are understandably cautious. Do they base their plans on simply getting through, or should they take what appears the riskier decision to look further ahead and plan for growth?

As well as the opportunity to tap into the knowledge and experience of industry experts, the briefings will give compa-nies the chance to network with like-minded businesses, potential customers and suppli-ers. Delegates will also receive a free Top Tips booklet, full of essential guidance and intel-ligence.

There are numerous expert support organisations that companies can turn to in tough economic times, but the workshop roadshow gives businesses across the region the chance to access all this expertise at the same time, in a location convenient to them.

The roadshow will cover a wide area, visiting Maidstone (on March 24), Southampton (March 25), Oxford (March 26), Reading (March 30) and Gat-wick (March 31).

Each of the contributing or-ganisations will lead a session at the seminars, considering key themes and strategies for managing the downturn:

HSBC will talk about •securing funding and business development;Finance South East will •give advice on how to source investment;Business Link will of-•fer general business advice;MAS South East, will •look at the specific challenges facing manu-facturing businesses;

and UKTI will concen-•trate on tips you can use to take advantage of ex-panding markets around the world and spread your financial risk.

Oxfordshire company Natural Balance Foods is one SME in the region that has always seen itself as an international opera-tion. It views exports as a cru-cial vehicle for developing its business, spreading risk, and as an investment in the future.

The company was founded by brothers Greg and Jamie Combs in 2005. They could hardly have dreamt that, just three years later, British athletes would be taking their healthy snacks to the Olympics in Beijing; or that they would win a Grand Prix for product in-novation at the prestigious SIAL 2008 food and drink exhibition in Paris. Both of these events generated valuable PR, added new distribution and further reaffirmed their commitment towards the export market.

Natural Balance Foods makes two brands of healthy snacks – “Nakd” and “Trek”, the latter a slow-release energy bar, and neither containing any added chemicals or sugar.

“The products have to be good, taste good, and do good,” explains co-founder Greg Combs. “We ensure that everything we sell promotes at least one charitable cause.”

“One of the key successes of the products is that they are universally accepted and liked all over Europe,” adds Combs. “This fact alone has really helped us in our mission to internationalise.”

Export sales represent a rela-tively small proportion of overall turnover (18%), but – in the cur-rent economic climate – Combs believes that, if anything, the company is now more aggres-sive in its international strategy, particularly in terms of pricing, assisted by the decline in the value of sterling.

Natural Balance Foods prod-ucts are already sold in six Eu-ropean countries. The company used support available through UKTI’s Passport to Export

scheme to test markets in Nor-way, Sweden, Ireland and the Netherlands, and now exports consistently to those countries, as well as to Belgium, and occasionally to Hungary. They have also just started doing business in France.

“There is nothing more valu-able than having a broad-based export portfolio,” says Combs. “It provides stability – which is particularly valuable in the current difficult times. Some businesses may be thinking, short-sightedly, that exporting is riskier and more trouble than relying solely on the domestic market – and it does require effort – but you are planting seeds for the future.”

Asked to give a top tip of his own for winning business during a downturn, Combs said: “The downturn has caused us as a management team to more thoughtfully identify the key actions needed to achieve our goals, and to put aside many of the more secondary activities and expenses. This exercise has really brought our team together, made us leaner and actually made us a bit more optimistic about the future”.

Chris Burchell, executive manager of UKTI South East’s International Trade Team, adds: “Natural Balance Foods is an excellent example of an SME that, rather than reining in its export activity during the downturn, is judiciously looking to increase it, identifying key markets for future growth. At our series of Survive & Thrive Busi-ness Breakfasts, we aim to show that with careful assessment and consideration, there are practical steps that companies like Natural Balance Foods can take to reduce costs and make themselves more efficient during the downturn, and take advan-tage of the short and medium-term opportunites that expand-ing markets currently offer.

To book onto the Survive & Thrive Business Breakfasts, see details below:

Details: 01453-872731Keystone Conference and Eventswww.keystone-group.co.uk/ukti/southeast


peoplewww.businessmag.co.uk 45

Buckinghamshire New Univer-sity’s vice chancellor and chief executive Professor Ruth Farwell has been elected chair of the higher education body GuildHE.

GuildHE is an inclusive body representing universities, uni-versity colleges and specialist institutions. Farwell is currently one of two GuildHE vice-chairs. She was unanimously elected in January and will take up her appointment in August, serving until November 2011.

Farwell succeeds Prof David Baker, principal of University College Plymouth, who said: “She will be an excellent chair at a time when our contribution to UK higher education will be of such crucial importance.”

Doyle Clayton has appointed two new partners, Tina Wisener (above) and Adri-enne Brown, to its expanding Reading office. Vanessa Pot-ter has also been promoted to associate.

The firm’s commitment to the Thames Valley also contin-ues to grow, with a move on the cards to larger premises in central Reading.

Grant Thornton has transferred Jonathan Griffin from its east Midlands office to lead its private client services team in Oxford.

Griffin said: “It is a privilege to be asked to head up this client team, which is part of a long-es-tablished and successful office. I look forward to helping existing and new clients in Oxfordshire to achieve their financial goals.”

Janet Crookes, manag-ing partner at Oxford, added: “Jonathan’s expertise in advis-ing private clients will further strengthen the 55-strong Oxford tax team. Like our other tax partners he is used to dealing with entrepreneurs and their businesses and will interact seamlessly with our audit and corporate finance practices.”

Wil Honner, James Stares and Caroline Turnbull (above) are the latest editions to Pricewa-terhouseCoopers, joining its business recovery services practice.

Honner and Turnball will be based in the Thames Valley of-fice and Stares will be based in Southampton. Each of the new joiners has extensive experi-ence in advising stakeholders of troubled businesses.

David Bennett, PwC head of business recovery services in the Thames Valley and south coast said: “Businesses across the region currently face a very challenging time and the services that we provide can help stakeholders to navigate through these challenges.”

Stephen Hurrell has joined Wokingham-based HP Archi-tects as director of architecture.

Having run Hurrell Architec-ture from Alresford, Hamp-shire, for the past three years – previously he was a partner/director in a Southampton practice – Hurrell has almost 30 years’ experience in oversee-ing architectural design, client relationship, liaison and project coordination.

Hurrell’s experience spans from small refurbishments to new-build offices and major commercial and residential projects.

He has undertaken project coordination of several new-build garden centres, averaging around £5m per project.

Last month marked a change for B P Collins as David Stanning took over as senior partner from Ian Johnson, who has led the firm for the past 10 years.

Stanning, who until recently headed up the corporate and commercial team, has more than 30 years’ experience and excellent relationships both with clients and with the business community in the Thames Valley.

Paying tribute to his pred-ecessor, he said: “Ian’s contribu-tion during his long and extraor-dinarily hard-working tenure as senior partner has earned the respect and appreciation of all of us and we thank him for this.

“I look forward to B P Col-lins making the best use of the opportunities presented by the current economic climate.”

Andy Simpson has been ap-pointed head of region, Thames Valley, at Barclays Commercial Bank, where he has overall accountability for the sales and service coverage teams in both the SME and corporate space, and is responsible for c£50 million of income, over 2,500 customers and c85 staff.

Simpson has held several senior positions at Barclays and has an outstanding record of building and developing sales teams across a number of different businesses, includ-ing the retail and commer-cial banking sectors. These previous roles have seen him lead on national-basis client acquisition strategies, sales culture programs and strategic alliances.

Berkshire-based office fit-out and refurbishment company Oaktree Interiors has appoint-ed Carl Marsh as its new managing director.

The internal promotion for Marsh, formerly contracts director, becomes effective from April 2 and comes after more than 10 years’ service, during which the company has achieved year-on-year growth.

Marsh commented: “I am truly honoured to be recognised with this promo-tion, and although we face a year which will undoubt-edly be tough, we believe that the team in place is well positioned to capitalize on the reputation that we have gained throughout a very competitive industry.”

The Oxford office of Manches solicitors has appointed Sarah Moreton as an associate to join its property litigation team.

Moreton will act for both landlords and tenants in relation to disputes involving business and residential leases, business lease renewals and termina-tions.

diary46



To have your business event included in this monthly diary, email details to: [email protected]

March

4 “Employers’ Annual Returns”, HM Revenue & Customs workshop, Reading. Details: 0845-603-2691.

5 “Green IT”, DTP Group seminar, Newbury. Details: Karen Pearson 01635-295665.

5 “My MD Interview”, IoD event, Taplow House Hotel. Details:

www.iod.com6 “Effective Communication”, Cham-

ber event, Slough. Details: www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk6 Bracknell Business Breakfast,

Chamber event. Details: www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk6 “Bid Writing & Tendering”, Busi-

ness Link workshop, Basingstoke. Details: 01732-878555.

6 “Meet your local MP”, FSB break-fast event, Loudwater.

Details: 0118-9615444.9 “Employers’ Annual Returns”, HM

Revenue & Customs workshop, Reading. Details: 0845-603-2691.

10 Slough Business Lunch, Chamber event, Burnham. Details:

www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk11 Reading Business Breakfast, Cham-

ber event, Malmaison Hotel. Details: www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk

12 West Berks Business Lunch, Cham-ber event, Thatcham. Details:

www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk13 Wycombe Business Breakfast,

Chamber event. Details: www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk13 “Employers’ Annual Returns”, HM

Revenue & Customs workshop, Slough. Details: 0845-603-2691.

17 Open networking evening, Chamber event, Thame. Details:

www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk17 Wokingham Business Lunch, Cham-

ber event, Cantley House Hotel. Details:

www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk17 “Green Advantage”, Tourism South

East/Business Link workshop for hotels, hospitality, leisure busi-nesses, Kingston Bagpuize.

Details: 0845-600-9006.

18 “Projects Forum – Keeping the Deals Flowing”, Manches LLP event, Oxford.

Details: 01865-813657.19 “Finance Made Simple”, Chamber

event, Slough. Details: www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk19 Networking evening, FSB event,

Wokingham. Details: 0118-9615444.20 “Employers’ Annual Returns”, HM


20 “Becoming Self-employed”, HM Revenue & Customs workshop, Slough.

Details: 0845-603-2691.23 “Advanced Sales Techniques”, East

Berkshire College course, Langley. Details: 01753-443855.

24 “Employers’ Annual Returns”, HM Revenue & Customs workshop, Reading. Details: 0845-603-2691.

24 “Selling pension liabilities”, free seminar, Amersham. Details:

www.barnett-waddingham.co.uk24 “Dealing with Difficult People”, East


24 “Appraisal Skills“,East Berkshire College course, Langley.

Details: 01753-443855.25 “Strategy Implementation”, CMI

event, Guildford. Details: www.managers.org.uk25 Reading Business Lunch, Chamber

event, Penta Hotel. Details: www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk25 “Becoming Self-employed”, HM

Revenue & Customs workshop, Reading.

Details: 0845-603-2691.25 “InFocus Employment Law”, BP

Collins seminar re: legislation update, Gerrards Cross.

Details: 01753-279006.25 “Managing and Improving Perform-

ance”, East Berkshire College course, Langley.

Details: 01753-443855.25 “Effective Communication”, East


26 “Marketing Skills for Manufactur-ers”, MAS South East seminar, Slough-Windsor Copthorne Hotel. Details: Lee Anne West

01763-852861.26 “Employers’ Annual Returns”, HM


26 “Managing Sickness Absence: Practical Tips for Employers”, Doyle Clayton seminar, Reading.

Details: 0118-9596839.26 “When the going gets tough...busi-

nesses get tougher”, Manches LLP, Oxford.

Details: 01865-813657.26 “Stress Management”, East


27 Slough Business Breakfast, Cham-ber event, Copthorne Hotel. Details: www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk

27 “Becoming Self-employed”, HM Revenue & Customs workshop, Newbury. Details: 0845-603-2691.

27 “Meet your local MP”, FSB breakfast event, Aylesbury.

Details: 0118-9615444.31 Henley Business Breakfast, Cham-

ber event, Hotel du Vin. Details: www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk

April

1 Planning & Property Forum, Cham-ber event, Oxford.

Details: 01753-870500.3 Business Leaders’ Forum, Chamber

event, Henley. Details: 01753-870500.3 Bracknell Business Breakfast,

Chamber event. Details: www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk7 Oxfordshire Business Breakfast,

Oxford. Details: www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk8 Reading Business Breakfast, Cham-

ber event, Mortimer. Details: www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk9 West Berks Business Lunch, Cham-

ber event, Thatcham. Details: www.thamesvalleychamber.co.uk

[email protected]

Writers: John Burbedge; Terry Woodhouse; Richard Willsher; Alison Dewar; Arif Mohamed; Jackie Storer

Photographers: Dave Marriott, Leigh Quinnell

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Last month, Barclays, title sponsor of the Barclays Premier League, organised an official coaching session with Chelsea Football Club for Barclays Com-mercial Bank clients Harlington School, Shooting Stars Hospice and Lanesborough School.

Eleven students from Harling-ton School, six students from Lanesborough School and 11 patients from Shooting Stars Hospice all enjoyed a fantastic day at Stamford Bridge, the home of Chelsea Football Club, where they met their Chelsea heroes Deco and Paulo Ferreira.

The guests asked the players questions about being football-ers, playing for Chelsea and what they like to do in their

Barclays coaching session with Chelsea FC

spare time. The group posed for photos, collected the players’ autographs and were treated to watching the first team train. At the end of the day Harlington and

Lanesborough School students had a coaching session by the club coaches and Shooting Stars Hospice guests toured the ground and club museum.

Paulo Ferreira and Deco answering questions at the event

Keeping Britain on the move

BR2262 – FEB 09 – SOUTHAMPTON AIRPORT BUSINESS MAGAZINE – TRIM: 297X210MM – 4-COL – LAST MOD: 09.02.09 –PROOF: 1 INSERTION: FEBRUARY 2009 CD: 11.02.09

• High frequency shuttle schedules

• 10 UK and 7 European KeyBusiness routes fromSouthampton Airport

• Up to 6 flights a day from Southampton

Helping deliver yourbottom line – withoutasking for sacrifices.

BR2262 SOU BIZ MAG A4 PATH 9/2/09 3:36 pm Page 1

MolehillCommercial disputes take up valuable and sometimes disproportionate resources. Pitmans’ astute and pragmatic advice can prevent problems growing into major issues. From overdue debt to complex international trade disputes, Pitmans endeavours to ensure that molehills do not turn into mountains. There is usually an alternative.

Understanding businessPlease contact: Sue O’BrienPitmans 47 Castle Street Reading RG1 7SR T: +44 (0) 118 958 0224 F: +44 (0) 118 958 5097E: [email protected]

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