Laurence and Stephen discuss an MBO at a design agency, a new office for a professional services firm and summer transfer spending.
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00:00An MBO at a design agency, a new office for a professional services firm, and the summer
00:05transfer window spending, featuring today's business briefing.
00:13I'm Stephen Fammill.
00:14And I'm Lawrence Gorgannon.
00:15So, what's caught your eye this morning, Lawrence?
00:18Yes, well, it was actually a deal in the North West, Stephen, and that was the MBO of Manchester
00:24headquartered design agency Epigram.
00:28They are a design agency that works with many of the world's best-known law firms.
00:33And they were established in 1993 by Nicky Owen.
00:38They have diversified from just law firms, but that's a big corner card of theirs.
00:44And they have been acquired an MBO with Susan Siddall, who joined the business in 2018,
00:51taking sole ownership of the business.
00:53Some of the firms that they've worked with include DLA Piper, DWF, Evershed Sutherlands,
00:59among many others.
01:00And the deal actually caught my eye because I noticed in the photograph that we received
01:06that a former insider and a colleague worked at the firm, so that was a nice one to see.
01:14And the deal's going to allow Nicky to sort of carry on with her charity work, which is
01:19great.
01:20Oh, great.
01:22And you mentioned in the intro a new office for a big four firm, so tell us more.
01:27So PwC have opened their new office in Bradford, which is home at the moment to a 179-strong
01:34team.
01:35Now, the firm opened in 2019 originally with 66 people, so already grown very strongly
01:41there, and it's aiming over the next five years to grow that team to 500 strong.
01:45So the new office is a big part of that.
01:47It's a really interesting building at one city park.
01:50We've covered that development fairly frequently over the last few years.
01:54It's been developed by Muse for Bradford Council.
01:57It might be familiar to the guests at our inaugural Yorkshire Placemaking Awards back
02:02in June, where it won the Design Excellence Award.
02:06So yeah, a really new landmark building there for Bradford, and one of a number of big projects
02:13there for every generation.
02:14Yeah, because it's the City of Culture, isn't it, next year?
02:16Yes, next year you've got City of Culture.
02:17But yeah, not stopping there, there's plans for a new rail station, plans for 1,000 homes,
02:23and the West Yorkshire Mass Transit Network would be calling in there as well.
02:27So yeah, a lot of regeneration going on in Bradford at the moment, and it's just one
02:31part of it.
02:32Excellent.
02:33Good.
02:34Well, sticking with property, but over in Northern Ireland, there's a story about Double
02:39Tree by Hilton, which is opening its first location in Northern Ireland's second largest
02:44city dairy, London Dairy.
02:47They are going to be taking over the former City Hotel, which is on the banks of the River
02:52Foyle.
02:53Now, it's sort of well-catered for sort of tourists, but also the business community
02:59as well.
03:00It's a short walk to all the major cultural attractions in the city.
03:04It's also five kilometers from the border, but there's also conference facilities and
03:08what have you, so it suits the business traveler as well.
03:10So it has almost 160 rooms, so a really big boost to Dairy London Dairy's tourism offer.
03:17Another former city of culture, I believe, in Dairy London Dairy.
03:20Yes, that's right.
03:21Yes, indeed.
03:22Big news for agriculture today.
03:23Yes.
03:24So the last thing for us, I think, is the summer transfer spending.
03:28You're a Liverpool fan, Lance, so I suspect not such a happy time for you, but...
03:33No, very interesting, because my view, just as a layperson looking in, was it was quite
03:38subdued summer.
03:39It certainly was for Liverpool.
03:40They had a number of outgoings, but only one big sign, and they're the sort of club you
03:46associate with those big splash sort of headlines.
03:49So what was the overview then?
03:50Well, FIFA found that $6.4 million in total was spent, which is the second highest figure,
03:57but the actual number of transfers, just under 11,000, was the all-time record in men's professional
04:03football.
04:04The English leagues led the way as well, with $1.6 billion spent, again, possibly a surprise
04:10if you've been following the Premier League, if perhaps your club's not spent in the way
04:14you'd like, but yeah, still spending big.
04:18In the women's game, record for both the total amount spent, which was $6.8 million, and
04:25the number of transfers itself, so just over 1,000 there, so yeah, record for men's and
04:30women's professional football.
04:31Right, so perhaps it was more sort of the volume deal rather than sort of the headlines.
04:35Yes, I think this year there was less and, of course, last year you had the Saudi Pro
04:39League spending quite a lot of money as well, so perhaps that's affected some of the figures
04:42too.
04:43Oh, okay.
04:44Well, to find out more about the stories we've been discussing, go to insidermedia.com.
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04:59Anyhow, that's everything from us.
05:00See you next time.
05:01Goodbye.