Adam and Remy discuss the first food and drink venue for Rotherham's Forge Island, H2 Equity Partners' sale of a vehicle tracking specialist, and Wallace and Gromit.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00A new restaurant, a deal involving private equity, and Wallace & Gromit, featuring today's
00:05business briefing.
00:06Good morning, Remy.
00:07How are you?
00:08Good morning, Adam.
00:09I'm all right.
00:10How are you?
00:11I'm very well, thank you.
00:12I'll kick us off today, because I've picked out a story based on my hometown, actually,
00:13the town of Rotherham in South Yorkshire.
00:14A major development there, Forge Island, in the town centre, the first food and drink
00:15venue.
00:16Part of the Lounges Group, Vetro Lounge, will obviously serve breakfast, lunch, dinner and
00:23drinks, and is due to open on the 30th of April.
00:28The name Vetro Lounge, which is the Italian word for glass, is actually, you know, a nod
00:35to the Italian word for glass, which is the glass that we use to make our drinks.
00:41The name Vetro Lounge, which is the Italian word for glass, is actually, you know, a nod
00:45to the town's glass-making heritage.
00:49It's going to join the ARC cinema at the development, which is already open.
00:53I've actually attended.
00:54I saw the Robbie Williams biopic.
00:57What did you think?
00:58The film was much better than I anticipated.
01:01It's a good cinema.
01:02It's a great cinema, and I'm sure it'll be helped a lot by having some food and drink
01:07options assigned as well.
01:09It's always nice to take food and drink into the cinema.
01:11Yeah, or have a drink beforehand or after.
01:14I like to go for dinner after the film, so you can chat about what you've just seen.
01:17I suppose, I suppose.
01:18But you mentioned ARC cinema there, and late last week I was actually at the new ARC cinema
01:23in Preston.
01:25And why I was there was because, I'm sure you've heard of Wallace and Gromit.
01:29Of course, iconic British institution.
01:33Nothing more British than Wallace and Gromit.
01:34Absolutely not, yeah.
01:35Nothing more Yorkshire, but also Lancashire, I feel like a very uniting force in Britishness.
01:42I think it's one of the few things that brings British people together is the love of Wallace
01:45and Gromit.
01:46I suppose.
01:47You couldn't even say the football does it that way.
01:49No, definitely not.
01:50Well, maybe in the World Cup, but that's about it.
01:52Yeah, well, we'll see next year, won't we?
01:54But yeah, so going back to the reason why I was there was because Nick Park is obviously
02:00the creator of Wallace and Gromit.
02:02He came up with Wallace and Gromit when he was a film student in the 80s, I think.
02:07But he was there to attend and open the new ARC cinema, which is part of this large 45
02:15million animate complex, like a leisure complex.
02:20Yeah.
02:21And it's a huge part of the regeneration of Preston.
02:25And yeah, so I got, obviously, alongside other members of the press, we got to sort of chat
02:30with Nick and also co-director Merlin Crossingham.
02:34At the minute, they're pushing for their fifth Oscar because the Academy Awards is next month.
02:41And I thought it'd be cheeky to see what the sort of mood is at Aardman and among their
02:47team.
02:48And yeah, I won't say what he said, but they seemed hopeful, but also measured, I'll say.
02:55Yeah, of course.
02:56I mean, it is quite a studied category.
02:59It is.
03:00And, you know, win or lose, they had a successful BAFTAs, at least, you know, they won a couple
03:04awards, didn't they?
03:05Yeah, double win.
03:06So, a successful film regardless.
03:10And Adam, I want to keep it in Lancashire because I've got another story that involves
03:14NPIF, which is the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, to funding for a company called WSR Medical
03:23Solutions.
03:24And now they've received $350,000 to sort of expand into global markets and things like
03:31that.
03:32And what they do is they manufacture lead aprons, and that's sort of the core of their
03:37business for things like x-rays, for radiographers.
03:41And I bet you can't guess when they first came into business.
03:47I have no idea.
03:48The 80s?
03:491860.
03:501860.
03:51I didn't even stop.
03:52It was a great company then.
03:53I didn't even think x-rays were around in 1860, but it shows how much I know.
03:58But yeah, so since then, until 2015, they were also family owned, but yeah, and no longer.
04:05And I believe you've got something from Yorkshire for us.
04:08That's right, yeah.
04:09We're a bit of a Northern theme with this episode.
04:11A Leeds-based provider of vehicle tracking and fleet management services has been sold
04:16by H2 Equity Partners to Carriage Commercial Systems, KCS.
04:21The company is RAM Tracking, and they support small and medium-sized businesses with operations
04:26in the UK and North America.
04:28H2 acquired a majority stake in the business from its founder in 2020, and has since supported
04:34the management to help the company grow.
04:36And this has involved investment in sales, marketing, R&D, but also to bolt-on acquisitions.
04:44KCS, the acquirer of RAM, is an ERP and business management software company, and it serves
04:51a wholesale distribution and equipment rental sector, so a significant deal for Yorkshire.
04:57And you can read that story, as well as the others we've spoken about, at insidermedia.com,
05:01where you can subscribe to our newsletters and hear about upcoming events.
05:05That's it from us today.