Ben and Phil discuss the fastest-growing food and drink manufacturers in Wales, losses at Huddersfield Football Club, an energy giant’s acquisition of a UK solar installer,and plans for a Manchester skyscraper backed by Robert De Niro.
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00:00The fastest growing food and drink manufacturers in Wales, an energy giant's acquisition of
00:05a UK solar installer, losses at Huddersfield Football Club and plans for a Manchester skyscraper
00:13backed by Robert De Niro.
00:15All coming up in this morning's Business Briefing.
00:18Well, good morning and welcome to the Business Briefing.
00:26I'm Phil Cunliffe.
00:27I'm Ben Butler.
00:28Morning, Ben.
00:29Good to see you.
00:30Good to be doing this with you this morning.
00:33So Ben, you're going to take us to Wales.
00:35We've got a list of all the leading manufacturers.
00:38Yes, that's right.
00:39So we've got four drinks producers.
00:41They're highlighted on a new ranking from Insider, as you say.
00:45And this is just on food and drink companies, isn't it?
00:47Just on food and drink.
00:48So fastest growing food and drink manufacturers in Wales.
00:51So the fastest growing beer producer to start with, that's Rimney Brewery.
00:56So that's behind Hobby Horse, Rimney Dark and Bevan's Bitter Beers.
01:00Are you familiar with that?
01:01I'm not familiar with them, no.
01:03Also we've got other fast growers you're probably familiar with, Radnor Hills.
01:08So they're a soft drinks maker based in Knight and in Powys, so mid Wales.
01:12And also we've got the highest placed drinks business on the list is Prince's Gate Water.
01:18So that's based down in South West Wales in Pembrokeshire.
01:23That was acquired by Nestle back in 2018.
01:26So quite a big firm there.
01:28If you want to see the full list of the fastest 25 growing food and drink companies, that'll
01:33be published in the April-May edition of the Wales Business Insider magazine.
01:37Oh, the magazine.
01:38Yeah, very good.
01:39Well, from Wales, I'm going to Yorkshire.
01:43And obviously we hear a lot about the Premier League clubs, the leading ones, Manchester
01:49United, City, Liverpool and the others, all having huge revenues and big profits and big
01:58salaries as well, of course.
02:00But at the lower end of the Football League, there are losses and things are a little bit
02:05more sticky.
02:06We're reporting this morning in our Yorkshire newsletter about Huddersfield Town Football
02:12Club, which has seen losses grow in the year following the club's relegation to League
02:19One.
02:20So it was in the championships, now in League One.
02:21Well, they've done it in the Premier League a few years ago.
02:24And that's had a significant...
02:25There's not been a league in the last couple of years.
02:28Absolutely, yes.
02:29Yeah, so that's had a knock-on effect on their profits.
02:34The club was taken over by US businessman Kevin Nagel in June 2023, and he had big plans
02:41to invest in the club.
02:42But recently filed accounts show losses of £15 million for the year to end June 2024.
02:50And those losses are up from £6.4 million in 2022-23.
02:58Revenues have actually marginally increased, which is sort of the good news.
03:03But the staff salaries alone have increased by 7% to £23 million.
03:09So you can see there's a shortfall and a gap there.
03:12It shows it's a real difficult operating environment, especially for clubs lower down the pivot.
03:17Very much so.
03:18To get by.
03:19And yeah, so we'll see how that pans out, but not great news coming out of Huddersfield
03:25today.
03:26But you've got an acquisition in other parts of the country this morning.
03:31Yes, so energy giant E.ON UK, they've signed an agreement to fully acquire one of the UK's
03:37largest residential solar installers, in a move aimed at accelerating its growth in
03:43the new builds market.
03:44So the acquisition is of Eco2 Solar.
03:48So they have bases in the Midlands and also Scotland, which is a new area for Insider.
03:52Indeed, yes.
03:53And they've grown to become a major solar installer.
03:56So they're focused on new build homes and apartments across the UK.
04:00So E.ON initially acquired a 49% stake in the company in December 2020, with the full
04:07purchase hoped to drive further growth in the solar installation market.
04:11And today, Eco2 Solar, they've installed solar panels on more than 50,000 homes, generating
04:17around 85 million kilowatt hours of green electricity.
04:20And an interesting fact, that'd be enough to make more than 2.7 billion cups of tea
04:25every year.
04:26Wow.
04:27Half my consumption.
04:28Yes.
04:29So, yeah, no, that's very interesting.
04:31And I guess E.ON will look to increase other services into those domestic customers.
04:38It's a big sector, obviously, with NatZero and green energy.
04:41Indeed.
04:42Yeah, absolutely.
04:43Well, I talked about Huddersfield.
04:45I'm going from there to Hollywood, and a development in Manchester that has some backing from Hollywood
04:53royalty Robert De Niro.
04:55So this is a plan that would be the tallest building in Manchester, well, certainly in
05:02Manchester, but outside the tallest building outside London.
05:06This has been recommended for approval in Manchester.
05:10The skyline, we're on the 24th floor of City Tower here in the middle of Manchester.
05:15But this will be three times the size, on 76 stories.
05:19Some height.
05:20Yeah.
05:21So this could be certainly dominating the skyline of an already high skyline in Manchester.
05:26But the 76 mixed-use Riadux Phase 2 is being developed by Solboy.
05:35Solboy is a development company.
05:38It's owned by Betfred entrepreneur Fred Doan and Simon Ismail.
05:44They're a big name.
05:46Absolutely, in the region.
05:48Nobo Hospitality will introduce the Nobo Hotel Manchester at the site.
05:53And this is backed by, as I say, movie star Robert De Niro and restaurant entrepreneur
05:59Nobo Matsuhisa.
06:02And Nobo Hospitality has 46 hotels and 20 residences in its portfolio now.
06:09But the tower will house 160 hotel rooms.
06:14It will have event spaces and a signature Nobu restaurant and bar.
06:20The development will also introduce 452 Nobo residences.
06:26And this is a first entry into the residential space for Nobo.
06:30It's a big scheme.
06:31Huge scheme.
06:32Very significant.
06:33And we'll be following the development with interest.
06:38So if you'd like to read more about all of those stories and many more,
06:43please go to insidermedia.com and follow the links to all the newsletters across the UK,
06:50including Scotland.
06:52So yeah, that's it from us, from Ben and I this morning.
06:56And we'll hopefully see you again soon.
06:58So have a good rest of the day.