Technology and innovation creating winners
By Gareth Iley, partner at Clearwater International
This month saw Midlands football club Wolverhampton Wanderers celebrate their return to the premier league, after six years out of the top flight.
The team secured the promotion with a 2-0 win over local rivals Birmingham City. Chinese conglomerate Fosun International bought Wolves for £45m in July 2016, as part of China’s President’s desire to have more involvement in European football, which has been a major factor in the club’s success.
We’ve recently seen digital sports media company Perform acquire specialist software provider Scout7.
Birmingham-based Scout7 provides over 230 global football clubs and associations with multi-platform scouting and recruitment software solutions.
Perform plans to use Scout7 to enhance the portfolio of solutions it currently offers to its sporting clients, to help improve both on-pitch performance and new player recruitment.
As winning games in top flight football becomes increasingly more lucrative, many clubs are turning to technology to make those marginal gains that are needed to help their teams succeed.
The automotive industry saw Jaguar Land Rover announce over 1,000 job cuts after a fall in sales. However, China-based Red Sun Group invested £100m in a new plant in Coventry, for CAD CAM Automotive, which provides lightweight aluminium body shells for up to 15,000 vehicles a year.
It is hoped that the investment will create over 1,000 new jobs in the region. The deal highlights the strength of the region in the automotive space, and the Government have claimed that it is a demonstration of the new ‘Midlands Engine’ concept.
Elsewhere, the largest acquisition of the month was reserved for TNT Business Solutions (TNT BS), which sold its records management division to office services provider Restore for £88m. TNT BS was previously owned by FedEx and currently employs more than 250 people.
The business has five sites in the Midlands, including a freehold site at Swadlincote, Derbyshire. Restore hopes that the acquisition will increase its market share amongst public sector customers, whom TNT BS largely serves.
