In Brief: Gordons; Leeds Bradford Airport; Humber LEP

A TEAM from Yorkshire law firm, Gordons, have advised on a deal which rescued more than 60 jobs.

The team, led by Peter Barton, advised North West-based cooker manufacturer Glen Dimplex Home Appliances on the deal which saw it buy Britannia Living, which distributes range cookers to the bespoke kitchen market.The Blackpool-based distributor was placed into administration on September 26.

The deal secures the continuation of this well-known Lancashire-based business and preserves the jobs of the 67 employees.
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LEEDS Bradford Airport (LBA) will be promoting Leeds, the city region and Yorkshire at the 19th World Route Development Forum next week.

This annual conference to be held in Las Vegas is a global meeting place for over 3000 delegates from airlines, airports and tourism authorities allowing route development executives from airports worldwide to discuss and plan potential new air services.

Leeds Bradford Airport’s marketing director, Tony Hallwood, said: “This is an ideal opportunity to showcase the region’s business and leisure opportunities from Yorkshire’s gateway airport. Our discussions will focus on strengthening business connectivity and introducing new routes that will help to drive inward investment for the region’s businesses.

“In addition, LBA will be highlighting the excellent inbound tourism opportunities that Leeds and Yorkshire can offer the overseas visitor. With the city region on the world’s stage due to the Gran Depart of the Tour De France next July we expect there will be significant interest from a range of airlines.

“Our aim is to encourage international airlines to introduce new services and frequencies from Leeds Bradford Airport, extending our range of 77 destinations currently available. New routes high on our ‘wish list’ include flights to Scandinavia, Turkey and additional services to France.”
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The Humber Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) said it has been given the message from bankers in the region that they are “open for business”.

At a meeting, the Humber LEP said it was overwhelmingly reported by the banks that in line with national growth indicators, there was a greater confidence from businesses in the region and that local businesses were now making decisions to invest in developments that had previously had been held back.The banks were all keen to say that they were open for business to help businesses to grow and wanted to break through the perceptions that banks were not lending.

Ian Millington, director RBS Corporate Banking, Humber and North Yorkshire, said: “We are lending. The RBS Group has a market share of 24% nationally and is lending 36% of all lending to SMEs so we are punching above our weight.

“What we want do is lend more. I think confidence is increasing but we know we have to play our part and we’re speaking to businesses every day about what we can do to help them invest to grow, which is key to the recovery of the UK economy.”

Anthony Winn, Handelsbanken Grimsby branch manager, added: “We are seeing our corporate customers starting to invest in capital projects, some substantial, which has not been the case in recent years.

“Business owners appear to have restored confidence in the economy and financial outlook to invest their own cash and also borrow. Indeed in recent months the bank is experiencing and agreeing a higher volume of funding requests from our customers.”