A Year in Yorkshire Business – Review of the Year part one

IT took a while for the deal market to warm up in Yorkshire in 2013 but ice cream business R&R’s acquisition by private equity firm PAI Partners was one of the biggest deals of the year.

As part of the sale in April by Oaktree Capital Management, North Yorkshire-based R&R’s senior management team, including chief executive and executive chairman James Lambert, continue to lead the business and are also investing in the company.

R&R Ice Cream was created in 2006 by Oaktree Capital Management merging Yorkshire-based Richmond Foods with Roncadin, the largest private label manufacturer in mainland Europe.

Back to January and the year started with news that a prominent property in Harrogate, Beech Villa and Beech Lodge overlooking the Stray, owned by Meadowhall Shopping Centre developer Paul Sykes had been sold by Knight Frank to an unnamed buyer for £4m, less than the £5m price tag on it when it was put up for sale the previous summer.

Brilliant Law, a new fixed fee legal firm, launched in Leeds with founder Matthew Briggs declaring it the world’s first law firm to be established by non-lawyers since the approval of Alternative Business Structures.

Mr Briggs said Brilliant Law wanted to introduce a series of fixed price packages specifically aimed at start-up businesses and SMES and avoid the traditional billable hours structure.

The arrival of one law firm saw the departure of another in February with Manchester-based Cobbetts which had more than 500 staff across offices in Leeds and Birmingham collapsing with debts of £10m.

It was acquired by rival DWF in a pre-pack deal.

Meanwhile in February businesswoman Jan Fletcher’s Montpellier Estates failed in its £43.5m damages bid against Leeds City Council over a contract to develop the city’s new arena.

Montpellier had claimed for damages from the Council, accusing it of deceit and breach of contract under European procurement law.

However the High Court judgement criticised Mrs Fletcher’s evidence and her firm was later ordered to pay the council’s costs of defending the court case.

That was not the end of it, with a High Court judge ruling in October that the council could pursue her personally for its costs and then in November the council announced it is to take action against Mrs Fletcher after she failed to meet the payment deadline for a £2m interim costs order.

The dispute is likely to rumble on well into 2014.

Two big corporate finance deals took place in February with Yorkshire hair styling brand ghd old by private equity firm Montagu to Lion Capital for an undisclosed sum.

Leeds-based pharmaceuticals manufacturer Rosemont was sold by its private equity owner CBPE Capital to $10bn listed US group Perrigo Company in a deal worth £180m.

Car retailer JCT600 bought £200m turnover Sheffield-based Gilder Group for an undisclosed eight figure sum in March.

In the same month well known Yorkshire businessman John Jackson, who built up suit maker Centaur, died aged 79.

Mr Jackson, a former High Sheriff of West Yorkshire who was awarded the CBE in 2002 for services to the clothing industry and the city of Leeds, was a popular entrepreneur, philanthropist and civic figure in his home city for more than half a century.

Also in March it emerged that former Leeds United director Simon Morris was facing criminal charges surrounding assets he hid when he was made bankrupt.

The 35-year-old, who was jailed in October 2011 for after being found guilty of conspiracy to blackmail his former business partner, was found guilty in August and handed a 20 month prison sentence, suspended for two years, for hiding cash and gold bars away from creditors in Swiss bank accounts.

A court heard how the former Leeds United director, who pleaded guilty to two offences under the Insolvency Act, hid £1.5m of cash and gold bullion when his property business collapsed in 2009.

He also admitted a charge of failing to disclose property to the official receiver between October 8, 2009 and December 14, 2010.

It was Budget time again in March and Chancellor George Osborne revealed how he was planning to revitalise the economy by committing billions of pounds to infrastructure projects, housebuilding and introducing a series of tax breaks for businesses.

Mr Osborne said it was a Budget for an “aspiration nation”.

In April Welcome to Yorkshire announced that the region’s hosting of the Tour de France in 2014 was to receive a £10m government funding boost.