Shoplifting has long been a concern for retailers worldwide, but recent events in London have brought the issue to the forefront.

In a shocking turn of events, hundreds of teenagers gathered on Oxford Street, expecting to take part in a mass robbery. The incident, fueled by viral posts on TikTok and Snapchat, left shoppers, store owners, and law enforcement on high alert. This brazen attempt at theft highlights a worrying trend that is going largely unpunished.

The incident on Oxford Street served as a wake-up call for retailers and law enforcement agencies. Social media platforms like TikTok and Snapchat played a significant role in organising this event, with posts inviting participants to wear balaclavas and gloves to “rob JD Sports.” The replication of a successful looting spree in an American candy store the previous year added fuel to the fire.

However, this time, the authorities were prepared. Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, issued a warning, and the Metropolitan Police announced a heavy presence, sending a clear message that anyone committing a crime would face robust action.

Social Media: Amplifying the Problem

Social media platforms have become powerful tools for organizing criminal activities, including shoplifting sprees. The viral nature of posts on TikTok and Snapchat can quickly mobilize a large number of individuals, facilitating the planning and execution of thefts. The anonymity provided by these platforms adds to the allure for potential participants, making it difficult for law enforcement to identify and apprehend the culprits. This incident on Oxford Street highlights the need for stricter regulations and monitoring of social media platforms to combat the rising trend of shoplifting.

Shoplifting not only results in immediate financial losses for retailers but also damages their reputation. The stolen merchandise represents a direct hit to their bottom line, leading to higher prices for honest customers to compensate for the losses. Moreover, incidents like the one on Oxford Street create a sense of insecurity among shoppers, impacting their trust in retailers and their willingness to visit physical stores. Retailers must invest in robust security measures, both physical and digital, to protect their assets and maintain customer confidence.

To combat the rising shoplifting epidemic, there is a pressing need for stricter enforcement and a comprehensive approach that focuses on deterrence and rehabilitation. While heavy police presence during high-risk periods can act as a deterrent, it is equally important to address the underlying causes that drive individuals to engage in such criminal acts. Education and outreach programs can play a crucial role in imparting a sense of responsibility and discouraging potential offenders. Additionally, rehabilitation programs can help reintegrate individuals into society, reducing the likelihood of repeat offences.

The battle against shoplifting requires a collaborative effort between retailers and law enforcement agencies. Retailers must invest in cutting-edge security systems, including surveillance cameras, alarms, and trained security personnel. Sharing information and best practices among retailers can also help identify emerging trends and prevent future incidents. Law enforcement agencies, on the other hand, need to allocate adequate resources and manpower to tackle this growing problem effectively. Close coordination and communication between retailers and law enforcement are crucial for the success of any anti-shoplifting initiatives.

Technological Solutions: Leveraging Innovation to Combat Shoplifting

As shoplifters become increasingly sophisticated, retailers must embrace technological solutions to stay one step ahead. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms can analyze data and detect patterns that may indicate shoplifting activities. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags can help track merchandise within the store, making it easier to identify any attempts at theft. Additionally, facial recognition technology can aid in the identification and apprehension of known shoplifters. Embracing these innovative solutions can significantly enhance the effectiveness of anti-shoplifting efforts.

Raising public awareness about the consequences of shoplifting is crucial in shaping a responsible and law-abiding society. Education campaigns targeting both potential offenders and the general public can help foster a sense of accountability and discourage participation in criminal activities. Public-private partnerships can play a vital role in funding and executing these awareness programs. By working together, we can create a society where shoplifting is seen as unacceptable, and the consequences are widely understood.

Legislation plays a significant role in addressing the shoplifting epidemic. Stricter penalties for offenders, especially repeat offenders, can act as a deterrent. Simultaneously, the legal framework should focus on rehabilitating individuals, providing them with the necessary support systems to overcome the root causes of their criminal behavior. It is essential to strike a balance between punishment and rehabilitation to ensure a fair and effective justice system that protects both retailers and potential offenders.

Shoplifting is a global issue that requires international cooperation to tackle effectively. Sharing best practices and learning from successful anti-shoplifting initiatives in other countries can provide valuable insights and strategies. International conferences and forums can serve as platforms for collaboration and knowledge exchange, fostering a global network committed to combating shoplifting and protecting the interests of retailers worldwide.

The incident on Oxford Street serves as a stark reminder of the growing shoplifting epidemic and the need for concerted action. Retailers, law enforcement agencies, and society as a whole must unite to combat this problem effectively. Stricter enforcement, technological innovation, public awareness campaigns, and international cooperation can all contribute to reducing shoplifting incidents and creating a safer retail environment. By working together, we can send a clear message that shoplifting will not be tolerated, and offenders will face the consequences of their actions. It is time to take a stand against shoplifting and protect the interests of retailers and communities worldwide.

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It’s not often that one person kicks off a whole new beverage category, whilst sampling a jet lag pick-me-up. But Dietrich Mateschitz used his marketing expertise to give birth to Red Bull and then, through that drink’s success, jump start the energy drink universe in the western world.

Mateschitz, who built a multi-billion dollar fortune in the process, has died at age 78. The Red Bull company announced his death on Saturday, saying that the sadness about his passing “will make way for gratitude –gratitude for what he changed, moved, encouraged and made possible for so many individual people.”

Born, on May 20,1944, in Sankt Marein im Murztal in Styria, he studied economics and business at Vienna University before embarking on travels in Asia in a quest for business opportunities. That was when, in Hong Kong in 1982, he came across a drink that locals said gave them an energy boost when they were tired. Mateschitz was a salesman for Blendax toothpaste, and he discovered the concoction because it was marketed by two brothers, the Yoovidhyas, who also happened to market that same brand of toothpaste. After sampling Krating Daeng himself, Mateschitz realised it helped with his jet-lag, and became intrigued.

Krating Daeng was a mixture of guarana, taurine, caffeine, sucrose and ginseng, and Mateschitz modified it by adding carbonated water and finessing it to suit European palates. Red Bull soon became very popular in Austria when launched in 1987, but that was only the start.

He agreed a partnership with Chaleo Yoovidhya, the son of a poor Chinese immigrant who had been born in Siam in 1932, to market the drink worldwide. Each took a 49 percent share, with Chaleo’s son Chalerm taking the remaining two. Yoovidhya and Mateschitz each invested $500,000, and since Krating Daeng translated into Red Bull in Europe and other parts of the globe, Red Bull GmbH was thus born. Mateschitz would run the business from Austria.

Red Bull, which became associated with adventure sports after being banned from doing many main-stream marketing activities due to the sugar content of their drinks went on to own two Formula 1 teams in Red Bull and (initially named) Scuderia Toro Rosso – Red Bull in Italian, off road racing, cycling and and at least four football team owning; German giants RB Leipzig, Austrian side Red Bull Salzburg, MLS franchise the New York Red Bulls and Brazilian outfit Red Bull Bragantino are among the company’s portfolio of football clubs.

Today Red Bull is marketed in more than 160 countries, its annual sales of $5 billion and in October 2021, Mateschitz’s net worth was estimated at US$25.4 billion.

He also created his own media empire, and indulged his passion for historic aircraft by setting up Hangar-7, a very special facility at Salzburg Airport. This housed his impressive collection of military fighters and bombers close to the Red Bull Ring, the former Osterreichring race circuit that he not only rescued but completely rejuvenated. In the Covid pandemic, he funded the Austrian Grand Prix to help keep the sport he loved afloat.

“Money was never a driving force for me,” he once said in a rare interview. “It always came last on the list of motivating things. For me, the driving force has always been freedom and independence and joy in my projects. Joy is the basic requirement for everything you do.”

Capital Business Media, owners of Business Matters, has been proud to work for Red Bull Racing since 2012 and our group managing director, Richard Alvin, spoke about Mateschitz’s passing saying: “there are not many of us, who stumble, tired and jet lagged, when offered a ‘pick-me-up’ go on to turn that 30 second interaction with a drink into a $5 billion annual turnover business known across the globe. Dietrich is clearly in the pantheon of being in the list for the globes best entrepreneurs. Whilst being in the background constantly, he instated that his companies chose to buy from entrepreneurs and SME ‘challenger’ companies first, which resulted in many, many companies being able to grow to greatness on the back of the Red Bull brand,’

Mateschitz lived in Salzburg, reportedly with a long-term girlfriend. He is survived by his only son, Mark.

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Dietrich Mateschitz: One of the worlds leading salesman dies aged 78

Jeremy Hunt hit the TV and radio studios yesterday like a whirlwind. Hours into his new job as chancellor, his task was to calm the financial markets, which had so brutally moved against his predecessor and triggered surging borrowing costs for homeowners.

But has he done enough? Can his words calm turbulent gilt yields when trading opens on Monday morning?

The risk is that markets will be hugely volatile on what will be the first time in two weeks that the Bank of England is not standing behind gilts, or government bonds, ready to buy them to ease pressure on pension funds.

Hunt’s media appearances were seen as an attempt to address the problems Kwarteng had created with the unfunded tax cuts in his mini budget.

Acknowledging that mortgage rates have already rocketed — to as high as 7 per cent, according to some estimates — Hunt pledged credible tax and spending policies. “No chancellor can control the markets or should ever seek to do so. But the thing that is within your power is to demonstrate certainty in public finances,” he told the BBC.

Rupert Harrison, an adviser to George Osborne when he was chancellor and now at BlackRock, said Hunt’s comments were a “turning point”. “Markets now have someone in the Treasury who gets it and who they can trust,” he said.

There has been an unprecedented sell-off of gilts in the past two weeks amid fears that the tax cuts proposed by Kwarteng would fuel inflation and force the Bank of England to raise interest rates. Markets are pricing in a rise of a full percentage point from the Bank next month to take the base rate to 3.25 per cent.

Even after Kwarteng’s replacement by Hunt on Friday afternoon, bond markets kept selling. Some analysts have suggested they will keep attacking until Truss resigns.

Economist Julian Jessop, who has been advising the Truss camp, said Hunt’s pledge of fiscal discipline meant “Trussonomics” had been junked.

“The whole point about Trussonomics was growing the economy … not about a combination of tax cuts and big cuts in spending [the traditional approach]”.

Jessop has previously said that Kwarteng’s mini budget went too far in announcing tax cuts, as this had spooked the markets.

Hunt attempted to show yesterday that he would start work on plans to balance the books ahead of the budget planned for October 31. Unlike with the mini budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility will publish economic forecasts to accompany the government’s fiscal plans.

He acknowledged to the BBC that two mistakes had been made by Kwarteng: abolishing the 45 per cent top rate of income tax; and the decision to “fly blind” without the OBR forecasts. On Friday, Truss also ditched plans to reverse a rise in corporation tax from 19 per cent to 25 per cent. That will raise £18 billion.

Hunt also warned about “difficult decisions” on spending and taxes. “We’re going to ask all government departments to find efficiencies,” he said. “But we’re also going to have pressure on the tax side — taxes are not going to come down by as much as people hoped, and some taxes will have to go up.”

George Buckley, economist at Nomura, said more detail was still needed. The reversal of the corporation tax move, he argued , “goes only a portion of the way”.

Business leaders, as well as the financial markets, were watching Hunt’s performances closely.

Dominic Blakemore, chief executive of FTSE 100 catering giant Compass, said the events of the past few days had been “pretty shocking”. “Throughout, we’ve needed robust, fully costed plans, because markets just can’t operate without that and in a vacuum,” he explained.

Phil Urban, chief executive of FTSE 250 pub chain Mitchells & Butlers, called the situation “ shambolic”. “Business is probably realising that it can’t rely on government or politics to sort things out. So we’re just focusing on what is in our gift to do,” said Urban.

One FTSE 100 boss, who did not want to be identified, resorted to expletives to describe his frustration. Describing Truss and Kwarteng as “goons”, he added: “Every single household is spending most of their time trying to balance their books, and our f***ing prime minister and chancellor don’t have to? Are you f***ing taking the piss?”

His view was that Truss also had to go, to restore credibility. And that may be what the markets start to demand when trading resumes on Monday.

Jessop said: “I don’t think Hunt did anything that would upset the markets or surprise them. But markets don’t like uncertainty. Uncertainty about economic policy — that’s maybe eased a little bit. But now we’ve got an increase in political uncertainty as we can’t be sure who the prime minister is going to be next weekend.”

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Has Hunt done enough to stave off another Black Monday after an absolutely crazy political week?

So much cash was saved in lockdown, but now consumers appear reluctant to part with it. Paul Jones reports

When people are in a good mood — that’s when Stefano Vallebona reckons his Italian delicatessen performs best. So when the Sardinian, who has lived in London for 25 years, observes that the well-heeled customers of his shop in Wimbledon are spending less than they were when the country came out of lockdown, it could be an ominous sign.

“Everybody is super cautious — there’s lots of uncertainty,” said Vallebona, who had benefited from buoyant trade when Covid-19 restrictions were in place and customers were splashing out on his luxurious food and drink items to enjoy at home. For now, though, that trade seems to have passed. “I don’t think people are celebrating anything at the moment,” said Vallebona, 54, who runs the business with his wife, Naoko.

His experience reflects the findings of recent surveys showing that consumer sentiment has dipped in recent weeks after the outbreak of euphoria when lockdowns were lifted and consumers could once again visit pubs and clothes shops.

The Bank of England has noticed too. When Andrew Bailey, the governor, stunned the financial markets on Thursday by announcing that interest rates would remain at their record low of 0.1 per cent, he pointed to signs of weaker consumer spending as a reason to delay the expected hike to 0.25 per cent.

Hopes have been resting on consumers to power the economy out of its deepest contraction in 300 years, as Covid restrictions eased. During those lockdowns, households amassed savings because, with shops and restaurants closed and holidays thwarted by travel restrictions, they could no longer spend in the usual way. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the government’s independent fiscal watchdog, those “excess savings” — the total in people’s bank accounts above normal — amount to £180 billion, or an average of £6,474 per household.

As the harshest of Covid restrictions came to an end this spring, the Bank of England and the Treasury wanted to persuade the public to start eating into their savings. Spend, spend, spend was the rhetoric. As Andy Haldane, then chief economist at the Bank, said in March: “I very much want as much of that to be spent as possible, because that’s what creates the jobs for those who might have lost their jobs.”

It has not yet happened. In fact, deposits with banks and building societies and cash saved in National Savings & Investments accounts rose by £9.4 billion in September, nearly twice the £4.8 billion average increase in the two years before the pandemic, said Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Rob Wood, chief UK economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said it had to be assumed that the public was now saving by choice. And that could be a troubling behavioural trend when it comes to spending longer term. “It’s not the picture you’d want to see if you were really positive on consumption growth driving the economy next year,” Wood said.

The OBR assumes that households will spend 5 per cent of these extra savings each year for five years; the Bank of England assumes 10 per cent will be spent over three years. “Whether consumers spend this money or not is central to whether the Bank needs to hike interest rates. If households keep saving at this rate, the Bank does not need to hike rates,” Wood said.

So the motivation of consumers is now facing scrutiny to establish when they might stop building up their savings and splurge the cash again, or to gauge whether the habits developed during the lockdowns will persist.

Charlotte Duke, a partner at the consultancy London Economics and a behavioural economist, said that spending habits changed during the pandemic, with more shopping online and less spending in, for example, restaurants and high street shops. And now, she added, those habits are changing again.

“Cautious spending” is now her description — caution about our financial security, but also about the way in which we live our lives more generally, having been through the collective shock of the pandemic.

“As lockdown eased — we’re social beings — we wanted to be with people, so we saw an increase in our spending behaviour,” Duke said. “But as we settle back down again, and perhaps learn to live with Covid, we’re also now in a broader world of uncertainty. It’s not just Covid — it’s climate change, it’s energy prices, Ii’s healthcare … We will continue to be cautious.”

That is why she thinks that the drawdown in savings predicted six months ago will not take place — at least for now. “What we’re seeing is uncertainty over things that we don’t really have control over,” she said.

The picture might also be muddied by the peculiar shape of the economy as it pulls out of the Covid-induced downturn. The rate at which people save usually goes up in recessions, said Simon French, chief economist at the investment bank Panmure Gordon. That’s most probably because people are concerned about their jobs.

But, for the moment at least, job losses are not mounting. In fact, as the Bank of England pointed out on Thursday, the unemployment rate actually fell to 4.5 per cent in the three months to August — and the number of people on payrolls has been rising. “I wonder whether, having started saving at a faster rate, households have just, dare I say, got into the habit of it,” French said.

In July 2020, as the economy was reopening for the first time, Peter Levell, at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and fellow researchers tried to find out how the pandemic was affecting people’s attitudes to spending. They asked the public how they would behave if they were given an additional £500. The answer was that they would spend an average of just £50. Perhaps surprisingly, there was little difference in the responses from those on high incomes or low incomes.

What was different was what they would do with the remaining cash. Levell said those on low incomes were more likely to say they would pay down debt — 26 per cent gave this answer. Of those who were well off, 76 per cent said they were more likely to continue to save rather than pay off their debts — mortgages, perhaps.

From Levell’s point of view, this was not necessarily bad news for the economy. “Economic theory suggests that people want to smooth their spending over time, rather than blowing their new savings in one go,” he said.

Businesses, though, do report some signs of extravagance. Gordon Ker, 35, who has three steakhouse-style restaurants called Blacklock in London, said he wondered whether some “revenge spending” was taking place, where consumers make up for the time lost during the pandemic or even perhaps fear another lockdown. “People are spending a bit more than they were — spending a bit more on alcohol than they might have done or having the starter where they might not have done,” Ker said.

At the luxury end of the market, Alex Rayner, 42, chief executive of Braxted Park estate in Essex — once home to the Countess of Pembroke and the former head office of the electronics giant Plessey — said wedding bookings had become more lavish as customers had more time to plan their special occasion in lockdown. Until last week, however, he had not sold out the 12 formal party nights he holds in the run-up to Christmas, where he dishes out 300 turkey dinners a night. Usually he would sell out in June.

“I have just sold out for Christmas,” he said gratefully. “The consumer appetite for getting back to normal is back.”

In Wimbledon, Vallebona is also hoping for an improvement in consumer sentiment for the festive season. He has his panettone at the ready. “I’m optimistic. We’ve got our warehouses full. We’re ready. Christmas is going to be great.”

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Lawrence Stroll gestures across Aston Martin’s factory floor with a meaty paw. Gleaming sports cars are taking shape.

“Everything you see here being made has an order against it,” says the Canadian fashion tycoon. “The most important thing in luxury — it doesn’t matter if you are making handbags or automobiles — is you have to align demand with supply. Actually, there always needs to be one less than the demand. It’s creating a pent-up demand to want the product.”

That was far from the case at James Bond’s car-maker until very recently. When Stroll pulled up in January, dealers’ forecourts were awash with cars. Aston Martin had pumped too many products into a struggling market.

Stroll, 61, a “car guy” with a collection of Ferraris that includes some of the world’s rarest, has put it on a diet. The billionaire, who made his fortune with the brands Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors, had not initially intended to buy Aston; he was keener on getting it to work with his Formula One team Racing Point.

However, he was persuaded to join a long list of wealthy enthusiasts who have tried to revive the marque over its chequered century of existence.

“I’ve rescued two great British institutions — the F1 team of 30 years and James Bond’s car-maker,” Stroll laughs.

Since it was created in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford in London, Aston has swallowed multiple fortunes and belched for more. Victor Gauntlett, its chairman in the 1980s, said the only way to make a small fortune out of Aston Martin was to “start with a big one”. It has gone bust seven times. Its eighth was starting to look like a distinct possibility.

Floated on the stock market two years ago by its Italian and Kuwaiti owners, the company was pumped up by an army of bankers. Ex-boss Andy Palmer, former No 2 at Nissan, sold the City his “second-century plan”, which projected the launch of seven cars in seven years, and eventually sales of 14,000 a year.

The overstocked forecourts, Brexit, the US-China trade war, plus a series of profit warnings and delayed products, have destroyed 97% of its market value.

In January, with resources drying up, Aston returned to shareholders for a rescue cash call. In came Stroll and a consortium of wealthy backers including JCB owner Lord (Anthony) Bamford and Silas Chou, Stroll’s fashion partner. The Canadian tycoon took the role of executive chairman and replaced Penny Hughes, the chairwoman who had overseen the disastrous float. Stroll’s gang took 25% of Aston’s shares as part of the £536m cash call, last month following up with another fundraising that handed 20% of the company to Mercedes, in return for its latest technology and eventually gear to power electric cars. Out went Palmer, in came Tobias Moers, German boss of Mercedes’ high-performance AMG division.

Dressed in a grey suit and monogrammed white shirt, with a shock of white hair and bushy black eyebrows, Stroll fills the glass and leather-padded office he has commandeered in Aston’s HQ at Gaydon in the Midlands with his booming baritone and imposing figure.

“Stroll is a person who takes no prisoners,” says a source close to Aston. “The word ‘determined’ comes to mind. He knows luxury better than the previous management, that’s for sure.” Stroll is a “bit old-style”, adds the source, given his love of big-engined supercars and the F1 paddock. But the automotive world is changing fast, and rivals fear being regulated or shamed out of existence.

Last week, Volkswagen-owned Bentley said it would go fully electric by the end of the decade.

So there is a hint of anachronism about Aston. While rivals launch electric and hybrid hypercars, its much-delayed Valkyrie, to be launched next year with a £2.5m price tag, will be powered by a 6.5-litre V12 engine. “That is the greatest hyper sports car that will ever be made,” says Stroll. The new £250,000 Vanquish supercar will be powered by a hybrid engine, but arrives in late 2023, with Aston’s first electric car not due till 2025.

Stroll shrugs off any doubts. “We have a full electric car plan,” he says. “[Aston] ultimately ends up at full electric but there’s a whole transition in between about electrification, about hybrid.”

Born Lawrence Sheldon Strulovitch in Montreal, he fell in love with luxury under the tutelage of his father and mentor Leo Strulovitch, who brought the Pierre Cardin and Ralph Lauren brands to Canada. At eight he was sweeping floors and packing boxes. At 17, his father handed him the Pierre Cardin licence for Canada and challenged him to grow it. He did. He met Ralph Lauren and won the right to expand the brand into Europe while in his early twenties, again successfully. In 1989, Stroll bought a “struggling company doing $5m of sales called Tommy Hilfiger”. It was doing $3bn when he sold up 13 years later. He then took Michael Kors from sales of $14m to a $20bn New York Stock float.

Bamford met Stroll about 25 years ago at a rally in France where they both raced their Ferraris. “We’ve been friends ever since and I admire him,” says Bamford. “He is a forceful personality — if he’s got an idea he will keep pushing it … He also has a reputation for hiring the best people.”

Stroll is devastatingly blunt about Aston’s recent history. “A lot of analysts and journalists were misled and have what I call a mad-on hangover about this company because of what the previous management did,” he says. “They over-promised and under-delivered.”

There is, he says, plenty of “low hanging fruit” for Moers to pick — from duplicate factory costs to expensive parts. “They were not lean.”

Gaydon was set up to make 6,000-7,000 cars a year, he says, but he has dropped its break-even point to 2,500 vehicles, helped by 500-plus job cuts.

Stroll has the sales patter of a man who lives, breathes and makes his substantial fortune — $2.6bn (£2bn) at the last count — from selling expensive things to wealthy people. Understated he is not. Aston, he says, is “the greatest brand in the world for luxury automotive” — regardless of what a certain rival in the Italian town of Maranello might say.

Its recent fundraising, borrowing at a rate of 10.5% on more than $1bn of bonds, means “this company is funded for ever”. And Aston’s battered share price — which at 52.8p sits below its recent 62p a share fundraising — will be “£6, £7 or £9 over the next five years”, Stroll proclaims.

His confidence is based on a strategy of launching six variants of its DBX sports utility vehicles, using new Mercedes technology to upgrade its models, and marketing the brand through a new Aston Martin F1 team next season. Unlike the current Red Bull deal, which he calls “a sticker on a Red Bull”, it will be a full works team, in British racing green. “There is no greater platform to market luxury sports cars than to have your own Formula One team.”

The marque will soon easily be selling 10,000 cars a year and generating £500m of core profit by 2025, he insists. Brexit will be settled by then — in any case, he “wasn’t losing sleep over it” — and despite Covid-19, sales from China are picking up. Stroll is not restrained by modesty, declaring his achievements in six months — new management, new investors, clearing the stock glut of 1,800 cars — “more than remarkable, it’s monumental”.

“This is what we should be judged on: what has Lawrence done since taking over?” he says. “And what is the history of Lawrence? We all know what I’m worth.”

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Lawrence Stroll — the Canadian petrolhead leaving Aston Martin shaken and stirred

Stormzy has donated £500,000 to fund educational scholarships for students from disadvantaged backgrounds as part of his commitment to becoming a major philanthropist supporting black British causes.

His gift to the Black Heart Foundation is the first major funding arrangement made since the rapper announced plans in June to give away £10m over a decade to help organisations that are dedicated to fighting racial inequality in the UK.

Stormzy’s donation will cover the cost of awarding cash grants to about 50 students, providing support to people of any age who need financial assistance to take part in any educational activity, not just those attending universities.

Previous recipients have used the funds to cover the cost of travelling to a distant school, to train to be an airline pilot, and to allow them to concentrate on academic studies at university rather than worry about holding down a part-time job.

The vast majority of recipients of the Black Heart Foundation’s scholarships are from a BAME background, although anyone from an under-resourced and under-represented community is able to apply.

Stormzy’s donation was made through the Merky Foundation, a registered charity controlled by the rapper and his manager to coordinate his philanthropic efforts. He already awards annual “Stormzy scholarships” to two black students who attend the University of Cambridge, paying their tuition fees in full as well as providing a substantial grant to cover living expenses.

The Black Heart Foundation was founded by Ric Lewis, the American-born boss of the Mayfair-based property investment fund Tristan Capital Partners, who holds joint US-UK citizenship.

Lewis said his charity had already handed out 100 scholarships since 2013, while a fundraising round that aimed to bring in an extra £1m in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests had almost hit its target before Stormzy decided to make his substantial gift.

He said his organisation had been “invigorated” by the generosity of the Merky Foundation. “Their contribution is an amazing testament to their vision and commitment to higher and further education for ambitious, hardworking young people from the most under-resourced and under-represented communities in our society. With their support we will reach another 50 young people, taking the total number of scholars we can help to 250.”

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Stormzy gives £500,000 to fund scholarships for disadvantaged students

The Grand Designs presenter, Kevin McCloud, could be facing a fresh crisis after it emerged that his flagship housing company may be at risk of being forced into insolvency.

Were that to happen, it would deal a heavy blow to the hundreds of small shareholders who invested between £100 and £150,000 each in the eco-friendly homes business, and who have already had to contend with plenty of bad news.

One of them, Robin Brookes, put £5,000 into McCloud’s company HAB Housing after it launched an equity crowdfunding campaign in 2013. “It is starting to look like I will be getting nothing back at all,” he said.

In the latest annual email to Brookes and the other HAB Housing investors, McCloud apologised for the fact he was not able to write “with sparkling good news”.

He revealed that HAB Housing owed £1.2m to another firm in his property empire, HAB Land, and that HAB Land’s liquidators at the accountancy firm KPMG had attempted to call in this loan.

“HAB Housing cannot pay and could yet be forced into a formal insolvency process,” McCloud wrote. He added that he had written to KPMG to say that HAB Housing was in no position to honour this debt and that it was open to negotiation.

“Any move by HAB Land’s liquidators or others to place HAB Housing into liquidation would achieve nothing as HAB Housing has no assets,” McCloud said.

He added that despite all the turmoil and crises: “I am determined that investors should see their investment as not entirely lost.”

Last year was a torrid one for McCloud’s HAB (it stands for Happiness Architecture Beauty) property empire – and for the small investors who sank millions of pounds into it.

In 2019 the Guardian revealed the problems that had beset the business, including project delays, “systemic faults” and large debts.

To cap it all, a HAB Housing development in Hampshire, which was supposed to have been completed in 2018, was described by locals as resembling a “bomb site”.

Things reached a head in October when HAB Land and its subsidiary HAB Land Finance went into liquidation.

That spelled bad news for almost 300 small investors who put £2.4m into a mini-bond scheme offered by HAB Land in 2017. They had been offered a return of 7% to 9% over five years, plus all their capital back in early 2022, but ended up nursing big losses.

However, HAB Housing – the flagship HAB company, of which McCloud remains the sole director – was unaffected by the liquidation proceedings.

The TV property guru set up HAB Housing in 2007 “to challenge the way identikit volume housing was built in the UK”. Six years later the company reportedly broke the then world record for crowdfunded investment, with 650 people putting in a total of £1.9m and thereby becoming shareholders. That meant they owned 25% of the equity in the business.

The shareholders were told to expect dividends of at least 5% by the end of 2016, plus invitations to “exclusive events” with McCloud, and other perks.

However, in August 2019 it was reported that these investors were claiming they had been “fobbed off” and had not received a penny in dividends, or been allowed the opportunity to sell their shares in order to reclaim any of their investment.

A year later, McCloud, 61, who has presented the Channel 4 series Grand Designs since its launch in 1999, told the investors: “There is no reasonable prospect of liquidity for your HAB Housing shares.” When shares in a business are described as liquid, it generally means they can be bought and sold quickly and easily.

Brookes, who lives in Wiltshire, said after reading the email: “It doesn’t look too hopeful but at least they have got in touch and explained things.”

He originally invested in HAB Housing “because I believed in what they were doing”.

He said he did not mind too much when the promise of a 5% return on investment after three years did not materialise. “I accepted their reasoning and lived on in hope – they were doing a good job. A return would be nice, [an] eventual return of capital would be acceptable. It is starting to look like I will be getting nothing back at all.”

Brookes originally contacted the Guardian in July to say that HAB Housing seemed to have “disappeared”. Calls to HAB Housing’s phone number were met with a message saying: “This line is not in use” and there had seemingly been little or no company activity since last autumn.

However, in his email, McCloud said that while the firm was no longer occupying its premises in Bristol, “we remain open for business” and he added that he had worked over the past year to explore every opportunity to keep the company going.

A HAB Housing spokesperson said future plans were “being progressed discreetly behind the scenes … During these times, the company has been operating at its most minimal and making arrangements for exciting future activity.”

They added that McCloud “remains very much at the heart of HAB Housing as a director and as the largest shareholder, and has been actively involved in driving forward development of future plans. Kevin continues to believe in and uphold HAB Housing’s vision about creating sustainable, beautiful homes and thriving communities, and is moving the business forwards to deliver that with greater effect.”

Read more:
Kevin McCloud faces his own grand design as housing firm at risk of insolvency

Victoria Beckham is set to make 20 staff redundant at her loss-making fashion label to ‘future-proof’ it after the coronavirus pandemic.

The news comes just months after reversing plans to furlough employees.

Mrs Beckham’s company, with its flagship Mayfair store which sells £2,000 dresses and £1,000 handbags, will also halve the number of annual fashion collections after being hard-hit by the Covid-19 crisis.

The blow for the staff come just two months after she came under fire for deciding to furlough 30 members of staff.

Public outcry prompted her to reverse the decision, insisting her team’s welfare ‘means everything to me’.

Mrs Beckham, 46, and her ex-footballer husband David, 45, are estimated to be worth £355million.

A source told The Sun the new redundancies were a bid to save the label.

They said: ‘Victoria is devastated. These are really tough times and no one is exempt from the pandemic’s clutches.

‘This business is her pride and joy. It has never been about money. She hasn’t even paid herself for the past three years.

‘She is doing all she can simply to keep as many people in work as possible.’

The fashion line, which she launched in 2008, made losses of £12.3million in 2018.

A spokesman for Mrs Beckham said: ‘We have built a new strategic vision to streamline and future-proof the brand and, sadly, have to make redundancies to deliver this.’

Mrs Beckham was forced to make an embarrassing U-turn over plans to ask for taxpayer cash to pay dozens of staff during the crisis.

Earlier this year, the former Posh Spice axed plans to furlough around 30 of the company’s 120 staff after facing fierce criticism for drawing on the public purse.

The fashion brand sent letters to 30 members of staff warning them that they were going to be furloughed under the Government’s scheme for two months.

She told The Guardian: ‘We will not now be drawing on the government furlough scheme. At the beginning of the lockdown the shareholders agreed with senior management to furlough a small proportion of staff. At that point we didn’t know how long the lockdown might last or its likely impact on the business.

‘The welfare of my team and our business means everything to me.’

It is understood the firm’s application would have cost taxpayers £150,000.

The firm denied the U-turn was a result of the public backlash and instead insisted the board ‘now believe that with the support of our shareholders, we can navigate through this crisis without drawing from the furlough scheme’.

In June it was reported that Mrs Beckham was loaned a £6.4 million lifeline to save the fashion empire.

The company has allegedly racked up £42 million worth of losses over the past four years.

Victoria was reportedly able to keep control of her ‘flagship Victoria Beckham Ltd’ after being ‘backed by a private investment agreement’.

Read more:
Victoria Beckham to axe 20 workers in bid to keep fashion brand afloat

Lloyds Banking Group has plunged into the red after it booked a £3.8bn provision for bad loans arising from the coronavirus crisis.

Results covering the first half of the year showed a pre-tax loss of £602m compared to profits of £2.9bn for the same period in 2019.

Lloyds said it had set aside £2.4bn for possible loan losses in the three months to June alone as the UK economy became mired in the coronavirus lockdown.

It was almost £1bn more than financial analysts had expected.

Such provisions have become a staple of bank reporting since the crisis began – with Barclays and Santander among the other big names to reveal vast sums so far this week.

NatWest Group – formerly known as RBS – is due to update investors on Friday while Europe’s largest bank, HSBC, will report next week.

Lloyds said it now saw a “much larger” and “profound” impact from the effects of the lockdown than initially expected and warned investors the support it was providing customers would come at a cost to the group as a whole.

It said it had provided more than £9bn in loans to businesses under the various government-backed schemes and more than 1.1 million payment holidays to personal banking customers.

Customer deposits, Lloyds said, increased by £29bn because of a reduction in consumer spending during the enforced hibernation of the economy.

Its net interest margin – a key measure of lending profitability – sunk by 20 basis points to 2.59% in the second quarter of the year because of weaker interest rates and lower demand for loans and mortgages.

Lloyds chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio, who announced earlier this month that he was to leave after a decade in charge, said: “The impact of the coronavirus pandemic in the first half of 2020 has been profound on the way we
live our lives and on the global economy.

“We remain fully focused on helping our customers and the UK economy recover, in collaboration with government and our regulators.”

He added: “Although the outlook is uncertain, the group’s financial strength and business model allow us to help Britain recover and play our part in returning our country to prosperity.

“Our customer-focused strategic plan remains fully aligned with the group’s long-term strategic objectives, the position of our franchise and the interests of shareholders.”

Lloyds has been a consistent profit performer in recent times since ditching exposure to more risky activities following its taxpayer bailout following the financial crisis and concentrating instead on loans to consumers and businesses,

But its transformation, in the current crisis, has come back to haunt it because it has no investment bank or fund management arms – credited by Barclays for driving its own profits.

Lloyds shares, down more than 50% in the year to date, fell 8% when the FTSE 100 opened for business.

Donald Brown, senior investment manager at Brewin Dolphin, said of the performance: “Of all the major banks, Lloyds is most exposed to the performance of the UK economy which brings with it its own set of challenges – not least the influence of Brexit, which is still taking shape in the background.

“Nevertheless, the underlying tone of the statement is gloomy, as the bank seeks a new CEO to guide the group forward.”

Read more:
Lloyds dives into the red as bank expects £3.8bn of bad loans

As we approach the Islamic holy month of Ramadan healthy fasting and workplace routines are critical for employees and also for employers to understand so that staff performance can be assessed fairly.

Ahead of the holy month of Ramadan, International SOS is raising health and travel awareness among organisations around the world. This year, Ramadan is expected to start around May 16 or 17 and end around mid-June, depending on the Islamic lunar calendar. Taking into account longer daylight hours and warmer weather, medical experts at International SOS have collated essential health tips for fasting employees.

Medical Director Dr. Issam Badaoui said: “Each year, we remind organisations and fasting individuals that there are simple steps they can take to ensure they have a healthy, productive month. Practically, the advice we offer should be applied throughout the year, as part of a balanced, active lifestyle, and the good news is we are noticing a growing interest in both nutrition and exercise.
At International SOS, we are keen to champion wellness and ultimately contribute to the prevention of avoidable, lifestyle-related noncommunicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes – and what better time to encourage the adoption of sustainable, wholesome habits than during the holy month of Ramadan.”

International SOS’s top five tips for employees observing the fast this Ramadan are:

Do not skimp on rest and sleep – Ramadan is a time of increased prayer and gatherings of family and friends. Though it may be tempting to stay up late for Suhour and only sleep after Imsak, you should still aim to get at least 8 hours of sleep during every 24-hour period, even if this is accumulated over several separate periods of rest. A well-rested body and mind will make it easier for you to concentrate at work and have more energy throughout the day.

Stagger your hydration – Thirst can be one of the most challenging symptoms of fasting, leading us to chug plenty of water and liquids as soon as we break our fast and then just before Imsak. However, rehydration should be a cumulative process. The best way to rehydrate fasting bodies and maintain this hydration for longer is to pace your liquid intake by consuming at least 2 litres of water – one or two glasses at a time – between Iftar and Imsak. It also helps to cut down on caffeinated drinks at night, and to top up your liquid intake with soups, fruits and vegetables rich in water, such as cucumbers and watermelon.

Beware excess salt and sugar – After a full day of fasting, avoid satisfying cravings by filling up on sweets and sugary beverages such as soda and energy drinks, which lead to an unhealthy spike in glucose levels. Instead, opt for the natural sugars found in fruits, and consume complex carbohydrates such as rice, bread and wholegrains alongside vegetables, which will keep you fuller for longer.

As for salt intake, it is worth keeping in mind that having moderately savoury foods with water can help you retain some hydration for longer. However, consuming too much salt will have an adverse effect and contribute to thirst and dehydration during the day, so go easy on salty snacks such as popcorn and salted nuts at night.

Do more in the morning – Where possible, schedule more difficult tasks requiring greater concentration or physical effort in the morning, when you will have more energy. International SOS encourages businesses each year to schedule important meetings during the first half of the day, when fasting employees will have more energy and will be better able to retain new information.

Don’t stop exercising – Though you may feel more tired and understandably less active while fasting, skipping regular exercise for a full month is unhealthy, particularly as most of your food intake will be consumed at night. Moderate exercise is advisable and will also help you feel less sluggish. Just remember to wait a couple of hours after Iftar before going to the gym or simply for a brisk walk. If you still prefer to schedule workouts while fasting, avoid being in the sun for a long time, take frequent breaks, and stop if you feel faint, light-headed or extremely thirsty.

In addition, individuals suffering from chronic illnesses should consult their doctors on how to manage regular medication and to ensure it is safe for them to fast.

Read more:
Ramadan fasting advice for employees & employers to follow

Latest research data just released paints an optimistic picture for UK SMEs as they explore new markets beyond the EU with a one in four planning to export to a new country in the next quarter

UK SMEs are gearing up for a new future of international post-Brexit trade as more payments begin to flow outside of the European Union according to new data published today.

According to the survey of more than 1,000 small and medium sized businesses, one in four SMEs is looking to export to a new country in the next quarter. Up slightly on Q1 2017, the figures demonstrate how UK businesses have started to come to terms with the ongoing Brexit uncertainty and develop new trading partners beyond the European Union.

The survey also found that 30 per cent of small businesses are now positive about their prospects for international growth, a recovery of 5 per cent from Q4 2017 when confidence was at an all-time low.

UK SMEs increase trade outside EU markets

For those SMEs currently trading internationally, business is booming. The average small business made overseas transfers of £48,000 in Q1 2018 as a result of international trade – up 5 per cent on Q4 2017, and notably the second highest figure recorded by the Global Trade Barometer in over two years.

Both importing and exporting to and from countries outside of the EU, in particular China and the United States, has remained steady throughout the first quarter.

Crucially, of the ten markets that saw the largest growth in payments from UK SMEs in Q1 2018, seven are outside the EU including Turkey, Norway, Morocco, Singapore, Russia, Indonesia and the UAE.

More support needed to capitalise on global ambitions

After a year of negative headlines and downbeat growth projections, many small businesses are now beginning to seize global trade opportunities.

Despite this more confident outlook, almost half of those surveyed felt that some form of external support would encourage them to export more. Specifically, nearly one in five are looking for support to find international partners, while 17 per cent want to see the government do more to help them trade overseas.

Forging a new way

In addition to calling for greater support, UK SMEs are also exploring alternative ways to do business to achieve their international trade aspirations.

Almost one in ten small businesses have or are considering switching from their traditional bank to a fintech provider for their FX transfer needs, while only one in five have no plans to consider a new way of handling their international finances at all.

Jeremy Cook, Chief Economist at WorldFirst, said: “It is promising to see so many UK SMEs starting to look past their Brexit blues and develop coping strategies to push their exporting aspirations forward.

“The UK government has not been shy in promoting the benefits of building a nation of exporters over the last year, but this survey shows that more needs to be done to support our smaller businesses.

“These SMEs will be our global exporting pioneers post-Brexit and it is vital that the Government and wider industry does all they can to support them. This could mean anything from facilitating connections between UK small businesses and foreign counterparts, to offering advice and training on how to do business and communicate with international trading partners.”

Business prepares for international risk

This new found optimism is echoed by WorldFirst’s own data on client hedging behaviour which identified an increase in contracts across six of the eight most popular currencies traded through the business in Q1.

This increase in activity suggests that as SMEs look to do more business internationally they are also looking to protect themselves against any potential currency fluctuations.

UK SMEs were also found to be diversifying their business in emerging markets with countries in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East experiencing big increases in payments from the UK.

Read more:
UK SMEs start to explore new markets as they look beyond Brexit

Business Matters helps secure victory for a British blogger in his battle to retain the domain startupbritain.co.uk registered before the government backed scheme launched four years ago.

Yesterday we reported that Centre for Entrepreneurs (CFE), the think tank which now runs the government supported initiative Startup Britain was trying to force a UK blogger give up the domain name startupbritain.co.uk which he registered before the body was created.

We are happy to report that following our coverage we were contacted by the Centre for Entrepreneurs to tell us that they were dropping their threat of legal action made against Stephen Croome and claims to the domain registered by him prior to Startup Britain being launched in March 2011.

CFE took over the government backed initiative created to help people starting their own business in the UK last year after the organisation had spent three years under the direction of  its eight co-founders seeing just under a million new businesses formed.

We were very pleased to receive the statement from CFE, Director, Matt Smith: “Neither the CFE nor SUB want to become embroiled with Mr Croome, who we now recognise has the right to the URL digital signature. We believe a misunderstanding occurred due to the close timing of his registration to our launch – believing him to be a cyber-squatter. In the light of recent activity we now accept that this is not the case and wish Mr Croome well. Perhaps we can mutually-post a re-navigation link on each others’ website? ”

Smith added: “StartUp Britain is owned and run by the Centre for Entrepreneurs – a small and independent non-profit organisation that has no funding from the government, so it is certainly not the “might of the government weighing down on an individual”. Indeed, StartUp Britain has created unique opportunities for thousands of small businesses over the past four years, free of cost.

The Centre relies on partnerships and donations to extend the reach of StartUp Britain activities, including initiatives such as PitchUp, the annual Bus Tour and Marketing Week. Given this, it is only natural that we would want to protect the value of our trademarked brand to maintain our ability to continue working to support businesses across the UK.”

Speaking after we passed on the news to him, Stephen Croome said: “I am so pleased that Business Matters as the country’s largest business magazine felt able to raise the profile of this matter and seemingly make sense of a situation that was simply wrong and would have potentially cost me thousands of pounds in legal costs to defend something that I should have never had to defend as was in the right all along.”

Speaking about the magazines involvement Business Matters Managing Editor Richard Alvin, said: “I was very pleased that this matter could be very swiftly resolved and with very little cost especially to Mr Coomes. As a Startup Britain local ambassador and huge advocate of startups myself I was very disheartened by CEF’s actions.

What appears to have been a misunderstanding quickly became completely counterintuitive to the aims of both the Centre for Entrepreneurs and Startup Britain itself and I am pleased that Matt Smith acted promptly. It was clear to me that Mr Croome was in the right, a fact backed up IP and trademark lawyer Chris Sherliker, partner at Silverman Sherliker when we contacted him and I was pleased that Business Matters could play a part in bringing the matter to a swift conclusion.”

Read more:
Centre for Entrepreneurs drops demands for Startup Britain domain handover

On the 4 February 2011 Stephen Croome decided to create a small notepad website to write about the people he met and his experience in the British startup scene. Given the subject matter he choose to register the domain startupbritain.co.uk for this site. An obvious and fairly non contentious choice which should have not caused any problems.

However to a great fanfare and supported by David Cameron and Sir Richard Branson a support body was set up seven weeks later to help give people looking to startup up their own business a boost.

The site launched with a .org domain and came slightly out of the blue as we at Business Matters and other media organisations only heard about it 48 hours earlier and there is no suggestion that Croome was aware of its existence when he registered his domain.

The launch of the government backed Startup Britain campaign website was dogged with controversy and as we reported at the time – following complaints from many readers – some of the ‘supporters’ were US based companies merely selling their services and many suggested that all the site was was mearly offering was cheap discount vouchers for various companies from O2 to Dell to AXA.

It should be reported that following this troubled start the Startup Britain campaign has resulted in record numbers of businesses starting up year on year – 440,600 in 2011 to 526,446 in 2013 – and some of the eight co-founders: Emma Jones, Oli Barrett and Michael Hayman received MBE’s from the Queen for their involvement in the scheme and their other work with UK startups.

However on 27 March 2014 Startup Britain was taken over by the not-for-profit think tank Centre for Entrepreneurs an organisation chaired by serial entrepreneur Luke Johnson and recently Croome’s received letters from the organisation and their solicitors.

Sharing an extract from one such letter Croombe said:  ‘I was amazed to receive a letter from their lawyers give that my ownership of the domain predates them and I have been using it from the outset to blog about Startups in Britain”

Dear Stephen,

I am working with the not for profit business Centre for Entrepreneurs who deliver the Government backed Initiative Start up Britain and the registered holder of the trademark “Start up Britain” UK00002591489

We note at the time the initiative was announced in 2011 you registered the domain name and since that time you have not utilised the website for any activities.

We would ask you to agree for the immediate transfer of the domain. As you are not a holder of a registered trademark or a company in the name of Start up Britain. Under ICANN rules you have no right to hold the domain in preference to the Centre of Entrepreneurs. If you agree to do this the Centre for Entrepreneurs will take no further action and agree to press no further claims on this issue.

However, if you refuse to do so Centre for Entrepreneurs will look to enforce their legal right to utilise their trading name and domain and may file a claim for damages and all the fees for transfer of the domain.

We spoke to Chris Sherliker, partner at London law firm Silverman Sherliker, who specialise in IP and Trademark issues to give us his opinion of the situation. He said: “

It really is a bitter irony that the  Startup Britain service, that I understand was originally a Government initiative, is threatening legal proceedings against…a start-up business, whose own entrepreneurial initiative seems to have pre-dated that of the Government in any case.

Since the .co.uk was registered some 6 months prior to the filing of the Startup Britain trade mark, it is difficult to see that they can be said to have acted in bad faith which it will be necessary to show if they try to enforce a transfer of the .co.uk using the UDRP procedure.

Also if the .co.uk started using the mark before the original launch of the Govt initiative, it may have an ‘earlier right’ defence under section 11(3) of the Trade Marks act 1994.”

As you can see it would appear that legally Croombe’s position is strong and it is amazing that the Centre for Entrepreneurs are even pursuing the matter and definitely through a legal route.

However very worryingly when we spoke to Sherliker about his opinion on the startupbritain.co.uk dispute he also concluded our discussion by saying: “I am acting for at least two other clients who are actually at logger-heads with the UK Government over the commercial use of names adopted by the Government for its ‘initiatives’. For a government that is apparently committed to advancing the cause of business taking a commercial approach to these name conflicts with a view to a negotiated settlement rather than by threatening ‘big stick tactics’ against the little guy would be a more sensible approach.

It would be even better if the Government did some proper due diligence on the legal availability of a name in the UK marketplace before adopting a brand often to the detriment of businesses who have invested heavily in building up goodwill in the same or a similar brand.”

”

Read more:
Startup Britain accused of threatening British Startup with unjust court action

Having cash allows a business to operate. So managing your cash resources and making sure you have enough to meet your needs, e.g. paying wages, buying supplies, meeting your personal financial requirements, is absolutely critical.

In this context cash includes credit balances at the bank and unused loan and overdraft facilities.

Clive Lewis, ICAEW Head of Enterprise explains how problems often start with cashflow when businesses offer credit to customers or buy on credit. Or they take on an employee or a sub-contractor who requires regular payment. Suddenly cashflow – payment from customers and payment of supplies bought on credit -becomes an issue.

Get a grip – do a regular cashflow forecast
In managing cashflow it is important to start with reliable accounting records. This might be in a manual cashbook, on a computer using a spreadsheet or accounting software or using a simple “paid” / “unpaid” system for bills. The essential point is that the accounting records should allow the business to instantly find out what monies are owed from customers and the amounts unpaid to suppliers.

Whatever system is used it should provide the basis for preparation of a cashflow forecast. You start the cashflow forecast with the invoices outstanding from customers and owing to suppliers and known commitments such as the weekly or monthly expenses such as payroll, rent and leasing or hire purchase payments. You then build in predictions of receipts and payments from future sales and purchases over the forecast period – anything from three to twelve months ahead. Cashflow forecasts should be a key tool in the management toolkit. They can highlight when the business might run low on cash and can be the basis for an action plan to remedy the situation before it happens.

Managing cashflow

Receipts for Customers
There are some vital steps that all businesses should take to maximise receipts from customers:

• For big value sales on credit, check the customers credit rating
• Agree the terms of payment with the customer before starting work
• Invoice as soon as the goods have reached the customer or service rendered
• Regularly progress payment with the customer starting after a few days
• If payment not received within the agreed period, progress payment higher up the customers management and consider how quickly you stop supplies or services
• If still unpaid, use solicitors’ letters and threaten court proceedings.
• If still not paid, consider whether to go to court, or are you throwing good money after bad?

Payments to Suppliers
• Agree payments terns with suppliers at the start of trading with them and always try to stick to them
• If you think it may not be possible to pay, contact the suppliers concerned and ask for more time. Provided you consistently pay on time, and requests to defer payment are rare, they will probably agree, to delay payment.
• Letting suppliers down will reflect in your credit rating which may come back to affect future supplies.

Managing cashflow is, in part, a mirror image of the businesses investment in working capital. Generally, the higher the value of stock or work-in-progress, or monies owed by debtors the greater the difficulty in keeping control of cashflow. So maintaining a tight grip on stocks and debtors should free up cash for use elsewhere in the business.

Get expert advice
Using the ICAEW Business Advice Service you can now draw on the expertise of leading financial experts to discuss a business or tax problem such as cashflow. It’s an easy way to access specialist guidance and reassurance. Start today with a free straightforward, open discussion with an ICAEW Chartered Accountant. There’s no catch, no obligation and no charge for your first session – just practical thinking to help your business succeed.

www.businessadviceservice.com

Read more:
Avoiding the pitfalls of cashflow management

Business owners Lawrence Tomlinson and Rekha Mehr are to become the entrepreneurs in residence at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) after fighting off competition from over 200 other applicants.

Experienced Leeds-based entrepreneur Lawrence Tomlinson has run businesses in a number sectors including construction, software, chemicals, cars, and care homes.

Rekha Mehr is the founder and owner of Pistachio Rose, a London-based business creating high-end Anglo-Indian cakes and sweets. She has been hired specifically to be a voice for start ups and small firms.

Business Secretary Vince Cable said: “These appointments are about better involving businesses in government’s decision making process, so that we can support their growth in a more intelligent way.

“I’ve already visited Lawrence’s company headquarters near Leeds and had exposure to his trenchant view on banks and of the high-performance cars that he manufactures. I will be visiting Rekha’s main retail outlet at Fortnum and Masons today.

“Rekha and Lawrence will be important voices for businesses in my department. Having them on hand to offer feedback and advice will be a significant asset and help keep our focus firmly on the needs of entrepreneurs.”

Serial Entrepreneur, Lawrence Tomlinson, who was awarded ‘Overall Director of the Year’ by the Institute of Directors in 2012 said “I’m thrilled to be joining BIS and I’m eager to get straight to work and support the department’s efforts to address the issues businesses are facing on the ground.

“My key focus in office will be to tackle some of the key concerns around access to finance and improving bank lending to business and I will share the views and experiences of my peers with Ministers and officials on this issue.”

Start-up Entrepreneur Rekha Mehr said: “I am very excited to begin work as the new Start-up Entrepreneur in Residence. It’s easy to forget the early days and frustrations of starting your own business and I welcome the opportunity to share my experiences to help government improve their understanding of the needs of a start-up business.

“There is a wealth of guidance and support available to SMEs which can be critical to their success in the early stages and I look forward to working with Ministers in the coming months to raise awareness of this and contribute to ideas for future initiatives.”

Over 200 business owners across the country applied for the two available positions which were announced during last year’s Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Read more:
Government appoints two entrepreneurs in residence to advise on SME thinking

Eggberry brings a wealth of experience and displays a strong tech and entrepreneurial streak having started her first company while at school. Several companies later she joined RIM when it was first trying to get established in the UK and went on to help it become a multi-billion dollar business across 44 countries.

After a stint advising a number of global hedge funds and management consultancies Eggberry then moved to Nokia to become Global SVP Marketing and additionally is a board member and trustee of the Marketing Academy.

Speaking about her appointment Eggberry said: “I’m truly excited to take up this new opportunity as Director of Wayra UK to continue to build on the phenomenal success of the programme to date. Wayra is an incredibly special and unique accelerator with a clear focus on supporting world class talent as well as their world class ideas. That’s an exciting journey to be a part of.”

Charmaine Eggberry replaces Ashley Stockwell, who took the reins as Guest Director at the UK Academy in 2012. Stockwell helped mentor and develop the original 19 start-ups, many of which have seen notable successes during their time at the Academy. TaskHub, an online community hub and social marketplace, has received a six figure investment from Telefónica and nine other start-ups have been invested in by third parties. This includes PixelPin who are soon to complete a funding round of £150,000 on the crowd funding platform Seedrs. Many of the other businesses are actively seeking funding from third-parties.

Commenting on the success of the UK Academy Stockwell said: “It’s been a pleasure to be part of the UK Wayra programme and see our 19 start-ups grow and develop their businesses. It’s been an incredible journey for everyone here at the Wayra Academy and I look forward to watching how the new intake of start-ups bring their ideas to life.”

As Eggberry’s appointment was announced at the week long pitching event for companies to become part of Wayra’s second cohort, she took the opportunity to tell us that: “wayraWeek 2013 has been another massive success for Wayra. We’ve invested in 17 start-ups and we’re proud that more than a third of our winning founders are women. This second annual wayraWeek reinforces Telefonica’s commitment to investing in the UK’s digital talent to drive a more entrepreneurial Europe. ”

Read more:
Technology incubator Wayra announces new Academy Director Charmaine Eggberry

The technology company, behind O2 in the UK, received nearly 3,500 applications from 32 countries. After the filtering process 30 finalists battled it out at O2’s headquarters in Slough to win a place at the prestigious London academy which opened in April 2012 and has a dedicated focus on nurturing the best ideas and talent in the field of ICT.

The 30 start-ups were subjected to a three day intensive pitch process, dubbed wayraWeek, where they were assessed and judged by a panel of eight experts, including names from Hailo, to Seedrs, to Silicon Valley Bank.

Each winning start-up will receive up to €40,000 in funding which may eventually convert into a minority shareholding in their business, typically between five and ten percent. In addition, they will be given access to a rent-free customised work space at the UK academy in central London and “money can’t buy” mentoring from industry leading executives, legal and financial advisors and angel investors.

Full list of winners:
TicketingHub: A technology focused B2B cloud ticketing platform, which specialises in the management of sales and inventory of tickets.
TankTop TV: Life’s too short for boring TV. TankTop TV builds the easiest way to find great content to watch, from all the on-demand sources.
Songdrop: A web application for people to store, play and share the music they stream online.
Narrato: All your adventures, organized and backed up. Perfect for revisiting or selectively sharing.
GoCarShare: A marketplace for empty car seats with a trusted community using Facebook.
Eventstagram: shows beautiful, live, customisable Instagram slideshows for events such as weddings, conferences, festivals and corporate events
Peekster: A mobile application and basically a bridge between analog printed media and internet.
Sponsor Craft: is a Kickstarter for education. We help students crowdfund their projects, ideas, and events by connecting them to alumni, friends, and family.
Dattch: the first dating app built exclusively for lesbian, bi & curious women. See who’s nearby & wants to meet to get yourself a date.
Removalstars.com: A Price comparison and online booking space for removals.
JollyDeck: An effective system for #gamification of learning and knowledge examination in enterprises.
iHELP: A mobile application and platform with the mission to increase safety and provide effective help in any type of emergency
Ensygnia: A patented process to scan images to trigger actions such as payments or registrations Enygnia’s OneScan app makes it easy to login or make payments with just OneScan.
Munch delivers good restaurant food from Wagamama, Pizza Express, Nando’s, GBK, Gaucho etc right to your front door!
SaaSAssurance helps organisations gain ISO certification at a lower cost.
EI Technologies strive to be the leader in solutions that are able to assess, identify, predict and respond to the emotions of consumers
Gordon Games delivers Enterprise Gamification for knowledge workers and call centres

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Wayra UK selects new 17 start-ups to join tech accelerator programme

The new company will initially create 500 jobs with an aggressive store opening and the relaunch of an online entity.

Jones, who paid £2million for what was left of the firm last month, is re-opening six shops on Thursday in London, Manchester, High Wycombe, St Albans, Birmingham and Aberdeen, with the majority of staff made up from 1,370 workers left unemployed when all 187 sites shut their doors three days after administrators were called in and in.

Plus in the coming days 30 more are due to open at a rate of one a day as the plan is to have all stores open by the end of April and first-year sales of £80million are being forecast.

On rescuing the business two months ago, Jones initially hinted that the future of Jessops would be online only, but after sending a tweet confirming he had bought the company he was inundated with CVs from former employees.

Explaining how he fell for the Jessops pitch, he said: “I was abroad in January when I heard Jessops had gone down and was shocked because I had only bought a Canon camera for [partner] Tara at a store two months previously. When I got back to the UK I immediately put the calls in, culminating in several all-night negotiation sessions, but I was absolutely determined to get the business because it was such an iconic brand of which I was a customer.”

Jones also warned that the venture could mean walking away from the BBC show he is famous for if Jessops becomes a big success again.

“I’ll struggle to do both this and Dragons’ Den. I’m going to have to see. However, I’m very committed to the Den and the BBC and have been there since the beginning, so they might not be able to get rid of me.”

In 2002 the venture capital arm of Dutch bank ABN Amro – whose purchase by RBS in 2009 is regarded by many as being the main reason the bank found themselves in such deep financial problems resulting in them being bailed out by the UK government- bought Jessops for £116m.

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Peter Jones relaunches collapsed camera chain Jessops with new stores & online offering

Many business travellers are choosing to travel by train because it’s quicker and more cost effective but savvy business travellers are also using the journey as an opportunity to network, impress their boss and climb the career ladder.

New research by CrossCounty reveals that over half of business travellers surveyed choose to travel by train because it’s quicker than other forms of travel, followed by one in five saying that it’s more cost effective and when it comes to putting the journey time to good use, over a third of respondents claim that they look for opportunities to link up with others and have done some of their best networking whilst on board.

Interestingly, there is a divide between the sexes when it comes to networking. Over a third of men surveyed say they have swapped business cards or contact details with someone they met on a train, compared to just one in five women.

However, female respondents outnumbered their male counterparts when it came to using their journey time to get ahead in their careers – almost one in ten have secured a new job or earned a promotion on board compared to just 4 per cent of men.

Productivity is key for business travellers, with 43 per cent saying that travelling by train allows them to concentrate, catch up on tasks and respond to emails. Watch out for the over 60 per cent who said they would listen in if they heard a fellow passenger talking about confidential or private business on board.

Commenting on the findings, Clare Shufflebotham, Partnerships Manager for CrossCountry, said “The findings have shown us that fully utilising time on board – whether it’s to catch up on emails, finish an important document or grow new business opportunities – has led to positive results for many business travellers. Many of our passengers travel with us regularly for business and we know how important that time on board is which is why we try and make it as convenient as possible. We developed the Train Tickets app which acts as a no-fee booking tool for tickets across the whole rail network so business travellers can make the most of their time on the move.”

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Let the train take the strain out of networking as travellers use commuting time effectively

Whilst social & environmental responsibility and financial necessity are now aligned for many larger organisations, SMEs have been slower to recognise sustainability as a driver of bottom line business success, rather than a nice-to-have.

Nathan Wimble, Commercial Director at The CarbonNeutral Company, argues that the imminent introduction of Mandatory Carbon Reporting (MCR) gives SME’s a chance to get on the front foot when it comes to managing their carbon footprint.

For many companies it could be the start of a wider environmental sustainability programme that benefits their business as well as the environment.

A catalyst for change

The UK already leads the rest of Europe in carbon emission reductions. The imminent introduction of Mandatory Carbon Reporting (MCR) – which makes it compulsory for companies on the London Stock Exchange to report their levels of greenhouse gas emissions in their annual reports – is set to propel environmental sustainability even further up the corporate agenda, providing a catalyst for action and accelerating changes in business practice across UK plc.

MCR will put carbon data on a par with financial data for companies on the LSE, demanding a new approach to reporting. Whilst it’s the UK’s largest listed companies that are obliged to act, the impact of MCR is going to ripple downwards. And fast.

MCR will initiate a domino effect for small and mid-sized businesses as larger firms place increased value on building their sustainability profile and reducing emissions in their supply chain.

Get ahead of the curve

With only four months left before MCR begins, there’s never been a better time for small businesses to manage their environmental assets. Understanding emissions is the first step in planning reductions and proving their environmental credentials.

Ultimately, immediate and decisive action is the key to gaining a competitive advantage. This can be achieved by implementing a carbon management programme that uses an ongoing programme of internal emissions reductions and by investing in external reductions by supporting forestry or renewable energy projects. These avenues are certainly not mutually exclusive and combining them gives the advantage of being able to make a credible statement of environmental action that can engage staff and customers, from the very outset of the programme.

Accurately measuring a carbon footprint is the first step in any programme, and with the wealth of support available it needn’t be an onerous task. Third party tools like the CarbonNeutral Footprint Reporter provide an easy, convenient and fast solution for small businesses, allowing them to get third party verification of their action. Seeing data for energy usage, staff travel and the amount of waste the business generates will also reveal where a business can make effective reductions, and save money through more efficient practices.

As many SMEs don’t own their own premises, measures such as changing to LED lighting and addressing building insulation require a landlord’s involvement and can appear to be a barrier to a very effective programme. However, significant reductions can be made through encouraging behaviour change.

For example, simply turning lights off when an area is not in use can save 30 per cent on fuel bills, and changing computers to hibernate mode will use just 1-2W compared to the average 60W used by a screensaver programme. Setting up ‘Green Teams’ and rewarding personal efforts to reduce emissions can generate significant savings and a wealth of new ideas that benefit the business.

The net effect for businesses is a combination of cost saving, slashed energy usage and a reduced carbon footprint. A win-win scenario.

The use of external emissions reductions provides a means for businesses to mitigate the unavoidable part of their carbon footprint, and to meet targets while internal emissions programmes are being implemented. Certifying a business carbon neutral provides a clear statement that a business has taken action to understand and reduce emissions.

While sustainability might have once been considered a ‘big business’ issue, there’s no question it now filters right down the supply chain. MCR legislation means that carbon management is the foundation of any environmental programme – it’s embedded in business, not an add on. As SMEs come under increased pressure to demonstrate their environmental credentials, this in turn empowers them to capitalise on their environmental efforts by identifying cost savings that can drive tangible business value and support the retaining and winning of business from their discerning customers.

Real benefits, realised now

With legislation like MCR on the horizon and the cost of running buildings and travel programmes rising, reducing carbon emissions is no longer a CSR luxury but a business necessity. There are different ways to tackle sustainability initiatives, yet we can all make a difference by behaving differently. As the economy begins to recover, it is those SMEs taking action to assess their environmental policies and capitalise on the opportunities in a greener marketplace that will reap the benefits and become a business success story. Those that don’t will be left behind.

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Manage your carbon footprint & stride ahead of the competition

In the last few months four small firms/owner managed businesses have been charged with Corporate Manslaughter. Three of those investigations have also resulted in prosecutions of directors or senior managers.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) began investigating 63 corporate manslaughter offences in 2012 – up from 45 in 2011. In 2010 there were 26 investigations, up from seven the previous year.

Of the 141 corporate manslaughter cases opened, more than 50 are being investigated for prosecution – the majority of which appear to be small firms.

Lee Hughes, Health and Safety expert at law firm Pannone, said small firms are most vulnerable because of the way the legislation is structured.

For the first time, the Act provides a statutory offence of corporate manslaughter which allows for a company to be convicted in the event that it breaches a duty of care to a deceased person and the way in which its activities were managed or organized: caused a person’s death; amounted to a gross breach of the duty of care; and the senior management was a substantial element in that breach.

Earlier this month Mobile Sweepers (Reading) Limited was charged with the offence, along with its sole director Mervyn Owens, who faces a charge of gross-negligence manslaughter, in relation to the death of an employee.

In February, Prince’s Sporting Club of Middlesex, was charged with the offence while the club’s director, Frederick Glen Walker, was charged with offences under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

In January, MNS Mining Limited was summonsed for four offences of corporate manslaughter following the death of four miners in the Gleision Mine, Swansea Valley, in 2011. The manager of the mine, Malcolm Fyfield, has also been prosecuted for gross negligence manslaughter.

Last November, Norfolk Garden Centre, Belmont Nursery, which is run by PS & JE Ward and has fewer than 50 employees, was charged with corporate manslaughter following the death of an employee from an electric shock caused when the metal hydraulic-lift trailer he was towing came into contact with overhead power lines.

Hughes says: “The way the legislation is structured makes it easier for senior management failings in a small company to be linked to the breach of the duty of care in the event of a fatality in the workplace.

“In small firms, directors and senior management are at the coal face. Whereas in larger companies there are many levels of management below board level and often senior management are far removed from operations. Therefore if there is a fatality, it is very difficult to identify the senior management failure which substantially contributed to the death under investigation.”

These cases show that all companies should be as compliant as they can be with health and safety requirements, as well as following the Health and Safety Executive and Institute of Director’s guidance, Leading Health and Safety at Work.

Whilst the majority of large companies adhere to the guidelines and have the resources to do so, because they are not required to by law, the vast majority of small firms simply don’t follow the guidance or are unaware of it.

Hughes concludes by saying: “The legislation leaves small firms and owner-managed businesses vulnerable to corporate manslaughter charges and the figures demonstrate that the Crown Prosecution Services is increasingly active in pursuing those it believes have committed the offence.

“I advise all companies to ensure they are compliant with health and safety legislation, and the additional guidance around senior management responsibilities. While putting steps in place to manage health and safety and avoid senior management failings may be viewed as expensive, particularly in the current economic climate, it will protect employees. It may help to avoid tragedy but also the lengthy and expensive prosecutions which can follow.”

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Freedom of Information reveal huge rise in SMEs investigated for corporate manslaughter

Infiniti is not a car manufacturer that many will be familiar with, however this luxury manufacturer, aiming for fourth place after Mercedes, BMW and Audi is definitely worth considering.

Given the manufacturers partnership in F1 with champion winners RedBull Racing they really are a manufacturer with impressive pedigree.

This 359bhp petrol-electric M is the fastest accelerating car of its kind on sale today, with 0-62mph taking just 5.5 seconds – rivals from BMW and Lexus need an extra 0.4 seconds.

What’s the 2012 Infiniti M35h like to drive?
The V6 petrol engine in the M is powerful and it makes the car rapid. This is true whether you’re nipping away from the lights under electric power or using the engine at higher speeds. The switch between battery and electric power is very smooth, too.

However the brakes are a little keen for town driving (queuing).

What’s the Infiniti M35h like inside?
The M35h has a classy interior built from a selection of high-quality materials that look and feel great. The model we had featured lots of pale dark wood which dated it slightly, however there are black inset options available.

The biggest downside is the vast amount of space the battery robs from the boot; the standard diesel and petrol models’ 450-litre space falls to just 350-litres, which is a long way short of the class best.

There’s room for four adults inside, but this is definitely a 2+2 as there is a large transmission tunnel eating into rear foot space.

Should I buy one?
We were very impressed and overall this car was better than the diesel Mercedes E Class it displaced for this week long trial. Given the CO2 output of sub 160g/km, the fact that for London users there are Congestion Charge advantages over rivals like the BMW 5 series, and the very personal service you get from owning an Infiniti over its, mainly German, rivals we would seriously suggest taking a look.

Read more:
Motoring Review: Infiniti M35h

“If the right measures are put in place to handle the situation carefully and to avoid any future misdemeanours the industry should be safe.

However this scandal should be a stark reminder of the obligations companies owe to their customers” according to David Taylor, CEO of James Caan’s business advisory firm HB Prime Advantage.

In January the nation was shook by the discovery that many popular frozen beef products were found to have traces of horsemeat, a meat that is not consumed in British culture. Public outrage escalated as it was unearthed that some of the most well-known and highly respected brands and supermarkets were retailing contaminated products.

The press were gripped by this on-going story as daily revelations of new discoveries hit the newsstands, exposing the vast scale of the horsemeat scandal. As the eruption of this story begins to calm, suppliers, producers and retailers alike are left picking up the pieces as consumers feel betrayed, deceived and cynical about the food industry.

The ready meal industry is currently estimated at £2.6bn in the UK but in the wake of the “horsemeat scandal” this number could drop as consumers already begin to change their eating habits. According to a survey by Consumer Intelligence, two thirds of British consumers trust food labels less than they did prior to the initial detection of horsemeat in certain beef products. The food industry has their work cut out for them if they are to regain full consumer confidence.

This is not an issue about hygiene or food safety, this is an issue about meeting consumer standards. SMEs in the food industry must deal with the consequences as food regulations and safety issues have been brought to light.

The main issue that has arisen out of these revelations is the loss of consumer trust and SMEs are going to have to work harder than ever before to instil faith back into the food industry. Heightened supply chain regulation and the provision of clear, convincing labelling about the traceability of food will become a strict requirement of British produce by concerned consumers.

This could have repercussions on the cost of production as suppliers and producers will be pressured to provide quality, traceable goods.

Larger, established supermarkets have the resources and skills to respond quickly to crisis’s, deflecting consumer doubt by promoting fresh meat produce and creating clever campaigns and offers that will regain customer loyalty. It is the smaller producers and retailers who are going to be hit the hardest as reputations become sullied.

The cost of reconciliation could include regular costly DNA testing, the use of more expensive cuts of meat and improved monitoring overheads, standards that may be too demanding to meet for SMEs.

The Food Standards Association, who are investigating the scandal, are on a mission to identify all contaminated products, rendering all businesses in the food sector at risk.

Although conditions may become more difficult for SMEs in the food sector, the ready meal industry will not disintegrate as a result of this scandal. Britain’s pockets are continuing to be squeezed as we enter a fifth year of recession, and as low wages and high job uncertainty remain the norm, one of the few areas consumers look to forgo big spending is on food.

These price conscious customers cannot afford fresh produce and therefore will continue to purchase more economically friendly options such as frozen food and ready-meals.

SMEs should view this scandal as an opportunity not a hindrance, but they must act quickly and strategically if they are to capitalise on the situation. Affected businesses need to show contrition and be seen to be acting on it to convince consumers that they have learnt from this incident.

With so much attention now being focused on the food sector, SMEs have a chance to further regulate the industry and banish any doubts in the consumer’s mind. If the right measures are put in place to handle the situation carefully and to avoid any future misdemeanours the industry should be safe, but this scandal should be a stark reminder of the obligations companies owe to their customers.

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After the Horsemeat Scandal can SMEs in the food industry regain consumer trust?

What has changed?
From Friday 8 March 2013, parents will be entitled to take up to 18 weeks unpaid parental leave, an increase from the previous entitlement of 13 weeks.

What is parental leave and do we have to allow an employee to take it?

Eligible employees will be entitled to this increased parental leave, which may be used to cover schooling and childcare problems, attending appointments with children or simply time to spend with the kids!

To qualify for the right the employee must have at least 1 years’ continuous service and have, or expect to have, responsibility for a child.

The statutory right provides for unpaid leave which can be taken in respect of children aged up to 5 years (18 years in respect of disabled children and before the later of 18 years or the 5th anniversary of the date of placement in the case of adoption).

The right remains limited to a maximum of four weeks per year (unless agreed otherwise) and should be taken in blocks of at least a week (except where the child is disabled).

Other than in certain prescribed circumstances (e.g. where the parental leave immediately follows the birth of a child or placement for adoption), an employer can postpone an employee’s parental leave where the employer considers that the operation of its business would be unduly disrupted. For example during a peak period, or where the individual is key to a time-critical project. Postponement can be for up to six months. There are certain requirements for postponement which should be considered and complied with. There are also requirements for the employee in relation to giving notice of the leave.

In practice, the uptake of parental leave hasn’t been that great, perhaps largely due to the fact it is unpaid.

Can an employee take action if they are unhappy with how we have dealt with their parental leave request?
An employee can make a complaint to an Employment Tribunal if the employer unreasonably postpones parental leave or prevents (or attempts to prevent) the employee from taking it. Claims can also be brought where the employee is dismissed or subjected to a detriment for seeking or taking leave. If the employee is successful, the Tribunal may award compensation.

Will there be more changes?
The requirement for this increase to parental leave comes from a European Directive. However, this is the first of a number of other changes planned by the Government which intend to provide greater flexibility for parents. Proposals due to come in during 2015 are currently under consultation and include an extended right to request flexible working and a scheme of shared parental leave – which, despite its name is different to the ‘parental leave’ explained above.

‘Shared parental leave’ is designed to effectively allow parents to share the statutory maternity leave and pay that is currently available only to mothers (and with equivalent provisions in respect of adoptions).

Read more:
Parental Leave entitlement set to increase from 13 to 18 weeks: Are you prepared?

Fund investors face paying income tax on “loyalty bonuses” paid by fund supermarkets from next week after HM Revenue & Customs ruled that the payments are “annual payments” and should therefore be taxed as income, starting in the new tax year – April 6.

Hargreaves Lansdown, the largest payer of loyalty bonuses on funds in the UK, called it “anti-competitive” and said it was a “worrying precedent” that could spread to other forms of cashback, such as those on supermarket loyalty schemes and credit cards.

It means that basic rate tax, of 20 per cent, will be deducted from the bonuses at source and higher-rate taxpayers will need to declare and pay additional amounts on annual self-assessment forms.

Money within Isa and Sipps (self-invested personal pensions) is tax-free and will not be affected.

The payments are made because fund supermarkets receive a renewal advice commission, which is typically 0.50 per cent a year although sometimes higher, from investment companies which operate the funds – even though these fund-selling websites do not give specific advice.

The Financial Services Authority has indicated its intention to ban such “trail commission” payments to fund supermarkets in 2014 and is expected to announce the detail of this at the end of next month.

Ian Gorham, chief executive of Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “It seems the Government is now seeking to tax small savers and investors. This is effectively a second tax on their income.

“Just as worrying is the precedent being set. Loyalty bonuses and cash back offers are common practice across many industries in the UK. The government may have set a precedent in taxing such loyalty schemes and savvy shoppers could well be next with Multi-buys, cashback credit cards and cashback websites all possible targets in the future.

“The discount tax is not good news for investors, businesses or the Government and joins the likes of other unpopular taxes such as the granny tax or pasty tax.”

HMRC said claims that cashback in other industries could be targeted next were “complete rubbish”. Aside from supermarkets, banks and credit card companies latching on to the demand for cashback schemes, a whole industry has been created around it.

Companies like Quidco, for example, will pay consumers the commission it receives when they buy certain goods or services online, such as buying electrical goods or a new holiday. Some consumers make hundreds of pounds a year this way.

A spokesman for HMRC said: “Tax will be due from April onwards on all commission paid by investment funds to investors. We will not collect tax on earlier years commission.

“Until the end of 2013 to allow the rules to bed in we will accept an estimate of tax deducted at source. We will work very closely with stakeholders to ensure the rules are applied fairly across the board.”

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HMRC to tax fund ‘cashback’ from next week & supermarket “loyalty bonuses” could be next

Customers of B&Q TradePoint and Screwfix, part of the Kingfisher Group, can now apply for a credit account of up to £25,000, where previously they may have struggled to secure credit due to a lack of security or adequate credit history. Existing trade customers will be able to apply to extend their accounts for credit of up to £50,000.

Previously, these viable businesses would only have been eligible for credit of up to £3,000 from Screwfix or B&Q, making it harder for them to take on projects due to being unable to afford the upfront costs of the materials. Kingfisher is able to support the additional lending as a result of it being backed by a government guarantee.

The pilot is the result of work between the government and Kingfisher to adapt the existing Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme to widen access to funding and provide alternatives to bank lending. Business Minister Michael Fallon will now be writing to other companies offering them an opportunity to take part in the pilot scheme and offer their customers access to this new source of finance.

Business Minister Michael Fallon said: ”Builders and tradesmen are experiencing a real bottleneck when it comes to accessing credit, and projects are being held up unnecessarily. This pilot is an innovative attempt to make a real difference for the sector.

“Britain’s builders have a vital role to play in delivering growth in this country and we’re determined to get behind them.”

Ian Cheshire, Group Chief Executive of Kingfisher, said: “By piloting this new scheme we are backing Britain and backing the country’s professional tradesmen. Access to credit and control of cashflow is vital for smaller tradesmen, so we are pleased that Screwfix and B&Q will be able to make it easier for more of their trade customers to get credit through this innovative new scheme. By backing Britain’s tradesmen we can boost spending on the home and help get the economy moving again.”

The pilot allows Kingfisher to give credit to trade businesses it would normally have to turn away, by sharing the risk through providing government guarantees of 75 per cent on its lending. As well as allowing Kingfisher to lend to viable businesses outside its present risk profile, the scheme also allows it to lend more to existing businesses.

The pilot has been designed so there is no new administrative burden to Kingfisher. All credit decisions will be made by Kingfisher based on existing processes, and customers and frontline staff will see no difference to the trade credit application.

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Building trade given £30m boost to get projects off the ground

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, Martha Lane Fox CBE, founder of lastminute.com and Lord Young, the Prime Minister’s Enterprise Adviser, will be joined on the festival’s main day by some of the country’s leading entrepreneurs and thinkers.

Gathering more than 1,000 business leaders in Liverpool, Accelerate 2013 will provide a unique accelerator for growth, motivating high potential businesses to become world-beating organisations that will lead the economic fight-back in Britain.

At the heart of the festival, created by the city’s economic development company, Liverpool Vision, will be the inaugural meeting of the Accelerate 250, the UK’s ‘vital six per cent’ of businesses which create more than half of the nation’s new jobs and have the greatest growth potential.

Each has been nominated by leading business figures and organisations and been personally invited to take part in the festival by Sir Terry Leahy, former Chief Executive of Tesco PLC and patron of Accelerate 2013.

A fringe programme will take place in the three days leading up to the main summit day, with scores of events being hosted in the Liverpool city region.

Building on the success of the Global Entrepreneurship Congress 2012, which took place in Liverpool in March 2012, Accelerate 2013 will be a stepping-stone to the International Festival for Business 2014, a 61-day expo of world-class events taking place in the Liverpool city region in June and July 2014. The International Festival for Business 2014 will bring £100 million of inward investment to the UK and 250,000 visitors to Liverpool.

Max Steinberg, Chief Executive of Liverpool Vision, said: “Last year’s Global Entrepreneurship Congress was an inspiring event, acknowledged by its founders as the best ever, and which underlined the city’s commitment to support business and invigorated the entrepreneurial debate in the UK and across the world.

“I said at the time that we would continue to be ambitious and would host an annual festival of entrepreneurship here in Liverpool and Accelerate 2013 is that legacy. It will be the first ever flagship festival for the UK’s high potential businesses and Liverpool is the ideal host city having again become an internationally renowned hub for trade and industry.

“The lineup of speakers is truly outstanding, led by Jimmy Wales and this will be another world class event inspiring businesses to take the next step and helping to secure Britain’s recovery.”

Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia, said: “Great job Liverpool for hosting a festival with such a clear focus on high-growth businesses. These are the businesses that are transforming communities and countries all over the world with their ambition and performance – and it is imperative that we lend them the continued inspiration and support they need.

“We built Wikipedia on the principles of collaboration and the free exchange of knowledge. Accelerate 2013 embodies the best of this collaboration – and the transformative power of the knowledge it can bring. I am thrilled to be a part of it and I can’t wait to meet the stock of talented businesses that will be there.”

Tickets to attend Accelerate 2013 cost £65, plus VAT and booking fee, and can be booked via the website: www.accelerate2013.co.uk

Read more:
Jimmy Wales & Martha Lane Fox to headline Liverpool’s festival for fast growth businesses

While equity crowdfunding has exploded in the past two years, more sophisticated investors have shied away from investing through equity crowdfunding platforms. Combining the classic syndicate model with new technology, Syndicate Funding 2.0 claims to provide the means for sophisticated crowdfunders to co-invest with the angels at a click of a button, always knowing that a lead investor is also putting their own capital into the very same deal.

This new model of finance focuses on adding value to investors rather than entrepreneurs and as a result attracts a more sophisticated breed of investors investing larger amounts.

Syndicate Room founder Gonçalo de Vasconcelos, who spoke at the Summit to introduce the ‘Syndicate Funding 2.0’ concept, comments: “The reason why more sophisticated investors shy away from equity crowdfunding is that existing platforms focus on providing value to entrepreneurs, not investors. Syndicate Room is the first online platform focused on providing value to crowdfunders by bringing them top-tier entrepreneurs that have secured the backing of at least one Business Angel.

As a result we have gained the support of several angel networks and angel investors across the UK. At the same time, we help the top-tier entrepreneurs to close funding rounds very quickly so that they can focus on customers sooner rather than later, which is the most important thing on a startup”.

Syndicate Room deals are in the range of £150,000 to £2m and over 60 per cent of the capital invested comes from active Business Angels, whilst the remaining 40 per cent or less is open to Syndicate Room members and also works as a ‘reality check’ for the lead investors – like complementary due diligence, without either party being liable to each other.

Members of Syndicate Room vary from active Business Angels to busy professionals that have an appetite for investing in new ventures but have no desire to become active Business Angels themselves such as partners of professional services firms.

Read more:
Syndicate Funding 2.0 – the new investment model that brings crowdfunding & Business Angels together

You may have heard of the latest global internet dance sensation, ‘the Harlem Shake’.

Perhaps you’ve even participated in one of these 30 second dance videos which are proving hugely popular on the social media site YouTube However Jemma Pugh, Solicitor, and Susan Evans, Partner, at Lester Aldridge LLP explain what happens when employers get all shaken up by their staff’s antics.

Keen to be a part of this craze, students from Oxford University’s St Hilda’s College recently made their own ‘Harlem Shake’ video.  At 11.30pm, a group of around 30 students went to the library to perform the stunt.  The video, which apparently took just 7 minutes to make, has been viewed over 5,000 times since it was posted on YouTube. The students can be seen dancing on the library chairs and tables in fancy dress.

Was this all a bit of harmless fun? Well, not for Calypso Nash, a Classics graduate and the librarian on shift at the time.  It has been widely reported that she has now been dismissed for not preventing the ‘Harlem Shake’ from taking place.  The students have said that the librarian was not involved in organising the prank, nor did she take part.  They say that Ms Nash could not have stopped it and have called for her to be reinstated.

The College has not released a statement nor made any comment on this dismissal as yet.  Therefore, we are unaware of the full story at the moment.  However, it is possible that the College considers that Ms Nash’s actions (or lack thereof) amounted to gross misconduct.

It’s probably worth reminding ourselves of the law on what is and isn’t a fair dismissal.  Misconduct is, of course, one of the five potentially fair reasons for dismissal under s98 Employment Rights Act 1996.  ‘Gross misconduct’ is misconduct which is so serious it justifies dismissal without notice and without a previous warning.  Whether misconduct is ‘gross’ will most often be a question of fact and depend largely on the particular circumstances and the type of work being carried out.  Examples of gross misconduct should be set out in an employer’s disciplinary policy and normally include theft, violence and serious negligence – the ‘Harlem Shake’ is not usually listed as a specific offence.

It’s possible that the College considers that Ms Nash has committed a serious breach of health and safety regulations by allowing the students to stand on the chairs and tables, or perhaps it assumed that she orchestrated the dance.  Either way, for this dismissal to be fair, a reasonable investigation should have been carried out to ascertain the facts of the matter before acting.

An employer must ensure that they follow a fair procedure when dismissing an employee in order to protect themselves against claims of unfair dismissal.  Generally, an employee is entitled to make a claim of unfair dismissal against their employer if they were employed for at least one year ending with the date of dismissal (this has been increased to two years for those whose employment commenced on or after 6 April 2012).

Assuming this was the librarian’s first offence, it is possible for an employer to dismiss fairly following one incident of gross misconduct but, once again, they should carry out a reasonable investigation of the issues first and ideally have a disciplinary hearing or meeting with the employee, in line with the ACAS code of practice .

The employee should then be informed of the decision in writing, and given the right to appeal the decision.  Unless an employer is satisfied that the employee’s conduct amounts to gross misconduct, they should issue a series of warnings prior to dismissal.

Perhaps most importantly, the decision to dismiss must fall within the band of reasonable responses available to a reasonable employer in those circumstances; if a claim is made by an employee, an Employment Tribunal will not substitute its own view of what the outcome should have been but will instead decide whether or not the employer acted reasonably.

In this case, assuming that a fair procedure had been followed, it all turns on whether the College’s decision to dismiss was within the “band of reasonable responses” open to an employer.  What do you think? Was it reasonable to dismiss the librarian?

Read more:
What happens when the ‘Harlem Shake’ causes a stir with employers?

The survey also shows that over a quarter of SMEs think it would be a conflict of interest if both the government and the private sector are involved in a state-backed bank, which is due to be in operation by 2014. A further 28% of respondents said that they are not fully aware of the proposal, claiming there has not been enough information available.

Darren Fell, MD at Crunch Accounting who commissioned the research, said: “The research shows that Cable’s idea is already failing its target market. With over 80% of SMEs either rejecting the idea or saying they are too ill informed to make an opinion, it seems that Cable’s proposal is little more than lip service. Simply, if half the funds are from private investors then it is shareholder controlled, and ultimately for shareholders’ profit and benefit.”

Vince Cable’s Small Business Bank aims to provide an investment alternative for small and medium sized firms. It was announced at the Lib Dem conference in September 2012 and will be funded by a mixture of £1bn from the government and £1bn from a collection of private sector investors. Cable claims a new state-backed institution could leverage up to £10bn to help businesses struggling to find finance from high-street banks.

Crunch Accounting offers a team of expert in-house accountants with easy-to-use online accounting software to manage the company accounts for SMEs, microbusinesses and freelancers.

*Research commissioned by Crunch Accounting and run by One Poll took place in December 2012 it was an online questionnaire of British small businesses.

Read more:
SMEs not onboard for Cable’s British Business Bank

The Dell XPS 10 Windows RT-equipped convertible tablet will truly last all day and most of the night (and certainly cover the longest flight in the world).

It has a very small-capacity hard drive, but if your digital life is truly in the cloud, the XPS 10 can totally be the everyday computer that you carry everywhere.

If you think you need to carry all of your digital files (especially videos and multimedia) with you at all times, stop reading this and go read a review for a more power user-oriented system. Still here? Okay, the Dell XPS 10 has one of the longest battery life test results we’ve seen.

You can use this convertible tablet on the longest flight in the world, and still have battery power left over to check your email when you land. An even better use would be for a busy student or business centre dweller who rarely has a chance to plug in: 20+ hours of battery life means that you can stay connected all day and well into the night. If “Office and the Internet” are your primary needs on a computer, then this Windows RT tablets is the everyday computer you really can carry everywhere.

The XPS 10 follows the now familiar hybrid tablet format. Primarily, it’s a slate tablet, measuring a slim 0.36 by 11 by 7 inches. Connected to its keyboard dock, the system grows to just under an 2 cms thick while keeping its other dimensions, and the combined weigh is .76kg.

Like other tablets, the XPS 10 is constructed from magnesium alloy and has a soft touch finish. The tablet latches to the keyboard dock easily, and can be removed just as easily by pushing a sliding tab on the keyboard dock hinge. When the two are connected, the XPS 10 looks and acts like a small laptop, with a comfortable keyboard and one-piece multitouch trackpad.

Around the edges of the XPS 10 are the tablet’s docking/charging connector, a micro-USB port (with included full sized USB port dongle), volume control, micro-SD card slot, and headset jack. The keyboard dock has a pair of USB 2.0 ports, a mini-HDMI port (with included mini-HDMI to full HDMI dongle), and charging port.

You can plug the AC adapter into the dock or the tablet’s docking connector for charging, one AC adapter is included with the tablet, and one with the keyboard dock. Since you have both chargers, you can leave one at home and carry the other with you in your travel bag. If you’re in a pinch, you can use a standard micro-USB cable and USB charger to recharge or power the XPS 10, albeit at a slow trickle rate.

One nicety we found during testing are the keyboard dock’s built-in speakers. When the tablet is used alone, the sound is fine for Web surfing and alert sounds. When you connect the keyboard dock, the speakers in the dock work in concert with the speakers in the tablet to give you a louder, richer audio experience.

The XPS 10’s screen measures 10.1 inches and is easily viewable from many angles, and its resolution supports 720p HD video. Any 1080p HD video can be downscaled for viewing on the system’s screen, but it’s a better viewing experience to watch 720p videos natively instead.

There are two major drawbacks with Windows RT: compatibility and the closed ecosystem. Since the XPS 10 and other RT-based systems run a version of Windows over an ARM processor (the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4), older programs are not compatible with RT.

The only source for programs is the Windows Store in the system’s Start screen. You can’t download and install your favorite browser, you can’t buy programs from a third party site  and you can’t install many browser plug-ins either. The one plus on the program side is that the system comes with Microsoft Office 2013 RT pre-loaded, and that the system is somewhat protected from viruses.

The system is bloatware free, since the only pre-loaded programs are Office, Skype, Dell Shop (physical products from Dell), Getting Started with Windows RT and Dell dock settings.

Getting Started with Windows RT is a good set of videos and documentation to help new users learn how to use Windows RT and the new user interface. The local storage of 23GB can be augmented by popping a microSD card into the XPS 10 or you can also use Microsoft’s SkyDrive for cloud storage.

When connected to the Web, the XPS 10 is an excellent tool. Internet Explorer starts up quickly, and websites load quickly as well. Programs like Netflix and Salesforce work as you’d expect. However, as stated above, the number of Windows RT compatible apps is still severely limited compared with those for Android Tablets and iPads.

The thing that RT tablets have over the other mobile platforms are the fully compatible copy of Office and the fact that the OS on RT tablets acts like a typical Windows OS. The XPS 10 comes with a one-year warranty standard with options for extending that warranty through Dell’s ProSupport service.

The XPS 10 lasts a staggering 11 hours and 34 minutes alone, and tops in at over 20 hours when connected to its fully charged keyboard dock. This is a phenomenal amount of battery life. However whilst all of the RT tablets outlast laptops and tablets with ultrabook-class processors like the Microsoft Surface Pro (4:58), Atom-powered tablets can give you full Windows 8 compatibility and long battery life like the Dell Latitude 10 (19:38 with extended battery).

Essentially, it comes down to what you need out of your tablet. If you need the ultimate in portability and don’t care at all about compatibility with Windows, then grab an iPad or Google Nexus 7.

If you absolutely, positively need legacy program support or Windows 8 Pro compatibility, then a full-blown Windows 8 tablet like the Editors’ Choice Dell Latitude 10 or Microsoft Surface Pro is worth the added expense.

However, if you need insanely long battery life and your critical “Windows compatibility” needs are limited to Office documents, then you can get a Windows RT tablet like this Dell XPS 10. It’s one of the best RT tablets we’ve seen so far and given that we are far more used to Apple products and iPads are daily use items for us this Dell XPS 10 amazed us.

Read more:
Reviewed: Dell XPS 10

The deVere Group reports that 53 per cent of its high-net-worth clients surveyed in a recent worldwide poll said they were bullish about the investment outlook for the next 12 months.

Carried out annually, the survey assesses investors’ attitudes to risk for the year ahead. The last time investor confidence levels were beyond the current level was back in March 2010, when 55 per cent of the deVere Group’s high-net-worth individuals said they were feeling bullish.

“There has, unquestionably, been an increase in the appetite for risk amongst high-net-worth investors. This optimistic attitude is a reflection of the gradual recovery of the global economy,” says deVere Group chief executive, Nigel Green.

“The upbeat sentiment is, I suspect, influenced by the eurozone being seen to be taking positive steps to tackle its crisis, the fact that the US didn’t fall over the fiscal cliff, because China has avoided an economic ‘hard landing’, and because central banks are claiming to be going all-out to stabilise their respective economies, amongst other factors, which have removed some of the lingering uncertainty.”

He continues: “These people understand that, thankfully, we’ve left the darkest days of the economic crisis behind and that in order to safeguard their wealth against inflation they now need to reduce their exposure to ‘safe’, low-yield investments, such as government bonds, and increase their holdings of higher risk/higher return investments.”

deVere Group clients who have investable assets of more than £1 million took part in this year’s poll and data from previous years show that in 2012, 49 per cent of high-net-worth investors reported they felt optimistic for the forthcoming 12 months whilst only 44 per cent said the same in 2011.

Read more:
High-net-worth investor confidence surges to three-year high

The app itself, which summarises news stories from popular media companies will now close, but its features will be used in mobile products at Yahoo, where Mr D’Aloisio has been given a job.

He will be joined by several of Summly’s “top staff” in new roles at Yahoo in the next few weeks.

The app launched when Mr D’Aloisio was aged just 15, and soon attracted more than £1m of investment.

Neither company would disclose the terms of the deal publicly.

In a note on the Summly blog, Mr D’Aloisio wrote on Monday: “When I founded Summly at 15, I would have never imagined being in this position so suddenly.

“I’d personally like to thank Li Ka-Shing and Horizons Ventures for having the foresight to back a teenager pursuing his dream. Also to our investors, advisers and of course the fantastic team for believing in the potential of Summly.

“Without you all, this never would have been possible. I’d also like to thank my family, friends and school for supporting me.”

Yahoo’s senior vice president of mobile, Adam Cahan, said the company was “excited” to have Mr D’Aloisio and his colleagues on board.

“For publishers, the Summly technology provides a new approach to drive interest in stories and reach a generation of mobile users that want information on the go,” he wrote.

Read more:
Yahoo spends £18million on Summly app created by UK seventeen year old

The research also showed that SMEs across the UK could create an extra £43 billion in additional sales and also found that the average SME is actually achieving less that forty per cent of its planned marketing activity. Yet when business owners were asked to predict the sales impact produced by increased marketing activity, results showed a growth of 9.2 per cent compared to 2011 prices.

The research, carried out with the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr), demonstrates a disparity between planned marketing activity and the reality of what takes place.

Three-quarters recognise that it is important to the success of their business, however a third rate their efforts over the last six months at under 5/10. 11 per cent admit to doing none of the marketing they had planned.

Ryan Higginson, from Pitney Bowes, who commissioned the research said: “There is a great opportunity for savvy SMEs to grab a slice of the £122billion but to do so they must look for ways to embrace every sales opportunity and maximise profit. Implementing digital marketing is one way of doing this and easy-to-use, low-cost online tools, such as pbSmart Essentials can help set up a digital marketing campaign in under a day.”

When asked what’s holding them back, SME owners cited time and money – the acknowledged challenges for SMEs. Prioritisation is also a clear issue as the average owner juggles seven different roles on a daily basis and admits that buying stationery is ahead of marketing.

SMEs who have been in business for over 25 years claim that they are closest to achieving planned levels of marketing, with just under a third claiming to have achieved their marketing plan.

Read more:
Marketing costs for SMEs nearly reach £24,000 a year

The £150,000 of funding will create a one-stop-shop web site designed to make it easier for consumers to get information about rights ownership and copyright licences, was announced today by Intellectual Property (IP) Minister, Lord Younger.

Professor Hargreaves, in his review of IP and Growth in May 2011, recommended that the UK should establish an industry-led solution to improve copyright licensing. He estimated that it could add up to £2.2 billion a year to the UK economy by 2020, with a particular benefit to the creative industries.

The Hub, which will be designed and built by industry, will act as a source of information about rights ownership to support open and competitive markets for copyright licences. This will cut costs for businesses by creating a more efficient online market place where those looking to use copyright works in new creations or services, for example a company providing a multimedia service for a wedding, will have access to a greater range of licensing options, through the Hub, in a straightforward online transaction.

Minister for Intellectual Property, Lord Younger said: The Copyright Hub will simplify copyright licensing for consumers and I am delighted to announce this funding to enable industry to begin their work.

Databases of copyright works such as those held by collecting societies and publishers, and designs such as the Register of Designs at the IPO already exist. However, government has listened to concerns that consumers are unsure who they should go to if they are looking for information about obtaining a licence, particularly if multiple rights are involved.

The funding announced today will help industry to start building the Hub website sooner and engage with schools and Further Education colleges to help streamline educational licensing. Above all, it chimes with government’s aim to provide a further portal to assist businesses to grow faster and to boost our creative industries.

Richard Hooper, Director of Copyright Hub Ltd said: The Copyright Hub, linking to a wide array of databases and digital copyright exchanges, has the clear aim of helping consumers, rights users and small businesses find their way through the complexity of copyright and thus allow them to license copyrighted works much more easily and at a lower transaction cost. The Copyright Hub until today has been just an idea. Today it begins to become an exciting reality. We are especially grateful for the speed with which the Department of Business/IPO provided some start-up funding thus giving a real boost to this whole idea that emanated from the Hargreaves Review.

Jo Dipple, UK Music Chief Executive Officer said: The copyright hub is very welcome and it is something the music industry has enthusiastically embraced as we try to push for further growth in the global digital marketplace. I’ve recently been at SXSW in Texas and witnessed first hand the hunger and appetite for the music made by British artists and bands and the potential for its growth, which the hub can only help to serve.

With this new funding the project has been given a real kickstart and it also demonstrates a further, very welcome commitment from the government, whose continued support – in partnership with our industry – is needed to underpin the hub’s success.

The Copyright Hub will be a website bringing together existing databases and services to make a new marketplace. This should lower the administration cost of many licensing transactions, and provide new opportunities for creators and users of works.

Read more:
Government gives £150,000 funding to kick-start copyright hub

Taxi drivers are some of the worst culprits of smoking in cars, with second-hand smoke passing on to passengers and potentially causing disease later in life.

Vehicle remarketing specialist British Car Auctions told Motortrades Insight that drivers who have smoked in their cars find it more difficult to sell their vehicles and almost always sell for a lower price – in fact as much as £400 to £500 lower.

“If you go to auction and you have a choice of two cars that are exactly the same but one has been owned by a smoker and one by a non smoker, chances are people will go for the car that has not been smoked in” says British Car Auction’s Tim Naylor.

“The British Medical Association has highlighted research showing the levels of toxins in a car can be up to 11 times higher than (it used to be) in a smoky bar,” he added. “But if drivers aren’t motivated by the health of their passengers, perhaps they will be by the diminishing health of their finances. Lighting up inside a car seriously devalues the vehicle for resale.”

Naylor’s comments come as Sweden seriously considers extending its bans of smoking in public places to cars – a move that could potentially save thousands of lives.

His research has uncovered that presentation is one of the top priorities for buyers at car auctions as there is rarely any opportunity to test a car and any pre-conceptions of what a vehicle is like is based significantly on its aesthetics.

“It is one of the top factors influencing the price of used cars,” he explained. “So if a car is more like an ashtray on wheels, chances are buyers will move on to find one that looks and smells fresh as a daisy.”

While some smokers wishing to sell their car go to extreme lengths to get their car cleaned by a professional valeter. It can be expensive and time-consuming and can often mean replacing interior upholstery which is irreparable from the damaging effects of smoking, with nicotine-stained head-linings a common problem.

Naylor concluded: “Motorists should avoid having a cigarette in their car, especially if they intend to sell it in the near future. This will avoid the lingering smell of cigarettes in the interior, as well as eliminate the risk of scorch marks on the upholstery or dash. All of these things will put buyers off, even if they smoke themselves.”

Read more:
The “invisible cost” of smoking could sting used car sellers by £500.00

Companies that use free calls with SIP state that it’s possible to save up to 60 per cent compared to ISDN communications. It’s important to know that cost efficiency is not the only benefit SIP trunking services provide.  Here are five ways SIP solutions can help in business.

1. Updating your current telephony solutions
State-of-the-art SIP trunking services bring advanced functionality to your conventional PBX solutions. These include automated call transfer between several locations, greater flexibility for users, improved voicemail and call centre functionality. Free SIP calls are also great options for mobile and home-working specialists.

2. The global reach
With free SIP calls, the boundaries of free telephony are not just limited to a company’s offices. Skype for SIP solutions allow businesses to make calls to landlines and mobile phones throughout the world. By getting Skype online numbers, it’s possible to receive mobile and landline calls to corporate PBXs.

3. Business rationalisation
Business SIP trunking services deliver new site rationalisation options, especially useful for multi-site businesses. You can reduce the number of PBXs without losing the numbers associated with your company. It’s easy to combine several offices into a single location, or even support distant employees.

4. Extending the range of services
Once you have an effective business SIP based communication system working seamlessly, it’s imperative to analyse employee occupancy. Free SIP calls and advanced SIP functionality allow attending a greater number of calls, which boosts productivity. It’s a great opportunity to extend the range of services your company offers.

5.  Seasonal requirements
If your business has seasonal voice capacity requirements, SIP trunking services are the answer to the question how to add more lines quickly, without long-term commitments. Reputable SIP providers deliver highly flexible systems able to manage significant seasonal growth in traffic. It becomes much easier to handle seasonal sales campaigns, for example.

High quality business communications go a long way. SIP trunking is a must for modern organisations looking to increase productivity and revenue without spending much on communications.

Read more:
5 Ways To Use Free SIP Calls In Business

The ad-fraud botnet, dubbed Chameleon, mimics website visitor traits, like clicking or rolling a mouse over display ads. It is the first, to hit online display advertising, and requires “a surprising level [of] sophistication,” according to fraud analytics firm Spider.io.

“Spider.io has been tracking anomalous behaviour associated with Chameleon botnet since December, 2012, and in February of this year the extent of the Chameleon botnet’s principal web-browsing activity was established,” an advisory by spider.io explains.

Spider.io say that with the help of display ad exchanges and demand-side platforms, has identified “deviant consumption,” which accounted for 9 billion fraudulent display ads served a month.

So far, more than 120,000 host machines have been identified — 95 percent of which come from residential IP addresses in the U.S.

“The bots visit the same set of websites, with little variation,” the firm said. “The bots generate uniformly random click co-ordinates across ad impressions and the bots also generate randomized mouse traces.”

Chameleon is relatively unstable, though. The botnet subjects its host machines to a heavy load, crashing and restarting regularly, and possibly signaling to users that something is wrong.

This recent botnet discovery comes after last month’s Microsoft and Symantec takedown of the Bamital botnet, which also cost online advertisers millions of dollars, according to Spider.io.

Read more:
Chameleon Botnet steals $6M a month from online advertisers

The Finalists span a wide range of sectors and businesses, from technology and computer coding to healthy fruit snacks as well as food waste, demonstrating the breadth of up-and-coming female entrepreneurial talent in the UK.

The finalists are:

· Jenny Dawson, Rubies in the Rubble
· Hayley Gait-Golding, Bear Nibbles
· Kathryn Parsons, DeCoded

Mirroring the early years of Mme Clicquot, who at 27 took over the House of Veuve Clicquot, the winner of this new award will demonstrate a fearless approach to ensuring their creative vision can grow as their business expands

All finalists selected by the Veuve Clicquot New Generation Award judging panel demonstrated the strongest evidence of satisfying all nomination criteria. Notable achievements included Jenny Dawson’s innovative approach to finding a solution to sustaining food waste alongside tackling the issue of local unemployment, Kathryn Parson’s foresight in developing an offer to help up skill workforces in business’ newest language, coding, as well as Hayley Gait-Golding’s business success in the creation of a brand that has become the fastest growing fruit snack brand in the UK.

Sian Westerman, a member of the judging panel and Managing Director at Rothschild comments: “It’s excellent to see young women developing successful businesses, especially in this tough economic climate. The work Kathryn Parsons is doing to help people learn and understand the complicated language of technology is so important in driving forward the next generation’s ability to take advantage of technological developments and know how. What Hayley Gait-Golding and Jenny Dawson are doing to bring healthy foods to us whilst also contributing to the sustainable economy is inspiring and clever. These women are assets to their generation and I hope their work will inspire more women in their 20s and 30s to follow in their footsteps in coming up with innovative ideas which they translate in to successful businesses.”

The winner of the Veuve Clicquot New Generation Award will be announced in mid April 2013 and celebrated along with the unveiling of the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award winner for this year at a high-profile Champagne reception at The Ballroom at Claridge’s, London.

The Award’s 20-strong judging panel is comprised of business leaders, including, Jasmine Whitbread, CEO Save the Children, Duncan Bannatyne, Entrepreneur and BBC Dragon, Caroline Michel, CEO, Peters, Frasers and Dunlop as well as Sian Westerman, MD, Rothschild and other key industry experts.

The Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award, now in its 41st year, celebrates entrepreneurial women who have made a significant contribution to business life in the UK. The Veuve Clicquot Business Woman Award nomination criteria are those ideals epitomised by Madame Clicquot: Entrepreneurship, financial success, Corporate Social Responsibility and acting as a role model.

Read more:
Finalists announced for first Veuve Clicquot New Generation Award

The Mediation Service will be available to businesses involved in an IP dispute that are seeking to resolve matters without resorting to costly litigation through the Courts. It will offer access to a greater variety of mediation options including short telephone sessions, a wider range of specialist accredited mediators and reduced mediation fees.

Minister for Intellectual Property, Lord Younger said: “For intellectual property disputes, going through the courts should be the last resort, not the first port of call.

“Mediation can help parties to reach agreements where a court cannot. This can be crucial where the dispute involves small businesses who don’t have the experience of going to court on IP matters or who don’t have the time and resources to devote to litigation. Mediation can help everybody maintain existing relationships and potentially create new business partnerships by avoiding often messy and drawn-out litigation.

“These changes provide more options for businesses to protect their innovation, and increase their access to justice.”

The IPO Mediation Service was established in 2006 to help deliver IP dispute resolution as quickly, effectively and efficiently as possible but usage has been low. Professor Hargreaves’ Review of Intellectual Property and Growth in 2011 identified the cost of IP enforcement and dispute resolution as a major barrier for small businesses. Improvements to the existing Mediation Service were identified through a call for evidence which ran between June and July 2012.

Clive Davenport, Policy Chairman for Trade and Industry of the Federation of Small Businesses said: “The Federation of Small Businesses welcomes the launch of the IPO Mediation Service which has been modernised to better meet the needs of small businesses.

“That it is linked to broader initiatives like the Business Dispute Resolution Commitment and the soon to be renamed and reformed Patents County Court is important. This will help to ensure that the service, and mediation generally, is a key alternative to help business reach more creative and beneficial solutions to their disputes.”

Read more:
Red tape cut for small businesses with intellectual property disputes

The investment by KCP will be used to support and grow EarthStream’s capability and headcount in its existing markets. It will also help fund new office launches in 2013 in Yokohama Japan and Houston US as the business aims to take advantage of the boom for specialists in unconventional natural gas.

The company, headquartered in London, has a physical presence in 10 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America and has placed candidates in over 50 countries since inception in July 2010. It supplies specialist workers in the oil & gas, mining & resources, renewable energy and power &transmission sectors. In 2012 the company generated turnover of over £20 million and the business currently employs over 130 people.

EarthStream was founded by serial recruitment entrepreneur Paul Beeke and this is the third private equity-backed company that he has managed. Hepreviously launched, developed and sold two other specialist recruitment firms, the most recent being James Harvard International Group, which was sold to Hays PLC in 2007.The Chairman of the business is Ian Nash. Ian has previously held the post of CFO at Michael Page plc and Robert Walters plc.

The transaction is KCP’s third in the recruitment sector following investments in blue-collar labour recruitment company Templine and healthcare industry recruiter Nurse Plus.

Paul Beeke, chief executive of EarthStream, said: “The investment from KCP has come at a perfect time in the company’s growth trajectory. We have had an exciting couple of years of fast growth since foundation and the investment and support from KCP will help ensure our rapid expansion continues. It will be used to accelerate our growth plans and help our expansion into Japan and US.

“KCP know the recruitment industry inside and out and I look forward to working with both Philip and Mike as we develop the business further.”

Philip Duquenoy, director at KCP, originated the deal having previously worked with Beeke. Commenting on the deal he said: “Paul has an impeccable track record and is a leader in the recruitment industry. We look forward to working with the EarthStream team as they continue to scale the business globally”.

As part of the deal KCP investment partner Mike Fell and director Philip Duquenoy will join the board at EarthStream.

Read more:
Key Capital Partners takes stake in EarthStream

Taking out the right insurance cover is vital in order to be able to trade, but it is essential to seek independent advice from a reliable insurance expert to keep premiums as low as possible.

If you currently use an insurance broker, check that they are providing truly independent advice and that they are not tied to any insurers as this may mean you aren’t getting the best possible deals. Consider asking another broker to carry out a comparative review.

If you do, ensure that both brokers are quoting on the same basis to ensure a direct comparison. Avoid going to a number of brokers as, paradoxically, this can work against you.

Your broker will help identify what policies you will need to buy. If you have employees, you have to take out Employers’ Liability insurance. This is a cover that protects your business if an employee has an accident whilst carrying out his duties. As you employ more people, the ability to demonstrate a robust health and safety plan can have a positive effect on your liability premiums.

You will need Public Liability cover to protect your business from claims made by third parties for any personal injury or damage caused to their property. With so many personal injury claims companies operating today, it is vital that you take out this cover to protect your business from the possibility of suffering severe financial losses.

Should you be operating in the service sector – providing advice for a fee – Professional Indemnity insurance should also be a cover that you factor into discussions with your broker. This protects your business if you provide advice or a service that leads to a financial loss for a client.

Another important consideration is Business Interruption cover, which protects you from the consequential loss of income following, for example, a fire or perhaps a flood. Most businesses fail after a serious incident, not because of the physical damage caused but because of inadequate business interruption cover.

It is relatively easy to identify your assets and you will need to ensure the sums insured reflect realistic replacement or rebuilding costs. Sometimes, however, it is more difficult to identify your potential liabilities and here your broker will help you.

It is essential to remember that your most important assets are your people. You may have a major reliance on a key individual, without whom your business would suffer significant financial losses. A simple and inexpensive personal accident policy will provide invaluable funds in the event of an accident to that individual.

UK insurers experienced major losses due to floods in 2012. This allied to poor investment returns and a period of major global disasters meaning it is likely premiums will rise this year. As a result, it is important to ensure that you are choosing the right insurance covers for the lowest possible cost. In order to keep your premiums low, consider with your broker risk management measures and how they may affect premiums. For example, an upgrade in your alarm system may result in premium savings.

Alternatively, if you run a vehicle fleet, you could consider driver training and a host of other risk management measures.
A competitive insurance market has led in many cases to historically low premiums. There is a strong argument that we have reached rock bottom in that sense, and that premiums are certain to rise in the next 12 months.

If a thorough review of your insurances results in premium savings, you might want to consider a Long Term Agreement or even a long term policy, if available, to tie your insurer in to the premium level for longer than the usual 12 months.

Ultimately, talking to an independent broker should ensure you have the best possible cover for the most competitive price. Their advice on what insurance protection your business needs – and steps you can take to keep premiums low – will be invaluable, saving you precious time and needlessly wasted cash when you need it the most.

Finally, don’t forget that as your business evolves, your insurance requirements will evolve. Keep your cover under review to ensure you’re adequately insured, avoiding any nasty surprises in the event of an unforeseen situation arising.

Read more:
Insurance advice for businesses: Why Independent advice can keep premiums low

The partnership, a first of its kind, has been created to give young people the chance to work in Wayra Academies in London, Munich, Dublin, Madrid, Barcelona or Prague. Opportunities will range from working in operations or joining the team of a Wayra supported start-up.

Interns will also have opportunities with Wayra alumni whose growing enterprises are fostering the next generation of talented young people.

The initiative was celebrated at the partnership launch event at the London Wayra Academy, where it was unveiled to 200 people, ranging from industry leaders, through serially successful entrepreneurs, to heads of student enterprise societies.

Simon Devonshire, Director of Wayra Europe said: “We are witnessing the birth of a new economy – the digital economy – which I believe is more significant than the birth of the industrial revolution. The partnership with Wayra and Enternships provides students with a real opportunity to get personally involved in this revolution and gain invaluable experience in working with the pioneers of this new age.”

The announcement follows Telefónica’s recent commitment to help develop entrepreneurship among young people across Europe. Within its 2015 targets, Telefónica pledged to build a Telefónica Think Big community of more than 300,000 young people working to build a more entrepreneurial Europe.

It also committed to enrolling 50,000 students in Think Big School, teaching digital literacy such as coding and robotics, and to transition 5,000 young people and graduates from education into the workplace via its Talentum programme.

Devonshire continued: “There is always an incredible learning opportunity in working with any start-up, however, the Wayra start-ups are even more special because they are inherently digital. Wayra’s recent global call for entrepreneurs received 3,444 applications from teams wanting to join us and benefit from the acceleration Wayra provides. By virtue of this incredible volume of applications, the successful ones really are the best of the best – the partnership with Enternships creates an opportunity for students to work directly with them.”

Rajeeb Dey, CEO and Founder of Enternships, added: “We’re thrilled to be partnering with Wayra. Giving young people the opportunity to spend time in an entrepreneurial environment provides them with different experience than they would get in a corporate setting. By creating a portal that encourages young companies to connect with the great pool of untapped graduate talent, Wayra can make sure that their companies have access to exactly the talent they need and deserve. These companies can offer their interns everything they need to kick-start a blazing career and together we can inspire more young people to look at entrepreneurship and working in startups as viable and rewarding career paths.”

Read more:
Wayra & Enternships to provide 130 roles in start-ups

James Caan and Harco van den Oever join forces as they look to fuel economic growth focussing on the UK’s resilient high end luxury market as well as the professional services industry.

Serial entrepreneur James Caan welcomes international business leader, Harco van den Oever, as the latest partner to join his business advisory firm, HB Prime Advantage, which offers invaluable expertise to SMEs looking to grow, and monetise their businesses. The firm welcomes Harco as not just a new Partner, but as an international business leader and financial services expert with the competencies to successfully grow, develop and turnaround organisations.

Harco brings a wealth of experience to the venture with a truly International profile. Speaking five languages, Harco has amassed 25 years of experience leading teams in Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America and the US primarily in the financial services sector alongside working with highly specialised products and services.

Utilising his global expertise, Harco hopes to assist organisations with high touch sales environments, using a first class blend of sales force effectiveness and business development. Harco’s unparalleled knowledge of sales was enhanced during an eleven year career at Christies International, the world’s leading art business. Harco’s successful implementation of a clear sales process through client prioritisation, creating clear KPIs and improving coordination between product and regional teams, earned him the title of Christies’ Senior Vice President in 2011.

Harco also has a proven track record in developing and selling businesses. In 1999 Harco co-founded Fredfinds Ltd, the UK’s first online mortgage broker, and went on to raise £2.5m in funding and negotiated revenue with over 100 mortgage providers before successfully selling the business two years later.

HB Prime Advantage will utilise Harco’s expertise in sales leadership, business development, and improving market share and profitability with the aim to transform UK SMEs in the high end luxury, B2B and professional services sectors. Harco and James are currently recruiting companies to join HB Prime Advantage’s business advisory portfolio, offering a first class opportunity to small and medium sized enterprises with an appetite for growth.

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James Caan partners with Harco van den Oever to promote SME growth

Yahoo! has announced expansion plans to its Dublin Operations Centre, adding more than 200 new employees in the next 12 months. The company has already started recruiting for customer support, technology, operations, HR and finance which will support Yahoo!’s business across the Europe, Middle Eastern and Africa (EMEA) region.

For the past decade, Dublin has been a great home for Yahoo!, with its talented international workforce, strong business environment and sophisticated technology infrastructure. Yahoo! opened its doors in Dublin in 2003, and what started as a small team has already grown into a multilingual and multicultural workforce today.

The Dublin team provides world-class customer care, technical and operational support, and finance-related services for the entire EMEA region.

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Yahoo! Announces Expansion Plans in Dublin

It’s no secret that digital is the key buzzword when it comes to advertising thanks to effectiveness of online and mobile ads, but it might come as a surprise that it’s also going local.

The amount of money spent on local advertising—advertising in mediums like local newspapers, magazines, and on local public radio—is poised to increase from £67.5 billion in 2012 to £88.9 billion in 2017, according to a study released by BIA/Kelsey, an advertisement consultation firm.

According to Mark Fratrik, the chief economist at BIA/Kelsey, this 12.3 percent increase in spending will mostly come not from local advertisers, like small businesses, but instead from national brands and franchises. Local advertisers will increase their spending on local advertising by just under 9 percent by 2015, whereas national advertisers will increase the same type of spending by 20 percent.

Looking at the details behind the statistics Fratrik said: “Large advertisers are realizing that sometimes a nationwide message won’t work; sometimes you need to tailor an ad to a particular type of person in a particular area.”

Most of the increases in advertisement spending will occur on the digital side of things, Fratrik said. The amount spent on online and digital media is expected to almost double by 2017 with almost a third of all money spent in the space. Spending on advertising in traditional mediums, such as newspapers, magazines, and yellow pages, is expected to flat-line or even decrease by just over 1 percent over the next four years.

According to the study, the increase in spend on digital advertising will be fueled in a large part by an increase on spending on mobile ads, which is expected to increase six-fold to £4.4 billion by 2017. Online ads will also increase 46.5 percent, but will actually account for less spending than mobile ads by 2017 at £3.3 billion.

“Mobile’s the explosion—just in the way it affords advertisers the ability to target people in specific locations at specific times,” Fatrik said. “If you want to advertise something like a lunch special, most working people can’t be reached by local TV or radio, and they’re not necessarily reading the newspaper. But they have a mobile device that can display an ad at 11:15 for a lunch special at a local restaurant.”

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Future of Advertising: Local & Mobile

The capital gains tax relief applied to gains realised in 2012/13 and invested in the same tax year or 2013/14 and ‘carried back’. The Chancellor confirmed that the relief on half of the capital gains money reinvested in a start-up will now also apply to gains made in 2013/14.

Launched last year, the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS), like a number of government schemes, has taken some time to gain traction, in spite of the highly attractive tax incentives on offer to angel investors. Combined with income tax relief business angels can gain a tax relief of up to 78% on an investment of £100,000.

The changes were universally welcomed, Derek Uittenbroek, co-founder and CEO of FundTheGap said: “We are delighted to find out that the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) capital gains tax holiday has been extended – offering investors a further 28% tax relief on their investments in seed and start-up stage businesses.  This will continue to ensure that innovative start-ups in Britain have access to the private funding they need to get off the ground.

Katharine Arthur, Tax Partner at MHA MacIntyre Hudson, agreed, and also welcomed the extension by saying: “we have seen a great deal of interest in SEIS and the broader Enterprise Investment Scheme, encouraging investment in smaller businesses. Extending the timeframe in which gains can be reinvested and still be exempt from capital gains tax gives added flexibility and encourages further reinvestment in young businesses.”

The Cnahcellor also confirmed the removal of a clause relating to the control of an SEIS investee company by another company, which was intended to protect but confused matters as a defect in the SEIS drafting meant that this restriction applied from the date of incorporation.

This meant that if a company was formed by a formation agent that was itself a company, and which then owned the subscriber shares, SEIS relief was precluded forever. This change applies to shares issued on or after 6 April 2013 and its removal manages an awkward defect in the legislation that has given the business angel community a few practical difficulties.

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Budget 2013: Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) changes a boost to investors

Peers from all sides strongly criticised the idea put forward by Chancellor George Osborne at last year’s Conservative conference with former Tory cabinet minister Lord Forsyth labelled the scheme “ill-thought through, confused and muddled”

To cut red tape and help businesses, ministers want to introduce a new owner-employee contract, which allows owners to award shares worth between £2,000 and £50,000 to their staff in return, the employee would give up certain rights, including unfair dismissal, redundancy, training rights and also the right to ask for flexible working.

However the plan was defeated by 232 votes to 178 – a majority of 54 with peers attacking the plans. The former cabinet secretary Lord O’Donnell describing them as “very harmful to growth”. O’Donnell went on to ask “In the old days the price of slavery was 20 or 30 pieces of silver – is it now £2,000?”.

Lord Pannick, an independent crossbencher who led moves to throw out the new contract, told peers: “Employment rights were created and have been protected by all governments – Conservative and Labour – precisely because of the inequality of bargaining power between employer and employee and I fear it will bring out the worst in business and not the best”

“To allow these basic employment rights to become a commodity that can be traded by agreement frustrates the very purposes of these entitlements as essential protection of the employee who lacks effective bargaining power.”

Lord King, a former defence secretary and one of 10 Conservative peers to rebel against the plans, said: “I’m a strong supporter of this government.

“I hate standing up here to criticise something, but I have a greater duty to this government to prevent them going down a track that I think would lead to really unhappy consequences.”

Tory Baroness Wheatcroft, a former editor and business journalist, said she feared the plan would “bring out the worst in business and not the best”.

Other Tory rebels included former Chancellor Lord Lawson, former cabinet minister Lord Deben and former chief whip in the Lords Lord Denham.

Labour’s Lord Adonis said removing the clause would be an “act of mercy” to the government and that “The idea that depriving employees of these basic rights is somehow going to boost growth is not supported by a single employer I have met, let alone [an] employee.

Defending the plans, business minister Viscount Younger of Leckie said: “This government wants a labour market that works for employees, employers and individuals.

“We want to give individuals more chances to share in the growth agenda and to own shares in their employer.”

He said the scheme was a “new way of attracting high calibre talent to growing companies” although it “may not suit everyone”.

Commenting on the defeat TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “This humiliating defeat reflects the near universal thumbs-down it has received from business and unions.

“The margin of defeat – a big victory for union campaigning – suggests that ministers should quietly abandon this policy.”

It will now be up to MPs to decide whether to reinstate the plans when the Growth and Infrastructure Bill returns to the Commons.

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House of Lords blocks employee ‘shares for rights’ plan

The company is dedicated to the invention and distribution of iconic yet attainable products for tots on-the-go. All their creations are designed in England and distributed worldwide, including the unique Trunki ride-on and BoostApak the innovative booster seat that doubles as a backpack.

The company is a template of success for young British business, Imagineering mould-breaking design-led products that compete on quality and value, not just price.

Just over 6 years after officially launching to the retail community, Trunki is a market leader and has received 76 industry and consumer accolades, most recently winning the much coveted National Business Award – The Santander Small to Medium-Sized Business of the Year. Over 1.4 million units have now been sold, with distribution secured in more than 97 countries.

Talking straight after the Budget announcement Law said: “The corporate tax rate drop to 20% is welcome but expected. The National Insurance cuts sound beneficial to SME’s and I look forward to finding out more information on the finer details attached to this.”

Law concluded by saying: “I’m disappointed that there have been no headline announcements to support manufacturing, exporting, funding and cutting red tape. Statements were made about the impact of the EU situation but no concrete help offered to support exporters. The Budget certainly won’t hinder SME’s, yet there has been nothing given to accelerate our way out of the economic hole we are currently in.”

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Budget 2013: Trunki Founder Rob Law asks where is the help for UK Exporters?