< PreviousGround broken on £5.4m business incubation hub in Rotherham Ground has been broken on a brand-new business incubation hub on Century Business Park in Rotherham. Led by Rotherham Council, and with Esh Construction as the main contractor, Manvers Incubation Hub will provide serviceable office and workshop accommodation designed to help micro or start-up businesses grow. The facility will feature 20 workshops, 16 office units and 2 laboratories for 38 businesses. This second phase will build on the success of the nearby Century Business Centre which was constructed in 2000 and has since helped over 300 businesses, playing a crucial part in the economic regeneration of the Manvers area. Cllr Denise Lelliott, cabinet member for jobs and the local economy, said: “Providing high-quality office and workshop accommodation is important for attracting and growing businesses to Rotherham. “The Century Business Centre site has been an undoubted success over the past couple of decades, so it is exciting to break ground as construction begins on this new business incubation hub at Century Business Park.” 10 Business Link www.blmforum.net NEWS Eddisons acquires Budworth Hardcastle in £1.8m deal Property consultancy Eddisons has acquired commercial property firm Budworth Hardcastle in a £1.8m deal which significantly strengthens Eddisons’ presence in Peterborough, Kettering and Northampton. Budworth Hardcastle will integrate its team with Leeds-headquartered Eddisons, which has a network of 25 UK offices. The Midlands firm was established in the 1990s and has a strong reputation as a full-service agency with in-depth regional market knowledge. The acquisition builds on Eddisons existing strength in the Eastern region. The combined team will be led by Eddisons director Steve Hawkins. Eddisons MD Anthony Spencer said: “I am very pleased to welcome the Budworth Hardcastle team to Eddisons, which extends our footprint in Eastern England. They are a highly experienced team with a proven track record in delivering high quality professional advice. We continue to seek further opportunities for expansion across the UK.” Plans approved for extension of Lincoln business park North Kesteven District Council has approved plans for a third phase of Kirk’s Yard in Branston, Lincoln. Kirk’s Yard is a 2.4-acre business park, located approximately 4 miles from Lincoln City Centre, which has been developed by local commercial property developer, Stirlin. Stirlin completed the first phase of Kirk’s Yard back in March 2019, which comprises 6 industrial units, ranging in size from 1,000 sq ft to 1,400 sq ft. Due to high demand, this was swiftly followed with a second phase, which provided 5 more units at slightly larger sizes, ranging from 1,507 sq ft – 2,005 sq ft. Following the success of these phases, with all units now occupied by a variety of growing businesses, Stirlin have been given the go-ahead to extend the site and construct a further 10 units. Phase 3 will provide industrial units ranging in sizes from 1,507 sq ft – 2,005 sq ft. Each unit will be built to a high specification, providing warehouse space with an electric sectional door and personnel door, DDA compliant toilet facility and allocated parking spaces. © stock.adobe.com/chaisiri 06-11.qxp_Layout 1 04/07/2022 13:42 Page 5www.blmforum.net Business Link 11 NEWS Progeny set for international expansion with plans to acquire The Fry Group Leeds-headquartered multi-disciplinary professional services firm, Progeny, has revealed plans to acquire The Fry Group, marking its expansion into international markets. The deal, subject to regulatory approval, will allow Progeny to extend its boundaries beyond the UK and increase its total assets under management to more than £5.5bn. Established in 1898, The Fry Group are tax, estate and financial planning experts, with a team of 191 employees across four offices in the UK and four international offices. David Pugh, CEO, The Fry Group, said: “The Fry Group and Progeny are a great fit and we’re excited about this next stage in our journey. We are both values-based businesses with a sharp focus on clients, building trust and long-lasting relationships with them and aiming to always exceed their expectations.” Neil Moles, CEO of Progeny, said: “We’re proud to announce the international expansion of the Progeny brand and what better way to do it than with a business as prestigious and long- established as The Fry Group. This is a thrilling new front for us, which will bring fresh new opportunities for our clients, our team members and for Progeny as a growing and ambitious firm. “We are always focused on new horizons and on pushing ourselves to meet fresh challenges. Our aim is not just to help our clients meet their existing goals but to create the aspirational and supportive environment for them to achieve new ones. I’m delighted to welcome The Fry Group to Progeny and look forward to delivering on our joint potential and to the progress we can make together.” BUSINESS LINCOLNSHIRE Elevate your business to new heights with our Next Level Scale Up Programme! Are you looking to focus on your goals to move your business forward? Business Lincolnshire’s Next Level Scale Up Programme is tailored specifically for businesses with five or more employees, who are on a rapid growth journey. The programme offers business owners the chance to attend workshops, access one-to-one guidance and mentoring support, and make use of resources to develop leadership and management skills. Included in the programme; a Growth Sprint event will allow businesses to work together to develop a tailored growth strategy, and there will also be opportunities to participate in an in-person two-day workshop which delves into Leadership and Management. Brand new to this year’s programme, the Zellar sustainability platform will be offered to a limited number of businesses to help them become more eco-friendly. If you’re looking to improve leadership ability, support your business growth ambitions and help you build a network with other Greater Lincs and Rutland based high-growth business leaders – then sign up today! Interested in taking your business to the next level? Visit the Business Lincolnshire website to find out more: www.businesslincolnshire.com. Another exciting development is that Business Lincolnshire have produced the Fit for Business podcast. An engaging and insightful bi-weekly series, covering topics such as legal structures, utilising technology for profitability, building a business plan, and so much more – head to the Business Lincolnshire website to tune in. © stock.adobe.com/ ronstik © stock.adobe.com/ktasimar 06-11.qxp_Layout 1 04/07/2022 13:42 Page 612 Business Link www.blmforum.net COMMERCIAL PROPERTY A s the return to the office accelerates, whether full time or on a flexible basis, Leeds continues to be a leading light for new lettings, acquisitions, and developments. Just last month (June) Hillview Real Estate, the UK regional office investor, and Sh.i.r. Shlomo Real Estate, a subsidiary of one of the largest conglomerates in Israel, acquired a multi-let office building in Leeds’ financial district from Ardstone Capital for £12.6m. The building, 76 Wellington Street, hosts 35,951 sq ft of office space over ground and five upper floors. Hillview now plans to upgrade the building, to ensure it meets the needs of modern office occupiers and sustainability. This upgrade will involve extending and refurbishing the reception, utilising the basement for extensive cycle storage and changing facilities, and upgrading the building plant to modern energy efficient systems. Nadav Livni, Managing Director of Hillview Group and fund manager of Hillview Real Estate, said: “This is a fantastic value-add acquisition for our fund and our new partnership with Sh.i.r. Shlomo Real Estate. The building is very well located in the heart of Leeds’ financial district, it is under-rented and provides identified opportunities for our team to significantly add value by modernising the space, adding amenities for tenants, and improving its sustainability rating.” It was also revealed in June that Regional REIT Limited, the regional office specialist, had acquired two office properties in Leeds. A property at Thorpe Park, Leeds, totalling 31,101 sq ft, was snapped up for £8.6m. It comprises two floors of fully refurbished office space with 154 car parking spaces and major tenants including Homeserve Membership Ltd. and SpaMedica Ltd. Additionally, purchased for £9.4m was a 34,196 sq ft property at Albion Street, Leeds, housing six floors of fully refurbished office space and retail on the A flourishing office market A flourishing office market With a plethora of fresh acquisitions, lettings and new developments in progress, Leeds is welcoming rising interest in offices. 12-15.qxp_Layout 1 04/07/2022 13:44 Page 1www.blmforum.net Business Link 13 COMMERCIAL PROPERTY 15 Á ground floor. Tenants include Specsavers, Akari Care Ltd., and The National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux. Located in the heart of Leeds city centre, it has 14 car parking spaces. These transactions followed an office building in Lower Wortley, Leeds, changing hands in a deal worth just under £2m, which is now undergoing a comprehensive refurbishment. Link Up House, formerly the headquarters of the Big Word Group, has been bought by Seneca Property and will be rebranded and renamed as Element. The 21,630 sq ft building, which fronts the Leeds Outer Ring Road, is being transformed in a seven-figure refurbishment into high- quality and sustainable offices - with an emphasis on the wellbeing and comfort of its occupiers. While office property acquisitions are rife, so too are new lettings. Redmayne Bentley, one of the UK’s largest independent investment management firms, last month relocated its Leeds head office to the Wellington Place urban quarter. The organisation has taken 11,700 sq ft of Grade A office space at 3 Wellington Place, part of a sustainable business community being built in central Leeds. Once complete, the scheme will hold a total of 1.5 million sq ft of commercial, retail, leisure and residential space and be one of the biggest new city centre business quarters in Europe. Furthermore, property consultancy Knight Frank has recently brokered two significant office deals at the refurbished 2 Embankment by the River Aire in Leeds. Law firm Lupton Fawcett has taken 11,510 sq ft on a 10-year lease, with insurance brokers PIB occupying 2,631 sq ft on a five-year lease. Elizabeth Ridler, partner with Knight Frank’s office agency team in Leeds, said: “These deals emphasise the strength of the Leeds office market, which is proving Link Up House/ Element 12-15.qxp_Layout 1 04/07/2022 13:44 Page 2Armstrong house Armstrong House, Armstrong Street, Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire DN31 2QE Tel: (01472) 310301 Email: s.fisher@blmgroup.co.uk Superb Location - - Close to the ports of Grimsby & Immingham - Great motorway links - Close to the town centre Secure off street parking High speed internet availability A range of affordable office sizes 3 3 3 3 Last remaining office suites Prime location in Grimsby Offering a prime position in Grimsby, Armstrong House on Armstrong Street is ideally located. Close to the ports of Grimsby and Immingham, motorway links and the town centre, off-street parking is also available for all staff and visitors, meaning it’s convenient too. Our spacious, welcoming offices are located on the ground floor and are both secure and CCTV-monitored, giving you the ultimate peace of mind. At Armstrong House, when it comes to affordability and with a range of office sizes there are opportunities for all types of business. If you require virtual office services, prices start from just £15 per month. For more information, or to discuss your office requirements call 01472 310301. 12-15.qxp_Layout 1 04/07/2022 13:44 Page 3www.blmforum.net Business Link 15 COMMERCIAL PROPERTY remarkably resilient in the face of the global pandemic and other economic pressures. There is no doubt that the extensive refurbishment of 2 The Embankment has led to a flurry of interest in the building. The refurb includes new reception and lift lobbies, together with new cycle hub and shower facilities, new VRV air-conditioning and on-site electric car-charging ports.” New office developments are also set for the city with, for example, Leeds City Council approving plans for a seven- storey building, which will offer 75,000 sq ft of office space and almost 7,000 sq ft of flexible ground floor space for local retail, restaurant and amenity businesses as part of Vastint UK’s landmark scheme, Aire Park. The new building is located on the corner of Waterloo Street and Hunslet Road, neighbouring the iconic Tetley building, and will mark the gateway to Aire Park on the approach from Leeds train station and city centre. Work on the building, which has been designed by architects Cartwright Pickard with sustainable construction and occupant wellbeing in mind, is due to begin this year. Manufacturing elements of the structure and façade offsite will help to make the building more environmentally friendly by maximising its thermal performance and reducing waste, and the building will target BREEAM Excellent. Moreover, reflecting changes to work due to COVID-19, the ground floor has been designed for a flexible co- working space, while cycle storage and changing facilities are included to promote healthy commuting and active lifestyles. Floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides of the building will also give office workers 360-degree views across Leeds, providing high levels of natural light. The building additionally has a large roof terrace. Meanwhile Opus North and Fiera Real Estate (FRE UK) recently achieved practical completion of their £10m redevelopment of 12 King Street. The seven floor property has been transformed to provide 54,000 sq ft of Grade A office space and features a new facade, a complete replacement of the fifth and sixth floors, a sky lounge, a cycle spa and roof terraces. 2 Embankment 76 Wellington Street 12-15.qxp_Layout 1 04/07/2022 13:44 Page 416 Business Link www.blmforum.net COODEN TAX CONSULTING - Q&A Can you tell us a little about Cooden Tax Consulting and what you do? We specialise in helping SME’s claim some of the most valuable tax relief available, and we’ve been doing so for almost ten years. I started the company in 2013 after realising how few companies understood the complexities of claiming money back through research and development and technology tax reliefs. Before then, I’d helped some clients do the same during my work for another practice, with my first success story being to help a company that developed new technology to supply potable water to British troops in Bosnia and Afghanistan. After that I moved to a Clinical Research company as a Finance Manager and established a methodology that allowed my employer’s company to prepare claims for R&D Tax Relief under the UK’s Large Company Scheme, which saved them several millions. This inspired me to create Cooden Tax Consulting to help bring these savings to SME’s, and to better assistant companies in understanding what they can claim, how, and to help them achieve it. These tax relief schemes can lead to huge savings for companies, and yet so few people are claiming them. What kind of money is available to be claimed back through tax relief? It obviously depends on the business and the numbers, but I am able to share a few figures from clients I’ve helped in the past. The full details of these can be read on our website as case studies, but to give you an idea we’ve helped an IT Consultancy save £329,000, a 3D design Q&A Claiming back on R&D The complex laws about how to claim back on research and development can be difficult for many to understand. This month we met with Simon Bulteel, Director and Founder of Cooden Tax Consulting, to find out all about it. 16-17.qxp_Layout 1 05/07/2022 09:45 Page 1www.blmforum.net Business Link 17 COODEN TAX CONSULTING - Q&A platform save £200,000 and a manufacturing company save £150,000. These are only a few examples. We’ve helped hundreds of companies in the last few years to access savings from the tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds. The average R&D Tax Credit claim comes in at around £55,000. The R&D Tax Relief scheme offers up to 33% (33p for every £1 spent) on qualifying expenditure. The exact rate your business qualifies for will depend on your Corporation Tax position and whether your business is profitable or loss-making. The SME R&D Tax Relief allows companies to: * Deduct an extra 130% of their qualifying costs from their yearly profit, in addition to the normal 100%, enabling a 230% deduction * Claim a tax credit if the company is loss-making (worth up to 14.5% of the surrenderable loss) To claim relief your project will need to meet the relief scheme requirements. We can usually determine whether a company has the potential to claim. We can, in fact, determine whether there is potential in a project in an initial 15- minute phone call. How will I know if my company is eligible for tax relief? You can check out our website (www.coodentaxconsulting.co.uk) or perhaps the easiest way is to book a discovery call at https://calendly.com/cooden/ylbl. The SME scheme is for companies with less than 500 staff and either a turnover less than €100m or gross assets less than €86m. The eligibility criteria for a project is somewhat vaguer at first glance, an R&D Project “seeks to achieve an advance in overall knowledge or capability in a field of science or technology through the resolution of scientific or technological uncertainty.” The key words are “seeks”, you don’t have to succeed and “advance” creating something new or improving something that already exists, making it faster, more efficient, or using less resources. You’ll also need to be operating a limited company liable to corporation tax, but you don’t need to have paid corporation tax to qualify. You don’t have to be a scientific or technology focused business, your project just has to have scientific or technological challenges. We’ve assisted a cross section of businesses in Engineering, Manufacturing and Technology, but also those in Food Production and Debt Collection! The Government has a vested interest in improving the country’s economic power in any field, so the criteria for qualifying are kept widely applicable. How far back can a company claim? You have one year from the end of the accounting period to prepare and file your tax return, even though you have to pay any tax 9 months and a day after the year end, and something else most people don’t realise is that you then have up until the second anniversary of the year end to make any amendments to that return. That means when you talk to us about your potential to claim for a project that you are undertaking today, in this financial year, if you have undertaken any similar projects in the two financial periods before this current one, then you could file some historic claims. The deadline is not flexible, it is a very hard deadline, so at the end of the day on the second anniversary of the end of your company’s accounting period the window slams shut. That is why it’s so important not to sit on it and think about whether something may or may not count – it is better to have a quick phone call and find out for sure. It could save tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds in tax relief after all. To find out more about R&D Tax Relief visit Cooden Tax Consulting on www.coodentaxconsulting.co.uk or call 03003 730190 to find out in a fifteen minute call whether your company might be eligible. 16-17.qxp_Layout 1 05/07/2022 09:45 Page 218 Business Link www.blmforum.net DESIGN AND MARKETING With lockdown firmly behind us, how up to date are your business cards, brochures and exhibition equipment? If the answer is that they haven’t been changed since before lockdown, it might be time to take a look at them. I t’s said that the first impression is everything in business. This is true of all walks of life, and is often an unfortunate factor of human society that we judge based on preconceptions surrounding how a person is dressed, how they present themselves and even by the accent they speak in. Is it any surprise then that business owners and decision makers are doing the same based on the presentation, design and quality of a company’s promotional and informational material? Likely not. Everyone judges a company by their website, and in the same vein of thought an important businessperson perusing an exhibition will judge potential clients by the quality of their exhibition stand. Why else do larger A fresh start 18-21.qxp_Layout 1 04/07/2022 13:48 Page 1www.blmforum.net Business Link 19 DESIGN AND MARKETING © stock.adobe.com/TellingPhoto 20 Á companies rent out huge spaces, spend tens of thousands on ostentatious displays and staff it with models hired from agencies? It is to present an image. Not every company can afford to present the same one, but everyone will be judged on it all the same. Keeping your material up to date, be it an exhibition stand, a roller banner, business cards or even leaflets, fliers and promotional material, is key to putting the best foot forward with a potential customer. This is doubly true now that we are out of lockdown and people are feeling safe meeting face to face again. For many, expos and exhibitions were events postponed or cancelled during lockdown, and traffic wasn’t great even for those that did run, but now they are coming back as a normal part of business life and you can see in person just how many people attending are using banners that seem a little worn, a little rundown and just a little frayed at the edges. The economy hasn’t been booming for anyone, and so investment in new banners and material will understandably be a last concern, but a 18-21.qxp_Layout 1 04/07/2022 13:48 Page 2Next >