Jennifer and Laurence discuss a bar acquisition on Newcastle's Grey Street, the upcoming UKREiiF and a Meadowhall pop-up shop for darts star Luke Littler.
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00:00A bar acquisition in Newcastle's Grey Street, the upcoming UK Reef, and a pop-up shop for
00:07Dart's Luke Littler. That's all coming up in today's business briefing.
00:17My name's Laurence Caldannon.
00:18And I'm Jennifer O'Keefe.
00:20Well, morning Jennifer.
00:21Good morning.
00:22How are you today? You okay?
00:23Perfect. And how are you?
00:24Yes, not bad at all. Now, our readers are always keen to find out the comings and goings
00:28of bars and restaurants and so on. And you've got some exciting news from Newcastle.
00:34I do, indeed. So, the leisure operator Volcard Group has secured a £5.2m funding from HSBC,
00:43which enables it to purchase one of its well-known bars on Grey Street. So, Volcard Group owns
00:4914 bars and pubs across the city, including Red House and The Beehive. It has now snapped
00:55up the freehold of Barluga, which it had been operating as a tenant for the past 20 years.
00:59I see. Excellent.
01:01Yes. So, it's great. So, in addition to supporting the purchase of Barluga, HSBC has also provided
01:06funding to refurbish the group's Quayside venue called Offshore 44. The group employs more
01:13than 350 people and is looking to make further acquisitions over the coming years.
01:18Fantastic. Well, with the weather as it has been for quite a long time now for the UK,
01:22I'm hoping that's driving people to the bars, especially places by the water, which always
01:27adds something to an evening after work, for instance. Well, one waterside venue is going
01:33to be hosting UK Reef in Leeds. It's kind of like, as you know, it's like a property sort
01:42of investment forum, which attracts investors, developers, local authorities, local government,
01:51central government, all into the one place. So, I suppose the idea is to get deals done,
01:56to sort of pitch for investment. And I think there's more than 16,000 people expected this
02:04year. And it's a remarkable trajectory because it's been, this will be the fourth edition.
02:09And I suppose it's a sort of domestic variant to the Miffin Festival, which you have in south
02:15of France. So, it's great to see it doing well. And it has a real economic boost for Leeds as
02:22well, with obviously all those people turning up and spending their hard-earned in the bars
02:27and so on. We're hoping, of course, to have plenty of announcements to share from the festival.
02:35We have people on the ground, so come and say hello if you are there. And yeah, hopefully
02:41it will go really well. I'm sure it will. It's become rapidly a fixture in the calendar.
02:47So, we'll wait and see more from that. Now, we've had some interesting news from the world
02:53of retail of late with M&S and the co-op struggling with cyber attacks. Because you read a lot
02:59about this and you go, oh, yes, it'll never happen to me. But they're such big brands.
03:03But apparently, salvation is on the horizon for the co-op.
03:07Yeah, thankfully. So, it has been nearly three weeks now since Marks & Spencer's initially
03:11made the announcement that it had been a victim of the cyber attack, which put a hold to its
03:16online orders and disrupted its in-store operations. So, about a week after then, co-op said that
03:21it had also been hit, which forced its store to shut off parts of its IT systems to contain the attack
03:27leading to empty shelves in many of its stores, as we know. So, now the co-op has said that
03:32availability in its shops and websites will start to recover from this weekend as it brings its systems
03:38back online in what it calls a safe and controlled manner. It also said that all forms of payments will be
03:44able to be used again in-store, including contactless and chip and PIN.
03:49It's amazing how much you take things for granted, Jen, because I was in a big MS
03:55and it was noticeable that the shelves were sort of, you know, not as they would be.
03:59Apparently, that's the process being fixed. But also, with the co-op, I go to one of their shops
04:05for little bits and pieces and then just this attack and suddenly things have hit the floor.
04:10So, I'm glad to see they're both on the way back.
04:13Yeah, thankfully.
04:14For sure.
04:16Well, I don't know, are you much of a darts aficionado, Jen?
04:19It wouldn't be my stronger point, no.
04:20No, no, nor mine. But, you know, it's certainly been a big phenomenon in the last decade or so.
04:27Yeah.
04:28I mean, obviously, the sport goes back decades. But of late, the big star has been Luke Littler,
04:36a Northwest lad and he's taking the sport by storm. And it seems now he's entering the world of retail
04:42because Luke and his fellow pro, Nathan Aspinwall, are opening a pop-up shop in Meadowhall,
04:49which is the biggest shopping centre in Sheffield.
04:52Yeah, they're teaming up with their sponsor, the Fan Cave, to sort of sell merchandise and so on.
04:59So, I'm sure that'll be great fun for the darts fans in Sheffield.
05:04And that's to celebrate the Premier League darts being hosted in the city at the same time later on this month.
05:10So, I mean, the phenomenon is remarkable because I've seen shows about darts academies springing up all over the place
05:16with people sort of following in Luke Littler's footsteps.
05:19And I heard a piece about a well-made retailer whose sales had spiked because they had a sort of little board.
05:26So, maybe it's something I should get the kids into. We'll have to wait and see.
05:30Anyhow, to find out more about the stories we've been discussing, go to insidermedia.com.
05:35There you can subscribe to our newsletters. You can subscribe to our magazines.
05:39And you can find out about upcoming events. That's all from us. See you next time.
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