Business Diary: August 21

The builder is focusing on the lucrative South East in a bid to improve returns, but at the expense of schemes in God’s Own County and the Midlands.

“We’re avoiding for the time being Yorkshire, the East Midlands and East Lincolnshire,” said chief executive David Ritchie. “The Southern market today is more robust than the Midlands and Northern market.

“So much so that we’ve even missed Yorkshire off in our map.”

The builder is trading out its schemes in Yorkshire, which include developments in Selby and Barnsley. Its map of new sites added to its land bank, shown to investors and analysts, does not extend as far North as the Humber.

“One of our non-execs is from Yorkshire and he gets a bit upset when we talk about Yorkshire,” admitted Mr Ritchie.

Bravery in uprising

NORTHERN grit was on display when Chesterfield manufacturer Fusion Group’s Cairo factory was caught up in the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt.

Kevin Raine, the managing director, told Diary that the plant’s English team stayed throughout the troubled period.

“They remained there through the toughest, most worrying times. Very brave.

“We saw the international reports on the news, the messages on Twitter and first hand from the employees.”

He added: “It certainly made us nervous about doing further investments.”

Despite the upheaval, the slow return to normality and a flat market, Fusion Group has managed to retain its market share in Egypt, added Mr Raine.

Spot next generation

YOUNG entrepreneurs are being invited to join York-based co-operative JooMo, which has launched a new skincare product. The invention of former chemist Nick Wallen and marketing expert Linda Russell, the product attracted support from the University of Leeds’ Institute of Process Research and Development.

The pair developed the product after their teenage twin sons struggled to find a safe, effective product to combat their acne. They claim it is the first “100 per cent truly natural” face wash.

The social entrepreneurs are now giving young people between the ages of 16-24 the opportunity to join the JooMo co-operative and hope one day that this co-operative enterprise will be run by young people. Mr Wallen said: “Young people have been instrumental in the success the business has had so far. Our teenage sons were the reason we set up the business. We worked with students from the University of West London on the branding and now we are hoping to work with young people to take the brand forward by becoming sellers.”

Young people who join the co-operative have the opportunity to gain a stake in a growing business, take a share of the profits and also have a say in how the co-operative is run.

The first step to becoming part of the JooMo team is an investment of £50 which goes towards providing the sellers with marketing materials and demonstration products.

With youth unemployment in the UK at 22 per cent, the hope is this initiative can help at least some of the country’s jobless young people build a business for themselves.

Life on the street

Members of Yorkshire’s Institute of Directors and Leeds charity Simon on the Streets will spend a night sleeping rough on September 13, in a bid to highlight the problems of homelessness. Last year the two joined forces to highlight the plight of society’s invisible and forgotten people and raise awareness of the work that Simon on the Streets is doing regionally to help homeless people. This year Simon on the Streets is hoping that 100 IoD members sign up to sleep out.

Clive Sandle, director of Simon on the Streets, said: “ Yorkshire IoD naming us as their charity of the year was the stamp of approval we needed for our extensive fundraising activities. We are urging IoD members to step up to the challenge this year and brave the cold to raise money for the homeless people of Yorkshire.”

Simon on the Streets is challenging people to raise £200, and learn how to build their own bed using only a cardboard box before spending the night sleeping rough to experience homeless life first hand.

Simon on the Streets has held a number of fundraising events already this year, including a three peaks challenge in April. The activities have raised just over £7000.

More information is available at http://www.simononthestreets.co.uk/events/2011-sponsored-sleepout