Business Diary: May 25

Will racehorse bring home the prizes?

The team at creative agency hme Marketing Group is gearing up for this year's racing season after adding a new member to its team.

The Leeds-based agency has bought a racehorse, which it named hmeboy after holding a competition among staff.

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It is the grandson of Danehill, father of runners including Dylan Thomas who won the Prix de L'Arc de Triomphe in 2007.

The agency selected traditional Leeds colours of blue, yellow and white as the racing colours.

The colt will be trained by Derby winning trainer Marcus Tregoning in Lambourn, Berkshire and the agency will organise team trips throughout the year to watch him run and visit him at the stables.

Chief executive Dave Sewards said: "We're hoping 'hmeboy' will provide great entertainment for clients and colleagues alike. He should be ready to race in just under a month – fingers crossed he's ahead in the home straight."

Farnaz and the Dragon

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Lots of Yorkshire entrepreneurs secretly aspire to join the heavyweights on TV's Dragons' Den panel – but not all of them get the opportunity to ask.

When Bradford's Farnaz Khan met one of the Dragons, her hero James Caan, at an awards ceremony, she didn't waste any time in getting in her request. It came when the mother-of-four, 30, was shortlisted for entrepreneur of the year at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards, which was also attended by Cherie Blair.

Farnaz said: "He was having a laugh asking if I was competition. I said, 'I'm going to be sat in that den, on the panel next to you, in the next few years; remember my name and watch

this space'.

"His response was very receptive, he said it would be great to see me on there as women are needed on the panel. Then he asked about my business and we even talked about my feature in last week's Yorkshire Post."

The cost of cuts

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When you look at the financial crisis, it pays to take a long-term view.

In the case of Yorkshire Bank chief economist Tom Vosa, that means going back to the days when William the Conqueror was putting large parts of England to the sword.

Speaking at the Institute of Directors North Yorkshire dinner at Castle Howard, Mr Vosa delivered a speech which included a graphic account of the mess we are in.

"From the Norman Conquest in 1066 and the start of centralised taxation collection via the Domesday Book to 2007, the country borrowed a net 704bn," said Mr Vosa.

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"Using the March Budget report, from 2007 to 2013 that doubles to 1.4 trillion, so we are trying to squeeze 950 years' worth of borrowing into just five."

If departmental spending on health, education and overseas development is ring-fenced as promised, then spending in other departments would have to fall by at least 16 per cent, warned Mr Vosa.

However, a cut of 18 per cent in the defence budget would be equivalent to the cost of "employing the land Army".

Mr Vosa's bleak prognosis continued: "According to the Financial Times, an 18 per cent reduction at the Department of Transport would take out more than one third of the department's grant to Network Rail. A 24 per cent reduction would remove all current and capital expenditure on roads.

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"At the Ministry of Justice, an 18 per cent reduction would broadly equate to closing all of the courts.

"A 24 per cent reduction would equate to closing two-thirds of prisons.

"So there we have it, a country with no Army, no roads, no courts and no prisons. I suspect at that stage, the only booming businesses would

be locksmiths and other home security firms."

Hamming it up

You have to take your hat off to the guys at upmarket sausage-to-pork chop company Cranswick.

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There is nothing they won't do when it comes to persuading us to eat more pork products.

First we heard how virile pork can make you – apparently, Argentina's president Cristina Fernandez espouses the notion that pork is better for your sex life than Viagra.

But now the Hull-based group has decided to borrow a leaf out of the US Pork Promotion Council's book and claim that pork is an "alternative white meat".

Hmm, maybe if you're colour-blind. But you can't say they don't try.

Time to look East

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Fans of laksa, char kway teow and beef rendang take heart. Rick Stein has joined a campaign to promote the wonders of Malaysian food to the British consumer.

Mr Stein, who featured in TV's Far Eastern Odyssey cookery series, said: "Malaysian food is one of the most fascinating and varied of the world's cuisines, and is as yet relatively unknown here in the UK."

Diary hopes that restaurateurs will take note and help fill a gap in the market left by the closure of Georgetown, a Malaysian restaurant in Leeds.

The city has some fine restaurants, but lacks international variety.

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