Bernard Ginns: Firms like Microdat can continue to fly the flag for GB

BACK to earth, then, after 17 days of Olympic-augmented reality and associated medal-winning euphoria.

Throughout my career as a journalist I cannot recall a time when Her Majesty’s Press was so infused with positivity.

Front page after front page featured heroic images of Team GB’s Olympiads cast against wonderful words such as ‘triumph’, ‘pride’, ‘Yorkshire’ and ‘winner’.

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God knows what effect all this will have on the nation’s psyche, so used to being fed a different daily diet.

Continuing the upbeat theme, I will offer an antidote to the bleak picture painted by the Office for National Statistics on Thursday.

The ONS said Britain’s total goods and services trade deficit hit a record high in June, after a sharp drop in goods exports. This is bad news for the Government and the Bank of England, which have been pinning their hopes on an export-led recovery to lead Britain out of its second recession in four years.

The ongoing debt crisis in Europe has been hurting demand in our main export markets and the Bank has warned that a recent rise in sterling against the euro poses a threat to UK manufacturers.

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Not pretty. But hope can be found in the stories we publish in these pages, tales of Yorkshire businesses that are ploughing on regardless of the downbeat national statistics and achieving great things.

On Friday I spoke to Stephen Midgley, managing director of Leeds-based manufacturer Microdat.

His company makes kit for brewers, including cask and keg packaging machinery, washers, fillers, conveyers and palletisers.

It has diversified into pumps and pipework.

Customers include Timothy Taylor, Kirkstall Brewery, Ossett Brewery and Moorhouse’s Brewery of Burnley.

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Mr Midgley told me: “We are quite unique; the only one who makes equipment for cask beer brewers, which are seeing quite substantial growth.

“People are drinking more cask ale these days. There’s more choice.”

The reason I am telling you all this is because Microdat recently completed its first export order, supplying key machinery for a small craft brewer in Sweden.

At £50,000, it was much smaller than this year’s £2.3m project for St Austell Brewery, maker of the award-winning Tribute Cornish cask ale.

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But it was significant because it is Microdat’s first foray into international markets.

Mr Midgley hopes to build on this export success when he visits the Craft Brewers Conference in the United States next year.

Craft beer is reckoned to be the fastest-growing segment of the US market.

As such, it represents a great opportunity for Microdat, which is on course to increase turnover to £4.5m this year.

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Mr Midgley has been investing in staff and machinery to create the platform for international growth.

Staff numbers are up to 60, more than double the number in financial crisis-hit 2008 and four times as many than in 2002. It trains apprentices and hires university graduates.

I hope Microdat prospers. And I hope others follow. Great Britain’s stock is high in the world right now. It would be a shame to waste this golden opportunity to welcome new customers.

More good news comes in the form of NorthEdge, a new £125m private equity fund focusing on investments in the North of England.

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With offices in Manchester and Leeds, it is hoped that Yorkshire will take its fair share from this pot.

NorthEdge will differentiate itself by having a local focus with the authority to write cheques within the region, something that has been woefully lacking in recent years.

NorthEdge is looking to invest sums of between £5m to £30m in firms with turnovers ranging from £10m to £100m.

The funding could be used for buyouts, development capital and equity release. NorthEdge is in talks over four deals, with at least one being based in Yorkshire.

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The vast majority of backing comes from overseas pension funds and high net worth offices in the United States, mainland Europe, Scandinavia and the UK.

The management team is led by Andy Ball, who previously ran the northern operation at private equity firm LDC.

He knows the Yorkshire business community well and how it is dominated by small and medium-sized businesses, many of which are serving their industries extremely well.

He also knows there is a gap in the market for equity funding. Taken together, that is the niche that is attracting the international investors.

They will find rich pickings in Yorkshire.

Follow me on Twitter: @bernardginns