Episode 58 Show Me the Money

Much more on that development throughout the evening, but right

now, it is time for Show Me The Busy Show Me The Money, your weekly

guide to who is making a cash, how they are doing it and what it means

for the way we work. With me tonight, his company turned its

back on traditional construction Ritz when he joined. We will find

out why from Samir Brikho, chief executive of the engineering

consultancy, AMEC. He is at our table but you may have sat at one

of his, Mark Derry is chief executive of Brasserie Bar company.

And Sarah Bridge keeps her feet under the business table as

Financial correspondent at the Mail on Sunday.

The UK is paralysed by the eurozone crisis and has probably already in

recession, that is what we will hear tomorrow from the earnest and

Young Item Group which are influential -- influential group of

economists. France has lost its triple A rating along with eight

other eurozone countries. That means the credit rating agency

Standard and Poor's means it is less likely that the -- be credit

rating agency Standard and Poor's believes it is less likely that

those countries can pay their debts back. We can talk first to Sarah

Bridge from the Mail on Sunday. What does that mean for us? It is

never good news when a country like France gets UN ground -- and graded.

It is fairly unprecedented but you have seen it happen in the States.

The UK has held on to its triple A rating but when you have a country

like France being downgraded slightly, it makes their climbing

out of the recession more difficult. They have to spend more money

basically to borrow more money. The UK may have its rating downgraded

at some point in the future. could it mean that the UK could

essentially borrow money at a cheaper rate because investors will

not be putting it in France? Exactly. In the short-term it is

very handy. The UK is seen as more stable, less risky. The ten-year

bond yields are already down in the UK, they are up in France. But then

the future, it is never very good for anyone. We are not part of the

eurozone but we are connected with it. The we also have a few economic

figures coming out this week, unemployment figures out later in

the week, what do you think we are likely to hear? It will not be good

news, I don't think. We are already back in recession. The fears of the

double-dip recession have been mooted around the market for the

last two years. Unemployment is still rising, productivity is down,

companies are not able to invest or recruit. It is a whole knock-on

effect. If you're not confident as a business person, if you're not

confident as a consumer, you will Batten down the hatch. We need

people spending and the best thing to get the economy back on-track.

Mark, you run a train of restaurants. Are you are employing

at the moment? -- a chain of restaurants. We are, indeed. We

finding it difficult to find people. You are finding it difficult to

find people even though we have to 0.6 4 million people who are out of

work? Apparently there are a million under 25 year-olds

unemployed. And yet, when we opened restaurants we advertise

extensively through Jobcentres, we are actively investing money in

advertising to find people and in the end, we end up going overseas

to get the jobs. Why is that happening? I think the expectation

has been set high in this country, through a generation of kids doing

degrees, some of which are not specific. I think they are finding

it very difficult to apply for jobs like ours. Having said that, it is

a great industry to work in. If you do work in it, you can be extremely

successful. What types of jobs are we talking about? Are a skilled

ones? Not at all. Some of them are completely unskilled, some semi-

skilled, some highly skilled. We are looking across the peace and

the bottom line is that we are having to be incredibly creative to

find people because we cannot find them through traditional routes.

Samir, let me bring you in. Yard chief executive of a massive firm

employing 20,000 people. Are you looking for people at the moment

and are you finding them? Indeed. For AMEC 2011 has been a

challenging year. We have been enjoying a good business and our

emerging business has seen business in the North Sea. 3,000 people we

employed work in the UK. Going to the website of AMEC you will see

500 jobs which we are looking for which we are not able to occupy.

there are 500 job vacancies on your website and they have not been

filled? Correct. Why do think that is? A many of the people, the

students and new graduates are thinking maybe the High Street and

the financial market are the only serves is this country can do. The

industrial sector, the engineering sector is a big part of the economy.

What we need to do is see how are we able to attract more students to

study engineering at how are we able to get the graduates to work

in engineering and the industrial sector. Two chief executives who

are looking for employees at the men so if you are looking for a job,

it might be worth going to their website.

Now time for a quick flick through the news.

Several hundred workers from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange stage a

protest march this week over the length of their lunch break. Last

week, it was cut from two hours to 90 minutes and now it is going down

to just one hour. Officials said they need to bring the brakes in

line with other international rivals but the brokers said they

need the time to meet the clients and do some shopping.

If you are looking for a good use for a government minister, here is

one to consider. This one in Zimbabwe was used to show that

bungee-jumping was safe again. It is the spot where an Australian

students survived after she ended up in the river when the bungee

cord snapped. You have not switched over to

Frozen Planet and these are not penguins. They are some of the

60,000 people taking part in an ice fishing festival in South Korea.

The idea is to sit and cut -- catch fish through a small hole in sub-

zero temperatures. This is no ancient festival. It was dreamt up

just five years ago to attract tourists and so far, one million

people have turned up to take part. There are some incredible stories

for you there. Let me talk to you, Samir, about

this. It sounds impressive that they had a two our lunch break and

it has gone bad two one-hour but there is a question about how

important is it to break-up the working day and have that he

lunchtime. What would you say? normally do yearly Plan, monthly

planning, Bigley planning and daily planning. I think it is important

that you have the day and not be like a headless chicken. My a plan

is to start with the most difficult job and reward yourself when you

have done it. We have vast amounts of information management today and

we have to be careful about how we are able to take what we need and

do what we want to do. Do you get a lunch break? I have a lunch break.

Mine is less than 10 minutes, actually. You need to take your own

advice and start having a longer one. Mark, it is pretty key, food,

in your business. Do you get time for a lunch break every day?

certainly hope so. I would encourage everyone to have two

hours rather than cutting back to one, but there you go. And perhaps

go to your establishment! If they are close enough, why not!

yourself, how important you think it is? I think it is very sad that

you have to work and have a sandwich at your desk. You never

switch off. I'm based in Kensington so it is lovely to go out in

Kensington Gardens. Being a journalist, that is when we meet

our contacts over lunch so it is very useful. What do you make about

the bungee-jumping Minister. It sounds like an extreme to go to to

make a point. All credit to him. If he was not prepared to do it, no

one would be prepared to do it. If you are running a company and if

you're asking people to invest their money in it or buy shares,

you have to be able to say, this is a great thing and I wanted it.

Talking about meeting up with people, there are so many people

who I meet who are in the restaurant trade but they want to

go to a restaurant they have never been to but I think they should

show off their own business. What about bungee-jumping, Mark? Would

you do it? I doubt it, to be honest. What is the extreme that he would

go to? There is almost nothing I would not do to encourage people to

come through the doors of the restaurant. But the reality is, you

have got to do a good job in the first place and then they will come.

And this ice fishing idea, the in a sense, it is the idea of getting a

new idea of the ground. That must be something you have to do? It is

the most improbable thing to get a group of people fishing through a

hole in the ground! Get reminds me of some guys are used to work with

who said they wanted to set up a group of establishments. They would

be shut most of the time because they would only be open late at

night. They would not offer food and they would not of the draught

beer and in fact, that business turned out be a cop Toll Bar chain

which operates the late in the evening and the point is, it is a

brilliant idea because they delivered it brilliantly -- a

cocktail bar chain. How many ideas are involved in your Business? I

guess in the engineering business you have to be creative? Quite a

lot. Innovation is important. I went on vacation for Christmas to

Sweden because I thought I would be doing ice fishing and ice hockey

playing but in fact it was eight degrees centigrade so if you do not

believe in global warming, you had better believe it now! You should

get to South Korea. Your company, AMEC, employers 27,000 people, give

us a flavour of what you do. What AMEC does is we do consulting,

engineering project management in the markets of oil and gas, metal

and Mark King -- metal and mining. What we do is when we have our

clients, we start with the projects and help with the planning, we do

the whole engineering for them and we work through the de

commissioning phase when the plan has exhausted its lifetime. A

typical example of that is an oil and gas platform. Once it has done

its operation it needs to be de- commissioned. Why do these

companies need to? The likes of BP, surely they have got their own

experts and they do not need you to come in? It sounds like a waste of

money. On the contrary, BP, Shell and the like, we call them the

operators because their core business is about risk management,

it is about investment and operating the plans in the most

efficient way and as you remember, three or four decades back in time,

most of these companies had shelled out one million Engineers because

they felt that was not the core business. Half of that has been

picked up by the service companies and that is what we provide for our

clients. They did have those people, they got rid of them and now they

bring in people like you. Correct. How is this is at the moment?

order book is very strong. The demand it one our products and

markets are continues to be strong. That is because we depend on the UK

but we also depend a lot on the emerging markets. We have sectors

which are going very well. The mining sector has been improving

year on year more than 50 %. You We need to sell more goods and

services outside the eurozone, and that clearly way or growth is

coming from? AMEC is a fantastic story for the British economy. We

have moved from a very UK focused economy, to today a global business,

more than 40 countries in the world. We are beating many of our peers in

their own home markets. Do you think there's enough help for

companies like that? We keep talking about exporting more.

major company, you get limited help because we don't need it. We don't

do any government work. To begin with? Of course. They were a great

support, especially in markets we've not been in before. It's

important they need to get support to get exporting to the levels we

want them to be. Looking at the year ahead, what do things don't

happen with the economy this year and what do you think the biggest

challenges for your business? Definitely the eurozone is showing

a lot of risk, not only in the eurozone but the UK as a country. I

tried to see it from another angle. When I look at the commodity prices,

I see oil prices under $13 per barrel, which is double the price

of the boom time, which tells me there is a risk from coming from

Iraq, Iran, the Arab Spring, Venezuela and other places, but

also it appears the USA and China are more resilient to the eurozone

crisis. Thank you. A mini correction. We said the bungee

jumpers was in Zimbabwe but it was in Zambia. Sorry about that.

Another day another highstreet shop struggling. Today clothing store

Peacocks is fighting off rumours that it may go into administration.

The Cardiff-based firm, which has 550 stores around the UK, is

refusing to comment. But has been in discussions with its creditors.

And next week sees the final round up Christmas trading statements.

Another busy week. We've already had a really bad week of results.

We heard from five different retailers are saying they had sales

down. Some of the biggest names. More of the same this week? Yes,

Christmas 2010 we had terrible weather so people couldn't actually

do their shopping. If you're talking comparable situations with

that, it's even more down on that, that's terrible news, which means

retailers are not immune to the recession. We have seen the

supermarkets are highly competitive. It means they have to fight for

every last penny. Consumer spending hits a business like yourself. Are

you having to discount? Coupons and vouchers? Discounting is pervasive

now, but it tends to be at a slightly lower level, so pizza

operators are discounting an enormous amount. We are not. We are

investment in properties, training, people, and offering great value

for money because the most important thing is to win the

competition. We don't have the problem the retailers have in as

much as a lot of retailers go online. You can't have done a out

online. That's a big pressure. -- you can't dine out on line.

Halfords may have someone who could buy a bicycle online, when they are

looking at it on the shop. You have got to embrace it, so people can't

replicated online. You could eat at home or get a takeaway, but

restaurants say the restaurant is as such that people want to pay for

it. You want to make sure, some were like John Lewis, people

actually want to go there and to pay extra to have to have a feeling

of quality. Looking at the supermarkets, it was quite a shock

that Tesco's sales were down. first in 20 years. A huge reaction.

What went wrong? They haven't spent too much investment focusing on the

UK stores. They look a bit tired. Tesco used to be seen as leading

the way, new innovations, club cards and so forth. Maybe they got

complacent but they got so many other things going on. Insurance,

banking, overseas operations, you can get your well written, died

services. Billy to focus on the core of what made them famous in

the first place. -- they need to focus on. Do you think consumers

have gone somewhere else? You've always got to buy food. Clothing,

you don't need another jumper, but food is a fixed cost, but you can

go exactly where you want to go and it Tesco is not providing what you

want, you can go to six other retailers. Sainsbury's increased

their sales. Yes, Asda is doing very well so Tesco have got to get

back and fight. They made do that. Bad news for the chief-executive.

They have got a new one. Yes, it's a case of getting all bad news said,

and a saying, we are now new people and let's move forward. Thank you

for your time this evening. The latest round of military

redundancies means thousands of service-personnel will be losing

their jobs this year. It has prompted a whole raft of them to

set up their own businesses. Lucy Burton's been to meet two of them.

Standstill, you people! Get together! Shoulders back! We are

going to push forward! You have been issued clothing, weapons, and

training. Stand by! This isn't a real army recruitment session but a

computer battlefield game are brought to life. Quick mate! Left

chloride, left, right, left, right. The experience is the brainchild of

these men. After 25 years in the army, they left at the end of last

year to set up their own company. Let's go, quickly! The business is

called tactics planning and training. It's jointly owned by

We both were in the forces. We left recently and thought, let's start

to the business, computer war gamers, who look like the computer

soldier. Move it! We use the strategy in the army but also put

the realistic uniforms so you feel like you're part of the game you

are playing. Over 19,000 people left the armed forces last year and

many of them went on to become self-employed. Of course, playing

this game isn't the same as being on the battlefield in Afghanistan

but the skills they learn that the army can be applied directly to

their new life setting up a business of their own. We work well

together but getting things done, it's the other thing. We focused on

an idea. We just wanted to work straight away. The rest of it, the

obvious stuff, strategy, teamwork and so on, we put that into our

game play. One of the biggest challenges lot of people face

starting a business, is funding. The banks are not lending. How did

you get money to set up the business? In the army, if you do

your 22 years' service, you get a good pension. We've managed to get

loans through the bank's which was quite easy for us to do, funnily

enough, and when we left the Army, we paid it off with a pension.

everyone gets funding from the banks, so the Royal British Legion

as that of the scheme to help people who want to start her own

company. It's a �5 million project funded by the UK Department of

Business Innovation and skills. And delivered by the Royal British

Legion. We help ex-service personnel become self-employed

through business start-up training, mixed funding of grants and loans,

and mentoring. Unemployment is at the 17 year high. Have you noticed

more people are wanting to have funding to start up there and this

is because they're worried about getting a job? Yes, we have seen a

thick of a big increase entering the scheme. We had a 1,000 people

entering the scheme after one year. Now we have 2000 people. It really