Our annual ranking of the Top 500 companies in the region unveils a mixed picture. David Chadwick profiles the main players, while Rob Mayfield highlights the key trends.
The most powerful man in the North West of England has a long term vision and a long term plan. He mixes a strong civic sense of public service with canny business acumen. Michael Taylor meets Howard Bernstein.
Meet Paul Raymond Versace - A local businessman living the dream. Valued at £25million in the Sunday Times and Insider rich lists, to many he is the quintessential entrepreneur with 11 businesses under his belt, property in the UK and abroad, fast cars and friends in high places.
Tim Byrne has overseen the rebranding of Airtours as Mytravel. But his ambitions don't end there. As he reveals to Michael Taylor, he also wants to restore the huge travel group to the top flight of the ftse-100.
As clichéd as a flat cap, as dead as Gracie Fields, Blackpool was once a workers' playground specialising in cheap and saucy fun. But today its arcades, guest houses, bars and chippies are struggling.
Any successful branding campaign requires originality, co-ordination, timing and, above all, commerciality but as Rachel Bristowe discovers, Manchester 2002, the organisers behind 's Commonwealth Games faced a whole host of other issues.
Our ranking of the most powerful people in the region illustrates not only the shifting fortunes of some of the North West's most influential individuals but also reflects the events that have shaped them.
Missing millions and false invoices, the amazing story of Merseyside gas company Alta Gas
The new head of Liverpool Airport has already notched up 20 years in the aviation industry.
