It's set to be one of the stormiest years in recent times - if you believe the press reports. Instead, Peter Baber takes a wider view to see what Yorkshire business people think will be the main features of 2008.
"Making predictions," says Tim Simpson, a partner at Park Place Corporate Finance in Leeds, "is a game for the brave." It certainly is. Just ask those many pundits who reckoned Hillary Clinton was dead and finished even before the New Hampshire primary this month.
But that hasn't stopped many Yorkshire professionals jumping at the chance Insider has given them this month to predict how they see Yorkshire going in 2008.
And very gloomy some of these predictions are too. Penny Hemming, regional director of the CBI in Yorkshire and the Humber, reckons we are coming to the end of an era.
"The past decade has seen an extraordinary period of sustained growth and low inflation," she says, "driven at least in part by globalisation, technology, and falling trade barriers. It is possible that the most beneficial impacts of these trends have now been felt. The economy is likely to have a bumpier year than we have been accustomed to, after two years of above trend growth."
You don't have to look far to see she may have a point. Just look to the signs of woe from the retailers, such as Marks & Spencer's poor Christmas figures and subsequent shares slump.
But Jonathan Newns, head of in-town retail at King Sturge in Leeds, says M&S's woes only highlight a much broader picture. "Overall pre-Christmas trading was down on the previous year," he says, "and footfall figures across the region averaged ten per cent lower than 2006. Many retailers tried to rescue the year-end sales figures with early, aggressive cuts in the sales, but even this does not appear to have uncovered a silver lining in the dark Christmas cloud."
His claims are borne out by early findings from Ernst & Young's annual Christmas pricing survey. This showed that discounting on the high street in the run up to Christmas was deeper and more widespread than in 2006. By 21 December, when the report came out, pre-Christmas discount levels had averaged 36 per cent off the full-selling price, compared with 35 per cent for the whole of the pre-Christmas period in 2006, and 33 per cent in 2005.
There's the downturn in house prices too. Persimmon, Yorkshire's biggest company, revealed in a trading statement early in the new year that forward sales for 2008 are down nearly £3100m on 2007. And even people outside the industry are noticing the pinch. "For the first time in a long time, I have recently seen some predicted property growth maps for Yorkshire with negative numbers on them," says Craig Hopwood of Aberdeen Asset Managers, although he thinks property will continue to be strong in 2008 in "hot spots" such as Harrogate and Ilkley.
But other senior figures in the region are far less willing to paint such a picture of woe. "I'm actually fairly chipper," says Ron McMillan, managing partner for PricewaterhouseCoopers in the North of England. "I think it's a much more positive and negative picture than many people are making out. Certainly our clients' order books are strong, and if you look at the global economy outside of the US and possibly some emerging territories it is still very strong. Sub-prime lending is obviously a worry, but that is really at the moment only a worry for the likes of the Royal Bank of Scotland."
Keith Froud, senior partner at Eversheds in Leeds, suggests that in some way thanks to recent history Yorkshire might even be better prepared to weather out any storm. "If you look at the manufacturing sector in the region, as a result of developments over a number of years what we have left is a very good, lean and mean manufacturing sector which is actually relatively well positioned to cope with ups and downs," he says.
Les Platts, senior partner at Deloitte in Leeds, is also quietly confident that things will bear up. "The regional business community will prove to be resilient and will perform well," he says, "with the exception of some parts of the retail and property sectors. How do I know this will happen? Mainly because the Bank of England's monetary policy committee will react to continuing uncertainty over the effects of the credit crunch by lowering interest rates."
This is a common prediction, although Platts reckons rates could go as low as 4 per cent by the end of the year. "As the committee will wish to avoid full blown recession and inflation is unlikely to rise significantly then they may continue to lower interest rates if the uncertainty continues," he says.
But he too says his clients order books are strong. "Although those who are exposed to city centre residential or large commercial property developments, and those retailers who have a poor Christmas, may have greater concerns than others," he says.
Even some of the nay-sayers see some light ahead. Newns at King Sturge says many developers in the region will still go ahead with major shopping centre developments - as long as they have built in suitable rent-free periods for retailers. "The Trinity Quarter, Leeds; Market Place redevelopment, Barnsley; Trinity Walk, Wakefield; and Phase 2 Kingsgate, Huddersfield will all have a role to play," he says.
And Paul Franklin, regional leader for Rok, thinks the all important regional construction sector won't necessarily be too badly hit, thanks to government projects and continuing demand. "ConstructionSkills are probably right when they predict that the best-performing sector will be private commercial," he says, "with an average annual growth rate of 3.5 per cent. Mixed-use developments, such as the Moor Sheffield project, regeneration in Leeds city centre and significant Building Schools for the Future construction projects in Bradford, Sheffield, Leeds, and Hull will all play a part in 2008 and beyond."
Problems in certain other sectors, however, have certainly been highlighted. "My own practice does a lot of work for the hotel sector," says Russell Davidson, partner at Davidson Webber in Harrogate. "We will see a number of distressed disposals as rents under some of the ridiculously leveraged sales and leasebacks of the last few years turn out to be unsustainable.
Derrick Potter, chief executive of transport company the Potter Group, reckons that "tougher credit, rising cost of fuel and commodities and new legislation increasing the rates on empty commercial properties will all make the coming year a challenge for the logistics sector." But he does think this may be partially offset by growing interest in the burgeoning ports on the Humber estuary.
What is universally acknowledged is that in such times of uncertainty many bargains are to be had.
Roger Esler, corporate partner at Deloitte, even says the uncertainly may fuel the bargain hunt. "We will witness anomalies in valuations in subsectors perceived to have high risk exposure and in individual businesses," he says. "The market will overcorrect for negative news and for businesses that disappoint, are overgeared or, critically, have poorly formulated or implemented strategies."
Others are keen to point out that, for those who are hungry for a bargain, credit is still available. Hopwood, Froud, and David Maybury at Yorkshire Bank all point out that much-trumpeted credit crunch has actually had little effect on the main mid-market. "There has been a correction for some of the larger deals, say £3100m and over," says Hopwood, "but this is not where the majority of the local market is. For smaller mid-market transactions requiring £35m to £325m of debt, local banks are still offering good facilities at sensible pricing, fees and covenants and will hold them. There should be no reason for this to change in 2008 unless there is some kind of global catastrophic event." We're all safe provided there is no earthquake, then.
Davidson even goes further and predicts the credit crunch will lift in the middle of the year. "Many of the write downs have already been factored into bank projections," he says, "and there will still be plenty of oil-derived and other global finance diverting its way from the over-hyped property market into alternative investments."
Duncan Mycock, managing partner at KPMG in Leeds, also points to new interest in the market from what he terms "private private equity players" - people who are dabbling in private equity deals, without actually being involved in private equity full-time. He cites as an example the consortium that has taken over Kelda. "You wouldn't call that a typical private equity deal," he says, "but it's the kind of thing that is becoming fashionable."
Esler thinks the only main difference on the corporate scene will be a reduction in aggressive vendor-driven auctions for companies.
"The seller's market has lead to indiscriminate bombardment of wide buyer populations," he says, "often after relatively short planning and preparation phases."
But you probably need to leave it to Simon Rigby, ebullient chief executive of Spice and a veteran of many an acquisition in 2007, to sum up what the market in 2008 will be all about.
"The City seems convinced we are heading for turbulence and this drives confidence which makes it self fulfilling," he says. "So many decisions are taken based on sentiment and certainly sentiment has had a slow down.
"So is it all very depressing? Well yes and no. If northern values stand for anything they stand for not borrowing silly amounts of money - even if the banks have been happy to lend it. Now the banks are thinking inside the box - in other words lending money to people who can actually pay them back - then sensible businesses should have some good buy opportunities."
Yes, says Mycock - but sensible businesses also need to pay heed to a couple of other realities. Yorkshire businesses may have grasped the globalisation nettle, he says, but precious few of them have woken up to the need to address declining natural resources, in particular energy, and rising political pressures. "As we move into 2008 more companies are simply going to have to address these," he says, "because if they don't, the risk to their reputation, and ultimately their business, is huge."
Speaking of political pressures then, what about political pressures at the top? Following the Northern Rock and missing disks saga, will newly appointed Chancellor Alistair Darling still be around at the end of next year? McMillan says almost certainly yes. "I really can't see Gordon Brown getting rid of him," he says. "He may have been a tad accident prone, but he will want to see through, for example, the changes in capital gains tax in April."
Many other watchers are waiting to see what these changes will mean as well. Whatever you make of it, we are in for an interesting 12 months