Manchester firm Rowlands Field Cunningham were bought out of administration by Linder Myers just before Christmas, marking the latest stage of the firms “ambitious expansion strategy”.
Linder Myers has already acquired practices in Lytham and Shrewsbury in the last few years, creating a £16 million turnover operation with almost 300 staff, which includes over 40 partners.
The firm has, in the last decade, also successfully completed mergers and acquisitions in Manchester with:
– Willan Bootland, Pariser & Co
– Bullock Worthington & Jackson; and
– Merrick & Co
Within three years Linder Myers aims to achieve £25 million in fee income.
With 80 staff in offices in York Street, Manchester and in Swinton, the acquisition of Rowlands Field Cunningham is likely to increase annual turnover by in excess of £5 million.
Managing Partner at Linder Myers, Bernard Seymour, who will head-up the enhanced practice is expecting to reach a £16 million turnover in the next financial year, increasing to £20 million within 18 months.
Mr Seymour has said that Linder Myers will continue to seek out further mergers in Manchester and are already in talks with potential firms, commenting:
“This is our biggest merger to date. It will give us greater critical mass and expertise, and will enable us to penetrate better in some markets.”
Mr Seymour continued:
“It means we will have one of the largest clinical negligence, personal injury and industrial disease teams in the country, a very large trusts and estates team, and it will increase the strength of our operations in areas such as commercial property.
We are very excited at the potential for the firm, with a strong team coming from Rowlands to help us build the practice further”.
Tracing their roots back to 1922, when Sam Linder started his own firm, being joined a decade later by Harry Myers, Linder Myers has a workforce in excess of 190 staff and increased turnover in the year end to November to £10 million.
In June last year Linder Myers announced an £8.1 million purchase of an eight-storey building for its new headquarters.
Joint Managing Partner of Rowlands Field Cunningham, Jon Andrews, is set to join the management board of Linder Myers, heading up its national industrial disease team.
Mr Andrews said that the decision to “enter an arrangement with Linder Myers” followed a strategic review at Rowlands, which merged with both Field Cunningham and Otten Penna in 2010.
Mr Andrews said:
“We started to look at the level of resources we thought we would need in terms of marketing and IT support, dealing with Legal Services Act regulatory issues and decided that joining forces with a larger firm was the best strategic route for us.
We looked at what Bernard had done at Linder Myers and thought it was just the kind of infrastructure we need around us. We could have tried to build it ourselves but felt that our energy was best focused on serving the needs of our clients and developing our business.”
The deal was finalised just prior to Christmas by MCR, a corporate restructuring and turnaround firm.
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