BLG, Hill Dickinson, HBJ Gateley Wareing carve up the remains of Halliwells
Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, HBJ Gateley Wareing and Hill Dickinson have completed their acquisition of failed firm Halliwells.
Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, HBJ Gateley Wareing and Hill Dickinson have completed their acquisition of failed firm Halliwells.
Following several weeks of negotiations Barlow Lyde & Gilbert has agreed to take on the Manchester-based insurance business, comprising a 17-partner team including insurance partner Kevin Finnigan and an additional 220 members of staff including 80 fee-earners. It has also hired two litigation partners in London, Helen Bourne and Damian McPhun, and their respective teams.
The firm, which already has one floor of office space at Chancery Place in Manchester, is assessing whether it will need to take on additional space at Halliwells’ Manchester headquarters at Spinningfields.
HBJ Gateley Wareing will move into the Spinningfields building with the acquisition of Halliwells’ banking & finance, corporate, real estate, real estate litigation, corporate recovery, commercial litigation, intellectual property, employment, pensions and construction teams. Halliwells Manchester head Rod Waldie will run that office.
The national firm has hired a total of 40 partners in Manchester and three further partners in London, bringing its total number of hires from Halliwells, including fee-earners and support staff, to almost 200.
The Liverpool office will go to Hill Dickinson, which has hired 19 partners there including of Halliwells managing partner Jonathan Brown. The firm will also launch in Sheffield with the acquisition of 36 members of staff across the health, corporate, commercial litigation and property practices.
In a separate move Halliwells executive chairman Ian Austin will move over to smaller Manchester firm Heatons to run the commercial litigation department (12 July 2010).
Halliwells filed notice of its intention to appoint an administrator on 24 June, the same day that its quarterly rent bill was due. The move followed a 14 per cent drop in fee income for the 2009-10 financial year, increased indebtedness and significant rent obligations (25 June 2010).
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Readers' comments (31)
Anonymous | 21-Jul-2010 5:09 pm
It happend before and it will happen again !! remember Shadbolt's ...sounds all so familiar
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Anonymous | 21-Jul-2010 5:19 pm
I can reliably inform Mr Keynes that the guy in charge of Manchester is one of the good guys, the best guy for the job and someone the staff know well and trust. I've had the privilege of working with Mr Waldie and can say he's the one to guide the new firm through these difficult times. Not all the partners involved in this deal have dirty hands, some do, but not all.
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Anonymous | 21-Jul-2010 5:26 pm
the trainees were axed via an email, that's the spirit!!!
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Anonymous | 21-Jul-2010 5:28 pm
As a former Halliwells (London) partner I would like to point out to the ill-informed commentator of earlier that it makes perfect sense to appoint a universally respected and trusted former Halliwells partner not closely associated with the previous regime and that I have never heard anyone to have a bad word to say about Rod Waldie either inside or outside the firm.
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Anon | 21-Jul-2010 5:44 pm
In amoungst the redundancies were two first-year London trainees. Along with the other members of staff who were let go, they were promised jobs at HBJ Gately Wearing. It says a lot about HBJ and those at the top of Halliwells who sealed the deal.
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Mira Showers | 21-Jul-2010 6:31 pm
re: Anon @ 5.28 "..a universally respected and trusted former Halliwells partner" - he will have to be something special: as is this not a contradiction in terms? I agree with Keynes, regardless of how good the guy is, this is a naive move and a fresh pair of eyes from completely outside the hubristic bubble that was Spinningfields would have sent the right message to the market.
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still there | 21-Jul-2010 9:33 pm
The ill informed and malicious comments here and elsewhere (yes you at Kennedys don't think it doesn't get back to us) is a sad indictment of a professional that espouses high ethical standards.
As for the staff who received their notice, it must have been a grave upset but to say it was a shock is just silly. FFS they've been effectively on notice since 25 June, and while that's of scant comfort to present otherwise is less than honest.
Considering the potential outcome I and many others are massively grateful to the long hours the partners (including those of the new firms) invested in securing this outcome and the dedication shown by colleagues in providing our clients with an exceptional service during what has been a very difficult time.
I doubt that we'll be the last firm to find ourselves in the situation that we did and if others are similarly placed I will not be revelling in the misfortune of others.
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Anonymous | 21-Jul-2010 10:16 pm
An ex colleague at Halliwells tells me that HD have taken all of the non-partner staff, including trainees, in Liverpool and Sheffield and honoured commitments made to those trainess due to qualify. Good on HD!
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Anonymous | 21-Jul-2010 10:40 pm
As a trainee at HBJ I am worried that we are over-stretching - especially as they already pay well below the market salaries, so how can they afford this?
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alec craig's bentley | 21-Jul-2010 10:42 pm
isn't everyone forgetting that the "universally respected" Mr Waldie was one of the equity partners who voted to trouser the £16 million reverse premium ....
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