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 | 22-Jul-2010 9:19 am
Quite impressive that HBJ GW had the Halliwells partners up on their website yesterday morning but is Alec Craig not missing? Any news on his whereabouts or is he perhaps joining Heatons?
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Anonymous | 22-Jul-2010 12:02 pm
Did Ian Austin or his "PR" people write this !!
"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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IHateBPP | 22-Jul-2010 12:43 pm
When Shoosmiths withdrew training contracts or deferred trainees without compensation there was outrage and it was headline news. Now a similar situation has seemingly arisen following the sale of Halliwells yet barely a word has been written about it.
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Arachnae | 22-Jul-2010 12:49 pm
Ian Austin's gone....come on now, catch up.
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Anonymous | 22-Jul-2010 1:03 pm
What about the trainees that were set to join the firm. And so the stressful hunt for another tc begins for some.
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Anonymous | 22-Jul-2010 2:33 pm
As a Manchester Future Trainee who has had their training contract withdrawn I am bitterly disappointed. I take little comfort from the fact my future colleagues have been taken on by HD, whilst me and great number of others are effectively out of the door with little more than an email.
I am disgruntled that there has been no offer of support or advice from the Law Society and I question what exactly the £80 covers.
This is a prime example of the failings in the current training system. I have invested a lot of time and money in getting to this stage and in Halliwells itself.
On the whole, congratulations to those who have been successfully transferred, but it doesn’t make it any less of a bitter pill to swallow.
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Outsider | 22-Jul-2010 5:11 pm
Everytime some partner or firm is criticised for some perfidious behaviour, there's a post making out that they are bunch of saints. Do they get their mothers to do the posts?
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Anonymous | 26-Jul-2010 5:02 pm
To "still there | 21-Jul-2010 9:33 pm" ... even when you know you might go, it's always a shock when it happens. Obviously redundancy has never happened to you but if it does you'll understand what I mean.
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Ashley Balls | 26-Jul-2010 9:34 pm
It is interesting to note teh so called acquistions have been ring-fenced in new LLPs. Sadly this whole debacle was another opportunity missed to use a new business model. In the circumstances the 'new' partners have, in effect, been rewarded for previous failures of management and it is not a good look.
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Anonymous | 27-Jul-2010 9:39 pm
Halliwells had a bash at bringing a claim of defamation against me on behalf of a public sector institution (won't say which).
Without knowing anything about their finances, if they were as shoddy as the legal reasoning of the solicitor who issued a 9 page letter full of lies and threats to me, then the LLP was only ever going to end up in one place.
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guess who - I did it my way | 27-Jul-2010 10:34 pm
There were mistakes
I made a few
the reverse premium
a damn good screw
I wrecked the firm
I watched it burn
I did it myyyy way
We signed the lease
the rent was high
We thought the buildiing would make us fly
We stuffed the bank
The landlord too
HMRC
We stuck it to you
The FSM`s
We took their cash
They bought the story
They were so rash
I stuffed the firm
I watched it burn
I did it myyyyyy wayyyyy
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