Cobbetts and DWF prepare ground for May merger
North West firm DWF and Manchester firm Cobbetts are understood to be close to finalising a merger that could go ahead as early as May, adding around £44m to DWF’s growing turnover.
Michael Shaw
According to a source some partners within Cobbetts have already said that they will not join the merged firm. It is understood that managing partner Michael Shaw is among them.
Merger talks between the two firms are understood to have reached advanced stages with 1 May being touted as a potential completion date.
In November RollonFriday revealed that DWF had registered the domain name dwfcobbetts.com. DWF managing partner Andrew Leaitherland said at the time that the merger hint was down to an “over-zealous” IT employee, but in an interview with The Lawyer added that the firm was “open to looking at the right merger opportunity” (10 November 2011).
Andrew Leaitherland
In November 2011 DWF merged with Newcastle firm Crutes, with the latter being incorporated on 1 January. The merger pushed DWF from an £83m firm in 2010-11 to a projected £88m (25 November 2011).
Leaitherland declined to comment while Shaw at Cobbetts was unavailable for comment.
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Readers' comments (25)
Anonymous | 16-Jan-2012 9:57 pm
Where does the people it affect most stand we have not been notified of any merger at Cobbetts and I think it is disguisting to find information on the net before staff are briefed on this matter. What does the merger mean for us? Is our jobs safe? What happens next?
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Anonymous | 17-Jan-2012 7:42 pm
It is utterly disgusting to keep asking management to clarify the position on the Cobbetts merger, only for them to fall silent. No announcement, no reassurances, no nothing. Just goes to show that there is no respect for the workers and as to the person who states that morale isn't low, I'm sorry but you are either blinkered or you are management!
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Anonymous | 18-Jan-2012 3:54 pm
At least other firms want to merge with Cobbetts.
DWF looked at all the potential merger partners in Newcastle and chose Crutes. That speaks volumes about the financial problems facing some of the other firms.
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Anonymous | 19-Jan-2012 4:06 pm
Mmmm a certain lack of logic to the last comment.Maybe all the other Newcastle firms didn't want to merge with DWF and/or weren't as desperate as Crutes.Size isn't everything in life and DWF seem to be growing for the sake of growing which will backfire on them eventually.
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Anonymous | 20-Jan-2012 3:30 pm
To be fair, I doubt Muckle and Eversheds wanted to merge with DWF.
However most people know that in the Newcastle market there were some big firms that were desperate to merge with DWF.
One wonders what will happen to them now.
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