East meets West in Brechers match

A West End/City engagement between Brecher & Co and Nicholson Graham & Jones (NGJ) could end with a late summer wedding.

Brechers' dowry will be its vast property and related client base, sought after by corporate finance-oriented NGJ. Brechers would provide an equivalent of around 25 per cent of the income of a combined practice, says NGJ managing partner Michael Johns.

The new firm would remain under the name Nicholson Graham & Jones, he adds.

"We have been interested in broadening our property base for some years. It makes an awful lot of strategic sense in putting these two businesses together," says Johns.

Brechers' Alan Wiseman, one of the partnership management team, says: "We felt for a number of years that a move to the City would be to our advantage, helping continue to build our banking and corporate sides."

Brechers' property client base is geared towards development, which creates a broad commercial/corporate workload. NGJ's property work is tenant-led.

Brechers' other strengths include growing insolvency, banking and corporate teams, and high-profile individual clients such as Dame Shirley Porter, Gerald Ronson and Godfrey Bradman.

NGJ's corporate clients include East Midlands Electricity, Blue Circle Industries, Bass, Inchcape, and bankers Singer & Friedlander.

- National firm Alsop Wilkinson and City-based Lawrence Graham have announced the unsuccessful outcome of their merger talks. Alsops senior partner Roger Lane-Smith says: "We were put in touch with each other three or four months ago and had some pretty useful discussions as to the possibility of putting the firms together. But both sides don't think it's going to work." He says the firm is not in talks with anyone else but adds: "We are always looking hard at ways to develop."