Partner Article

This week’s North West appointments

Deloitte has announced the promotion of four new partners and nine directors in its North West practice, marking the firm’s largest partnership intake nationally, with a large proportion based outside of London.

This represents a major investment in the business advisory firm’s people and services and is further evidence of Deloitte’s strong regional network.

The four new North West partners are: Jo Ahmed, Brendan Burgess, Chris Rix (all Tax) and Barry Crichton (Deloitte Real Estate). The nine directors are: Elizabeth Benson, James Meadowcroft and Danny Jones (all Audit); Avril Edney (Tax); Richard Harrison (Restructuring Services); Austin Houlihan (Sports Business Group); Ian Hughes (Forensic); Paul Leather (Transaction Services) and Michael Krupa (Corporate Finance).

The promotions follow the recent announcement of Richard Bell taking on the role of Managing Partner, Regional Markets. Bell comments:“The strength and diversity of our practice outside of London is a key differentiator for Deloitte, and I am proud to be leading this new team as we look to build our practice in the North West. Investing in our people remains a priority and we will continue to deliver innovative services and solutions for our clients.”

David Sproul, chief executive and senior partner at Deloitte UK, added: “This investment will help ensure Deloitte continues to make an impact that matters through supporting the growth and competitiveness of UK plc and building trust and confidence in the capital markets.

“It is positive that this year, a higher proportion of our new partners are women. 25 per cent of both the firm’s Executive and Board are female and we are committed to continuing to do more to create more opportunities in Deloitte for women at a senior level. One step we are taking today is to announce a new ‘return-to-work’ scheme which aims to attract more senior female leaders back into the workforce.”

Roger Allsup, SAS Daniels

North West law firm, SAS Daniels has appointed Roger Allsup to establish its new Construction and Engineering practice, an extension of the firm’s growing property team.

Roger joins from Manchester-headquartered DWF. With 27 years’ experience in the North West construction industry, he brings with him an in-depth understanding of the sector.

Roger comments, “Clients in the construction and engineering sector need a lawyer who understands the issues they face on the ground, giving forthright, practical guidance, on each element of a construction project from tender to practical completion. We see ourselves as an extension of a client’s in-house and professional teams, not ivory tower academics.” He adds “SAS Daniels already has an impressive client list. I see great synergy between my specialism and the firm’s existing practice groups, which we intend to build on over the coming years.”

Commenting on the appointment, Tom Cressey, partner and joint head of SAS Daniels’ property team, said, “I’ve known Roger by reputation for some years now and I’m delighted that he has chosen to join us. He’s well known for his tough advocacy on his clients’ behalf and I’m very much looking forward to working alongside him. Exciting times lie ahead.”

“Roger’s appointment is part of our wider growth strategy to add complementary sectors to our already thriving service areas, such as development. Our property team has seen 85% growth in just two years and we’re dealing with strong demand from our clients in the construction sector, giving us a real need for skilled and experienced lawyers like Roger.”

Steven Lindsay, Forever Manchester

Forever Manchester - the Manchester based community foundation that last year gave £1.3m to communities across Greater Manchester – has appointed Steven Lindsay, corporate finance partner at CLB Coopers as its first vice president - Professional Services Sector.

This follows the appointment of Phil Jones, MD of Brother UK, who became the charity’s president earlier this year. Steven will now join forces with Phil and form a steering group to help drive Forever Manchester’s next period of development.

Phil Jones said: “As president of Forever Manchester I pledged to help Forever Manchester realise its ambition to help more people across our region, by raising awareness of how it gives people and companies a different way to channel charitable giving directly into communities. I’m delighted to be joined by Steven who I know will help me and the team take things to the next level.”

Nick Massey, chief executive of Forever Manchester, said: “Steven is a long standing and enthusiastic supporter of our work so it’s great to have him on board in this exciting new role.”

Richard Owen, Colliers International

Real estate advisor Colliers International has boosted its offering to the industrial and logistics market in the North West of England with the appointment of Richard Owen as surveyor.

Richard joins the Manchester office of Colliers International from Maryland Securities Ltd where as commercial property surveyor he managed a portfolio of industrial, office, retail and leisure properties throughout the North West of England with key tasks including leasing, rent reviews, development, refurbishment, viewings and the generation of new business leads.

His role at Colliers International will be to deal with all aspects of industrial agency work including sales and lettings of industrial facilities throughout the North West of England and the acquisition of properties for clients.

Julien Kenny-Levick, director, industrial and logistics at the Manchester office of Colliers International, said: “We believe that Richard will prove to be an invaluable addition to the team. His appointment is testament to the fact that the industrial market in the North West is in good shape and recent instruction wins meant an extra pair of capable hands was needed to service a growing client list.”

Stuart Avery, Adam Marshall, Sanderson Weatherall

Two Manchester-based young professionals with Sanderson Weatherall are celebrating after becoming chartered surveyors.

Stuart Avery and Adam Marshall work in the asset advisory and recovery team of the leading chartered surveyor and property consultancy, whose Manchester office is in the city’s Spring Gardens.

The pair became full members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) by passing the Assessment of Professional Competence (APC) final assessment, consisting of a written submission and a professional interview.

Congratulating the successful candidates, Roy Tubman, head of Sanderson Weatherall’s Manchester office, said: “Everyone in the firm is delighted at the success of Stuart and Adam, but not at all surprised, as they’ve already proved themselves as highly promising young professionals during their time with us as graduate surveyors. We are confident they’ll both go on to enjoy excellent careers and hope they’ll play a significant part in the growth of our firm for many years to come.

“This is the latest success of our formal training programme for graduate and undergraduate recruits, which is very well regarded in the sector and has produced many top quality surveyors. The programme provides broadly-based experience across a range of disciplines, plus training courses and team study.”

Chris Swarbrick, FDC Holdings

A family-run Lancashire haulage and logistics firm has bolstered its senior team with the appointment of a new Finance Director.

Chris Swarbrick, 41 joins FDC Holdings from Barclays Bank, where most recently he was Director with responsibility for running the Corporate Real Estate Finance team in Manchester.

While originally trained as an accountant, Chris’s career in banking spanned over 15 years across Standard Chartered, RBS and Barclays.

In addition to the FD role, Chris will play a key part in FDC’s sister organisation, Moorcot Property Limited. Moorcot has been set up specifically to purchase commercial property to satisfy the growing storage needs of both FDC’s existing client base and third party requirements.

Recently purchasing its first site, a 300,000 sq ft warehouse with offices at Walton Summit, Moorcot has already fully let the space and is actively seeking to acquire further buildings.

FDC’s Managing Director Peter Allen said: ’I have known Chris for a number of years and am delighted that we could attract him to join our ambitious businesses.

“A major attraction was his breadth of experience of funding large scale transactions across both trading and real estate businesses, which dovetails perfectly with our aspirations for FDC and Moorcot.

“I feel that the fact we can attract a person of Chris’s calibre to our organisation is testament to both our current operations, but more importantly a statement of the seriousness with which we intend to execute our future growth plans.”

Nick McAllester, Metis Real Estate Advisors

Metis Real Estate Advisors, the independent retail, leisure and investment agency business created by five former members of Tushingham Moore, has today announced that Nick McAllester has joined the company as a Director in the Retail Agency team.

Nick has joined Metis from Tushingham Moore/LSH, and has over 16 years’ property agency experience. He has previously worked for CBRE, Colliers, Churston Heard and Bradys, as well as Grubb & Ellis in San Francisco. Specialising in high street and shopping centre agency, Nick has a client base that includes LaSalle Investment Management, Kennedy Wilson, Aviva and Threadneedle.

Nick is the letting agent on various shopping centres including The Rock in Bury, Oldham’s Spindles/Town Square Shopping Centre, Crompton Place in Bolton, Church Square Shopping Centre in St Helens, and Wrexham’s Eagles Meadow. Nick is also retained by Waterstones on agency matters across the UK.

Commenting on Nick McAllester’s appointment, Stephen Tregenza said: “Nick is a great addition to the Metis team, bringing to the company a wealth of experience and contacts, as well as an energy that matches our own.”

Jonathan Gillow, David Mkhitarian, Hill Dickinson

The Manchester office of law firm Hill Dickinson has made two senior promotions in its corporate team.

Jonathan Gillow and David Mkhitarian have both been promoted to partner and join Ian Riggs and Ian Gillis who lead the firm’s dynamic corporate offering across the city.

These promotions follow a strong year for the team, which advised on some of the region’s most notable corporate transactions.

The team has advised on deals including the £36m secondary buy out of Character World, the AIM IPO of C4X Discovery plc, the take private of Pochins plc and Parkwood Holdings plc and the disposal of VIP e-cigarette brand.

Commenting on recent successes, Ian Gillis said: “It has been an excellent year for the Hill Dickinson corporate team. We’ve created a real presence across the region and these promotions underline the firm’s ongoing commitment to investing in quality people to help support this growth.”

The firm has also made a further ten senior promotions across three of its business groups with three promoted to partner and an additional seven promoted to legal director.

Nicholas Hart, Natalie Earnest, LPC Living

LPC Living, the organisation behind the £100m regeneration project in Ordsall, Salford, has made two strategic appointments to its property development team.

Natalie Earnest joins the Salford-based regeneration company as a development surveyor and will be working on the Heart of Ordsall development framework, which looks set to deliver another 140 new homes to the area. Natalie, who previously worked as a development officer at a housing charity, Creative Solutions Ltd, will be undertaking due diligence for new property and land searches and delivering schemes under the framework.

The appointments also include development surveyor, Nicholas Hart, who will be working with the development team regarding potential property acquisitions and the identification and acquisition of new projects whilst advising sister-company, the Pervaiz Naviede Family Trust, in its portfolio expansion. Nicholas has previously worked as a data analyst for Sperry Rail International Ltd.

Simon Ashdown, director at LPC Living, said: “Our new appointments signal a period of growth for the company and a focus on our flagship Heart of Ordsall campaign, as well as a number of new ventures the company is pursuing. We are pleased to have Nicholas and Natalie join our team and look forward to them working towards driving new business and seeing our plans come to fruition in the near future.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sophia Taha .